“If a man, whom the public voice has proclaimed a thief or a swindler, escapes from justice for want of a legal proof of his guilt, though the law and a jury of his fellow citizens have acquitted him, ten to one but he is met with before he can quit the neighborhood, and, tied up to a sapling, receives a scourging that marks him for the rest of his life. “In Kentucky, whose institutions have acquired greater maturity, such events _have_ taken place some years ago; but now they would scarcely be tolerated, and they will soon be matter of history only, in Indiana and Illinois. “No crime but murder ‘of the first degree’ is punished with death, in any of the western states, nor, I believe, in the Union. In Kentucky there is a general penitentiary, for the punishment of other offences by imprisonment and labour.”[127] William Newnham Blane, who traveled through the United States and Canada in the years 1822 and 1823, described the lynch-law procedure of that time as follows: “After leaving Carlyle, I took the Shawnee town road, that branches off to the S. E., and passed the Walnut Hills, and Moore’s Prairie. These two places had a year or two before been infested by a notorious gang of robbers and forgers, who had fixed themselves in these wild parts, in order to avoid justice. As the country became more settled, these desperadoes became more and more troublesome. The inhabitants therefore took that method of getting rid of them, that had been adopted not many years ago in Hopkinson and Henderson counties Kentucky, and which is absolutely necessary in new and thinly settled districts, where it is almost impossible to punish a criminal according to legal forms. “On such occasions therefore, all the quiet and industrious men of a district form themselves into companies, under the name of ‘Regulators.’ They appoint officers, put themselves under their orders, and bind themselves to assist and stand by each other. The first step they then take, is to send notice to any notorious vagabonds, desiring them to quit the State in a certain number of days, under the penalty of receiving a domiciliary visit. Should the person who receives the notice refuse to comply, they suddenly assemble, and when unexpected, go, in the night time, to the rogue’s house, take him out, tie him to a tree, and give him a severe whipping, every one of the party striking him a certain number of times.