In 1899 an act dealing with the subject of lynching and violence by mobs was passed by the legislature of Indiana. In this act a _mob_ and a _lynching_ are defined as follows: “Any collection of individuals assembled for any unlawful purpose intending to injure any person 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 such mob upon the body of any person shall constitute the crime of ‘lynching,’ when such act or acts of violence result in death.” It is provided that any person who actively participates in or actively aids or abets such lynching, upon conviction thereof, shall suffer death or be imprisoned during life, in the discretion of the jury, and any person who, being a member of any such mob and present at any such lynching, shall not actively participate in the lynching, shall be guilty of abetting such lynching, and upon conviction thereof shall be imprisoned not less than two nor more than twenty-one years. Every person who shall, after the commission of the crime of lynching, harbor, conceal or assist any member of such mob, with the intent that he shall escape detention, arrest, capture, or punishment, shall be deemed an accessory after the fact, and upon conviction thereof shall be imprisoned not more than twenty-one years nor less than two years. Provision is made for the manner in which prosecutions shall be instituted under the act, and in case any persons shall come together in any county for the purpose of proceeding to another county, with the view of lynching any person, or in case any person or persons shall purchase or procure any rope, weapon, or other instrument in one county for the purpose of being used in lynching any person in another county, such crime of lynching, if committed, shall constitute a continuous offense from the time of its original inception, and the courts of any county in which such overt act has been committed shall have jurisdiction over the person of any member of the mob committing such overt act. Power is given the sheriff to call bystanders and others to his assistance and arm them for the protection of a prisoner, it being a misdemeanor for such persons to refuse assistance, punishable by a fine in any sum not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, and imprisonment in the county jail for a period not exceeding six months. If at any time a sheriff has reason to believe that a prisoner in his custody is in danger of being lynched, and that he, with his deputies and assistants, is not able to protect the life of such prisoner, it shall be his duty at once to notify the governor of such facts; whereupon, the governor shall be authorized to furnish such militia as shall be necessary to preserve order and defend such prisoner.[291]