Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1889 — LASHED NEARLY TO DEATH. [ARTICLE]

LASHED NEARLY TO DEATH.

A Negro Convict Near New Orleans Given 245 Blows on tile Bare Back. New Orleans dispath: William Miller, an ex-convict, has been admitted to the charity hospital, and tells a frightful story of the brutality to which convicts in “Captain” Sbacbez’s convict camp in Catahoula parish are subjected. When the surgeons examined Miller they found that the skin and portions of the flesh had been terribly lacerated from the middle of his back down to his knees. He had been .flogged until the flesh hung in the shreds. It was fonnd that he conld not lie on or support covering on his back, and it was necessary to place a wooden rack over him to prevent the sheets from touching his flesh. Miller stated that he had been convicted of petit larceny and sentenced to ten months’ hard labor at Sanchez’s camp. Before the expiration of his term be incurred the enmity of another negro, who told Sanchez Miller had threatened to kill him, and Sanchez ordered another convict to give Miller 245 lashes on the bare back with a heavy wagon trace. Miller fainted after the first fifty lashes, and when be was dressed afterward great pieces of flesh were torn from his back. Miller says that other convicts are terribly beaten and inhumanly treated. I