In December, 1899, Richard Coleman, a negro ravisher and murderer, was burned at the stake at Maysville, Kentucky. In response to a letter from the governor of the State, asking for particulars, a Maysville lawyer wrote as follows: “The whole thing took place in broad daylight and in the presence of thousands. The parties to it are known, Mr. Lashbrook (husband of Coleman’s victim) himself being the leader, but it will be fruitless to attempt any prosecution of them. The people of this community are as good as the people of any other community in the State, or, for that matter, elsewhere, and they are shocked, and, I may say, well-nigh paralyzed by this gruesome happening in their midst, but I am satisfied they will not take kindly to any attempt to hold the parties to the transaction to any responsibilities therefor.”[339] The only ultimate remedy for lynching is a strong public sentiment against it. It is necessary, in the United States particularly, to depend very largely upon public sentiment for the enforcement of law, and until there is a sentiment, in every community where a lynching occurs, which will demand the punishment of those who take part in such lynching, it can scarcely be expected that sheriffs will risk their lives to protect prisoners, or that prosecuting attorneys, judges, and juries will co-operate to secure the conviction of lynchers and to make them feel the full penalty of the law. A member of the Maryland Bar writing in 1900 said that less than a dozen lynchers had ever been tried for their crime, and only one or two had been punished. The present writer has been able to obtain no information which would warrant the statement that as many as twenty-five persons have been convicted of a crime and punished for participating in the lynching of over three thousand persons in the last twenty-two years.[340] From the greater number of indictments that have been secured against lynchers during the last two years it would seem that the practice of lynching is receiving stronger public condemnation now than formerly, but it must be remembered that the creation of a public sentiment on any subject is a slow process, particularly with reference to lynching. Lynching as a crime against society is not yet distinguished from lynching as the justifiable infliction of a deserved punishment by private citizens. Furthermore, it is difficult to create a public sentiment against lynching because of the racial antipathy which aggravates the evil in certain sections of the United States. Time will be required for the effectual application of a remedy for lynching. Any anti-lynching measures that may be adopted must be considered as palliatives rather than as remedies.