Howitt’s Journal for February 12, 1848 (3: 109), contains an article entitled “American Lynching—The Desperadoes of the South-West.” The article is really a review of a book published under the title “The Desperadoes of the South-West,” which, according to the reviewer, gives a picture of the state of society in that section of the United States. Quotations from the book are given in which the author outlines the way the West was settled up and the difficulty of keeping prisoners until a regular trial could be had, and the exasperating delays and postponements brought about by pettifogging lawyers. The author describes the operation of lynch-law at that time in the following words: “Then, after all other means of redress have been exhausted, the honest, hard-working portion of the community organize themselves into a community of lynchers, elect a captain, appoint a committee, and, as they say, ‘take justice into their own hands.’... The company of lynchers once formed, they proceed to the execution of summary justice. It is easy to see what sad work they must make of it, rendered furious, as they have been, by multitudinous wrongs. And accordingly, they whip, bang, torture, burn, flay alive; and however they may begin, end at last by acting like a band of savages. What else could be expected of such men, however honest, however merciful, stung to ungovernable rage by so many injuries, and now placed as judges in their own case, in a position beyond responsibility? By and by, the more cunning rogues take shelter under their protection, and bawl out the loudest for justice. Then the fruit of ruin is ripe. Men accuse their enemies of the most appalling crimes, in order to glut feelings of private revenge. A hypocritical zeal for honesty becomes the cloak for rapine and murder. Vengeance supplants law, and brute force and fury trample down all show of order.... But the force is never wholly on one side only. The lynchers, or ‘regulators,’ as they are often called, soon find that their foes organize also; arm themselves, and prepare for systematic resistance, under the denomination of ‘moderators.’ Then commences a guerilla warfare as dark and deadly in its hate, as the old English contest between the Red and the White Roses. It is a war of utter extermination.” Chambers’ Journal for February 17, 1855 (23: 101) contains an article entitled “American Jottings. Eccentricities in criminal jurisprudence—Lynch Law.” The following quotations are both illustrative and instructive: