"You don't know and you can't know," a Georgian said to me, "what it means down here to live in constant fear lest your wife or daughter be attacked on the road, or even in her home. Many women in the city of Statesboro dare not go into their backyards after dark. Every white planter knows that there is always danger for his daughters to visit even the nearest neighbour, or for his wife to go to church without a man to protect her." It is absolutely necessary to understand this point of view before one can form a true judgment upon conditions in the South. When Hodges arrived at his home that night, it was already dark. The little girl ran to join her mother; the father drove to the barn. Two Negroes--perhaps more--met him there and beat his brains out with a stone and a buggy brace. Hearing the noise, Mrs. Hodges ran out with a lamp and set it on the gate-post. The Negroes crept up--as nearly as can be gathered from the contradictory stories and confessions--and murdered her there in her doorway with peculiar brutality. Many of the crimes committed by Negroes are marked with almost animal-like ferocity. Once aroused to murderous rage, the Negro does not stop with mere killing; he bruises and batters his victim out of all semblance to humanity. For the moment, under stress of passion, he seems to revert wholly to savagery. The Negroes went into the house and ransacked it for money. The little girl, who must have been terror-stricken beyond belief, hid behind a trunk; the two younger children, one a child of two years, the other a mere baby, lay on the bed. Finding no money, the Negroes returned to their homes. Here they evidently began to dread the consequences of their deed, for toward midnight they returned to the Hodges home. During all this time the little girl had been hiding there in darkness, with the bodies of her father and mother in the doorway. When the Negroes appeared, she either came out voluntarily, hoping that friends had arrived, or she was dragged out. "Where's the money?" demanded the Negroes. The child got out all she had, a precious five-cent piece, and offered it to them on condition that they would not hurt her. One of them seized her and beat her to death. I make no excuse for telling these details; they _must be told_, else we shall not see the depths or the lengths of this problem. _Burning of the Hodges Home_ The Negroes then dragged the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Hodges into their home and set the house afire. As nearly as can be made out from the subsequent confessions, the two younger children were burned alive. When the neighbours reached the scene of the crime, the house was wholly consumed, only the great end chimney left standing, and the lamp still burning on the gate-post.