In this chapter nothing has been said about the methods adopted for lynching during the twenty-two-year period. In the record of lynchings published by the Chicago Tribune no mention is made of the manner of death which the victims suffered. It is probably true that most of the lynchings were either by hanging or by shooting, or by both hanging and shooting. Additional indignities and cruelties have not infrequently been inflicted, however, and there have been a number of cases where the victims have been burned alive. The following cases of lynching by burning alive have come to the writer’s notice: in 1884, one in Texas; in 1891, one in Texas, one in Louisiana; in 1892, one in Arkansas; in 1893, one in Texas; in 1894, one in Kentucky; in 1895, one in Texas; in 1897, one in North Carolina; in 1899, one in Georgia, one in Mississippi, one in Kentucky; in 1901, one in Kansas; in 1902, three in Mississippi, one in Arkansas, one in Texas, one in Colorado; in 1903, one in Illinois, one in Delaware; in 1904, one in Mississippi, one in Georgia, at each of which two persons were burned at the stake, in the former instance one of them being a woman. In all these cases the victims were negroes and they were believed to be either guilty of several crimes or of a single atrocious crime. The majority were lynched for the double crime of rape, or attempted rape, and murder. If these cases of burning alive form a list that is at all complete, there is ground for believing that as the practice of lynching continues the punishments inflicted tend to increase in severity and the victims are tortured more and more before death comes to their relief. While the exact figures have been given in this investigation of lynchings in recent years based on the Chicago Tribune record, it is to be remembered that these figures are probably only approximations. It is extremely doubtful whether exactly 3,337 persons have been lynched in the United States during the last twenty-two years, or whether there have been exactly 2,465 lynchings. It is probable, however, that these approximations are as nearly correct and as reliable as any that we shall ever get, and there seems to be no reason why they should not form a sound basis for the statistical study attempted in this chapter. CHAPTER VII LYNCH-LAW AND ITS JUSTIFICATION