Many expedients have been suggested; some of the most drastic by Northern men. One of them proposed, not long since, that to meet the mob-spirit, a trial somewhat in the nature of a drum-head court-martial might be established by law, by which the accused may be tried and, if found guilty, executed immediately. Others have proposed as a remedy emasculation by law; while a Justice of the Supreme Court has recently given the weight of his personal opinion in favor of prompt trial and the abolishment of appeals in such cases. Even the terrible suggestion has been made that burning at the stake might again be legalized! These suggestions testify how grave the matter is considered to be by those who make them. But none of these, unless it be the one relating to emasculation, is more than an expedient. The trouble lies deeper. The crime of lynching is not likely to cease until the crime of ravishing and murdering women and children is less frequent than it has been of late. And this crime, which is well-nigh wholly confined to the Negro race, will not greatly diminish until the Negroes themselves take it in hand and stamp it out. From recent developments, it may be properly inferred that the absence of this crime during the later period of slavery was due more to the feeling among the Negroes themselves than to any repressive measures on the part of the whites. The Negro had the same animal instincts in slavery that he exhibits now; the punishment that follows the crime now is quite as certain, as terrible, and as swift as it could have been then. So, to what is due the alarming increase of this terrible brutality? To the writer it appears plain that it is due to two things: first, to racial antagonism and to the talk of social equality that inflames the ignorant Negro, who has grown up unregulated and undisciplined; and, secondly, to the absence of a strong restraining public opinion among the Negroes of any class, which alone can extirpate the crime. In the first place, the Negro does not generally believe in the virtue of women. It is beyond his experience. He does not generally believe in the existence of actual assault. It is beyond his comprehension. In the next place, his passion, always his controlling force, is now, since the new teaching, for the white women.[47] That there are many Negroes who are law-abiding and whose influence is for good, no one who knows the worthy members of the race—those who represent the better element—will deny. But while there are, of course, notable exceptions, they are not often of the “New Issue,” nor, unhappily, even generally among the prominent leaders: those who publish papers and control conventions.