The tradition that, years ago, lynching was only invoked in punishment of the unspeakable crime is more or less true. It is not true now. The statistics of lynching which are frequently presented are obviously exaggerated, as they include many cases which are simply the results of the sort of personal encounters which might and do occur anywhere. There is a tendency to class every case of homicide in which a negro is the victim as a lynching, which is manifestly unfair; but even though liberal allowance be made for this error, in the total of about 3000 cases tabulated in the last thirty years, the undisputed instances of mob violence are shamefully numerous. Rape is by no means the only crime thus punished; sometimes the charge is so trivial that one recoils in horror at the thought of taking human life as a punishment. Yet it must not be forgotten that over certain parts of the South a nameless dread is always hovering. In some sections an unaccompanied white woman dislikes to walk through an unlighted village street at night; she hesitates to drive along a lonely country road in broad daylight without a pistol near her hand; and she does not dare to walk through the woods alone. The rural districts are poorly policed and the ears of the farmer working in the field are always alert for the sound of the bell or the horn calling for help, perhaps from his own home. Occasionally, in spite of all precautions some human animal, inflamed by brooding upon the unattainable, leaves a victim outraged and dead, or worse than dead. Granted that such a crime occurs in a district only once in ten, or even in twenty years; that is enough. Rural folks have long memories, and in the back of their minds persists an uncontrollable morbid dread. The news of another victim sometimes turns men into fiends who not only take life but even inflict torture beforehand. The mere suspicion of intent is sometimes enough to deprive such a community of its reason, for there are communities which have brooded over the possibility of the commission of the inexpiable crime until the residents are not quite sane upon this matter. Naturally calmness and forbearance in dealing with other and less heinous forms of negro crime are not always found in such a neighborhood. This fact helps to explain, though not to excuse, some of the riots that occur.