Still Another Rape.
Item
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Title
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Still Another Rape.
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Source Type
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Newspaper
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Author
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N/A
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Publisher
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The Cincinnati Enquierer
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Publication Place
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Cincinnati, OH
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Publication Date
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March 13, 1869
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Transcript
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"On the 26th ult. a negro named Nelson Harris committed an outrage on the person of a respectable widow lady, living near Union in this county. The same negro, we are told, during the reign of the League, is known to have said that if Southern women knew what was in store for them, bolts of domestic would not be sufficient to dry the tears they would shed. The fiend, having been tracked and caught and brought before his victim, was identified. He was then regularly tried before Justice Lamb on Saturday, and being unable to give bail, was ordered to prison at this place. Several gentlemen were placed in charge of the negro until the Constable, D. R. McGraw Esq., could commit him to jail; but during Saturday night, while under guard, the party of men seized and bore hum to a creek, some two or three miles distant into which the body was thrown after being hanged.
The necessity of resorting to lynch-law is ever to be deprecated. Even-handed justice should ever be meted out. But when the feelings are so outraged as almost to dethrone reason; when honor, dearer than life, is sacrificed to the inhuman passion of incarnate devils, what wonder that awful and speedy vengeance is taken?
We would that such crimes were unknown; that their black record were not found in our journals; but their frequency is appalling. Within the past three months we have chronicled as many of these diabolical outrages in this county, and the whites are determined to protect their families. Desperate diseases require desperate remedies, and the tardiness and uncertainty of the execution of the laws cause even law-abiding men to become their own avengers.
It is true that a public execution of the sentence of the law might impress more forcibly upon the minds of those witnessing the spectacle the majesty of the law and the danger incurred by lawlessness; but those most nearly interested feel that the penalty annexed to the violation of law is frequently not inflicted; but jails are insecure; and that every failure to visit condign punishment on animals renders them more bold; therefore, it is that mobs wreak vengeance on violators of innocence, and feel that they have but constituted themselves ministers of justice. - Eutaw Whig."
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Sources for
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AMP063-18690201