When the murderer of the peddler Waldrop was arrested, therefore, the thoughtful and progressive people of the city--the kind who are creating the New South--took immediate steps to prevent mob disturbance. The city was fortunate in having an able, energetic young man as its circuit judge--a judge, the son of a judge, who saw his duty clearly, and who was not afraid to act, even though it might ruin his immediate political future, as, indeed, it did. Rare qualities in these days! The murder was committed Tuesday, September 6th, the Negro was arrested Wednesday, Judge Speake impanelled a special grand jury without waiting a moment, and that very afternoon, within six hours after the Negro's arrest and within twenty hours after the crime was committed, the Negro was formally indicted. Arrangements were then made to call a special trial jury within a week, in the hope that the prospect of immediate punishment would prevent the gathering of a mob. _A Record of Homicide as a Cause of Lynching_ But, unfortunately, we find here in Madison County not only a history of lynching--a habit, it may be called--but there existed the same disregard for the sacredness of human life which is the common characteristic of most lynching communities, South or North. I made a careful examination of the records of the county. In the five years preceding this lynching, no fewer than thirty-three murder and homicide cases were tried in the courts, besides eight murderers indicted, but not arrested. This is the record of a single county of about forty thousand people. Notwithstanding this record of crime, there had not been a legal hanging in the county, even of a Negro, for nineteen years. It was a fact--well known to everybody in the county--that it was next to impossible to convict a white man for killing. Murderers employed good lawyers, they appealed their cases, they brought political friendships to bear, and the relationships between the old families were so far extended that they reached even into the jury room. As a consequence, nearly every white murderer went free. Only a short time before the lynching, Fred Stevens a white man, who shot a white man in a quarrel over a bucket of water, was let out with a fine of $50, costs, and thirty days in jail. This for a _killing_. And the attorney for Stevens actually went into court afterward and asked to have the costs cut down.