Well, these Southerners are warm-hearted, home-loving people. Everybody knew and respected the Hodges--their friends in the church, their many relatives in the county--and the effect of this frightful crime described in all its details, may possibly be imagined by Northern people living quietly and peacefully in their homes. When two of the prominent citizens of the town told me, weeks afterward, of the death of the little girl, they could not keep back their tears. The murder took place on Friday night; on Saturday the Negroes, Paul Reed and Will Cato, were arrested with several other suspects, including two Negro preachers. Both Reed and Cato were of the illiterate class; both had been turpentine workers, living in the forest, far from contact with white people. Cato was a floater from South Carolina. Reed was born in the county, but he was a good type of the worthless and densely ignorant Negro. It is a somewhat common impression that a whole town loses itself in a passion of anarchy, and is not satisfied until the criminals are killed. But in spite of the terrible provocation and the intense feeling, there yet existed in Statesboro exactly such a feeling for the sacredness of law, such intelligent Americanism, as exists in your town or mine. Not within the present generation had a lynching taken place in the town, and the people were deeply concerned to preserve the honour and good name of their community. In the midst of intense excitement a meeting of good citizens, both white and black, was called in the court-house. It was presided over by J. A. Brannan, one of the foremost citizens. Speeches were made by Mayor Johnstone, by the ministers of the town, and by other citizens, including a Negro, all calling for good order and the calm and proper enforcement of the law. _Attempts to Prevent the Lynching_ And the regular machinery of justice was put in motion with commendable rapidity. Fearing a lynching, the Negroes who had been arrested were sent to Savannah and there lodged in jail. A grand jury was immediately called, indictments were found, and in two weeks--the shortest possible time under the law--the Negroes were brought back from Savannah for trial. To protect them, two military companies, one from Statesboro, one from Savannah, were called out. The proof of guilt was absolutely conclusive, and, although the Negroes were given every advantage to which they were entitled under the law, several prominent attorneys having been appointed to defend them, they were promptly convicted and sentenced to be hanged.