excitement or when some peculiarly atrocious crime has been perpetrated. They in no way invalidate the assertion that the practice of lynching is peculiarly an American institution. Historically some parallels may be cited showing the execution of summary justice under frontier conditions in other countries. In Brande’s Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art, published in 1842, it was stated that “lynch law may be called a democratic imitation of the old feudal _Vehmgerichte_.” Reference was there made to the “irregular and revengeful species of justice administered by the populace in some parts of the United States,” evidently meaning the operation of lynch-law on the western frontier at that time. Lynch-law in the United States has never been administered by an organization so perfect and extensive as that of the Vehmic courts.[6] The feudal conditions have been lacking which made that organization possible. It is only in its _raison d’être_ that the frontier type of lynch-law may be compared to the Vehmic courts. The early settlers in this country felt themselves compelled to resort to summary proceedings as a means of protection; the civil government was not sufficiently organized and established to insure the punishment of violators of the public peace and security. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries utter lawlessness and disregard of authority was prevailing in Germany, and for a time the Vehmic courts afforded some protection against the outrages of the princes and nobles. With the increasing strength of the regular governments, however, the need of special protection diminished and these tribunals gradually disappeared. Like the Vehmic courts, with the establishment of the judiciary and a more effective execution of the laws by the officials, the administration of lynch-law in the western half of the United States has declined. The tendency, it may be noted, for societies secretly organized for the arbitrary punishment of offenders to pass into the control of the persons against whom they were originally directed, is to be seen not only in the history of the Vehmic courts but also in the history of the Ku-Klux Klan and numerous vigilance societies in the United States. The proceedings of such societies necessarily awaken distrust and fear among the more quiet in the community, while the rogues, whose characters are not yet known, hasten to obtain admittance, both as a shield against enemies and a cloak to cover their own misdeeds. Soon their vindictive actions and their rascalities excite the indignation of the community; a counterparty of “moderators” must be formed to check the “regulators”; then begins a deadly struggle for supremacy. Such, in brief, is the abuse of lynch-law on the frontier. The tyranny of the Vehmic courts becomes the taking of private vengeance, the feud and the _vendetta_, under lynch-law.