Another fact which has been most difficult to explain has been the continued lynchings of Negroes not merely for crimes against women, but for all sorts of other crimes, large and small. Here the traces of primitive law are very much clearer. Lynching is after all nothing more nor less than the old self-help. The original notion was that the individual should execute the law himself when he could, and that he was entitled in case of crime to assistance from the community in the execution of the law upon the offender. Murder, arson, rape and the theft of cattle were the particular crimes for which self-help by the individual and by the community in his assistance were authorized by primitive law. The preliminaries and formularies were very definite, but they do not look to us of the present day like procedure. It is true, however, that there are very few lynchings in which these formulas have not been unconsciously followed. There must be a hue and cry and pursuit along the trail. The murderer must be immediately pursued. The person against whom the crime is committed or his next of kin must raise an immediate outcry, and they and the neighbors must proceed at once in pursuit. If they caught the criminal within a reasonable distance or within a reasonable time, they then were endowed by primitive law with the right to execute justice upon him themselves. Commonly the criminal was hanged (even for theft) when caught in the act, but barbarous punishments were not uncommon. That was legal procedure, provided the cry was raised, the pursuit undertaken, and the criminal caught within a reasonable number of hours or days as the case might be. The mob had the right to execute the law, and it is not often that lynchings take place long periods after the commission of the crime. Such for many centuries was the law in Europe for whites. Self-help applied in particular to men of different tribes or communities who were not of the same blood kin.