In 1896 Ohio entered the list of States that have adopted anti-lynching laws. This Ohio act gave to lynching its first legal definition. A _lynching_ and a _mob_ are defined as follows: “That any collection of individuals, assembled for any unlawful purpose, intending to do damage or injury to any one or pretending to exercise correctional power over other persons by violence, and without authority of law, shall for the purpose of this act be regarded as a ‘mob,’ and any act of violence exercised by them upon the body of any person, shall constitute a ‘lynching.’” Under this act any person who is taken from the hands of the officers of justice in any county by a mob, and is assaulted by the same with whips, clubs, missiles, or in any other manner, may recover damages from the county to the amount of one thousand dollars; any person assaulted by a mob and suffering lynching at their hands may recover from the county in which the assault is made five hundred dollars, or, if the injury is serious, one thousand dollars, or, if it result in permanent disability to earn a livelihood by manual labor, five thousand dollars; and the legal representative of any person suffering death by lynching at the hands of a mob may recover from the county in which such lynching occurs the sum of five thousand dollars, provision being made for the disposition of the recovery in such instances. Any person suffering death or injury at the hands of a mob engaged in an attempt to lynch another person is to be deemed within the provisions of the act, he or his legal representatives having the same right of action thereunder as one purposely injured or killed by such mob. An order to the commissioners of a county against which such recovery may be made, to include the same with costs of action in the next succeeding tax levy of said county, forms a part of the judgment in every such case. The county, however, has a right of action to recover the amount of any judgment against it, including costs, against any of the parties composing such mob, and any person present with hostile intent at such lynching is to be deemed a member of the mob and is liable to such action. In case a mob shall carry a prisoner into another county, or shall come from another county to commit violence on a prisoner brought from such county for safe keeping, the county in which the lynching was committed may recover the amount of the judgment and costs against the county from which the mob came, unless there was contributory negligence on the part of the officials of said county in failing to protect the prisoner or disperse said mob. It is also provided that nothing in the act shall be held to relieve any person concerned in such lynching from prosecution for homicide or assault for engaging therein.[286]