To the same effect is this “Scotch View of Lynch law” which was occasioned by the lynching of the Italians at New Orleans in 1891. After reviewing the facts and circumstances connected with that lynching, the following comments were made: “This is crude and it is primitive. It is to be deplored and condemned. But it is not without a foundation of reason and justice. The people have committed the administration of justice to a certain machinery; so long as that machinery works without flagrant injustice, it will be left to do the work; but when it utterly breaks down, or goes in the teeth of what is right according to the rough-and-ready ideas of the Americans, the people will resume the function of dealing out punishment direct. The ultimate sanction is brought in. That is the American method. The Briton, when he thinks the ordinary tribunals have failed, writes to the _Times_, or gets up a monster petition to the Home Secretary, or asks a question of the Houses of Parliament.”[344] In certain sections of the United States this readiness on the part of the people to take the law into their own hands receives constant support and encouragement from the racial antipathy which exists between the whites and the negroes. It cannot be said that the lynching of negroes is due to “race prejudice” alone, but it is true that the antagonistic feeling between the two races aggravates the tendency to lynch, when offenses are committed against white persons by negroes. Other racial contrasts in the population have likewise promoted the adoption of extra-legal methods of punishment. From colonial times down to the present day the contemptuous attitude of the whites toward the Indians has undoubtedly been a potent factor in the not infrequent failure to observe due process of law in the treatment of Indians. In the summary treatment of Italians, Mexicans, Chinese, and other aliens, differences in racial characteristics have also played an important part. In very many cases of lynching a racial antipathy has acted as the most prominent contributory cause, and it is this fact that has induced many writers to find in “race prejudice” the ultimate explanation of lynching as an American institution.