Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1893 — DEMONIACAL CRIMES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DEMONIACAL CRIMES.

A Negro Ravisher Burned in the Presence of 10,000 People. Fariie/ of the Child Acts aa Executioner— Savages Outdone—Latest Phase of ■ American Civilisation. Henry Smith, a negro, who brutally assaulted and murdered Myrtle Vance, a four-year-old child, on the night of the 26th nit., at Paris, Tex., lias expiated his awful crime by an awful death. The city was wild with joy over his arrest at Hope, Ark., on Tuesday, and hundreds of people poured into the city from the adjoining country, and the word passed from lip to lip that the punishment of the fiend should fit the crime—that death by lire was the penalty Smith should pay for the most atrocious murder anil terrible outrage In Texas history. The whisky shops wore closed, unruly mobs were dispersed, schools were dismissed by a proclamation from tho Mayor, and everything was done in a business-like manner. Never before nor since the days of the Spanish inquisition, when cruelty was law, has there been such terrible punishment meted out to any man, but so horrible was the crime that tho punishment, severe as it was, was deemed merited. , On Thursday last Henry Smith, a big, burly negro, picked up little Myrtle Vance aged three and a half years, near the home of her father, .policeman Henry Vance, and, giving her candy to allay her fears, carried her through the central portion of the city to Gibbon’s pasture, just within the corporate limits. Arriving at the pasture he, with inhumanity too terrible to relate, first criminally assaulted the little one and then took a limb in each hand and literally tore her in twain. Then covering the body with leaves and brush he lay down and slept calmly throughout the night by the side of his victim. About 5 o’clock Friday morning Smith awakened, went to the house of his wife, and forced her to cook him some breakfast. She asked him what had become of the white child. He replied: “I ain’t seen no white child and don’t have nothing to do with no white folks." After eating his breakfast he left and was not seen again until his capture. After the capture in Arkansas where he had been tracked by officers, he confessed the crime. Tuesday he was taken back to Paris. En route thousands of people gathered at different places, and at Texarkana trouble was feared. Prominent citizens of Paris who had accompanied the officers, asked that the punishment of the offender be left to them. Ten thousand people greeted their arrival at Paris. The negro was placed upon a carnival float in mockery of a king upon his throne, and was followed by the immense crowd, escorted through the city so all might sec the inhuman monster. Smith was placed upon a scaffold six feet square and ten feet high, securely bound, within the view of all beholders. The victim was first tortured for fifty minutes by thrusting red-hot iron brands igainst his quivering body. Commencing it his feet the brands were placed against him inch by inch, unt'l they were thrust against the face. Then being apparently lead, kerosene was poured upon him, cot-ton-seed, hulls placed beneath him and the mass set on lire. When the mob left all that remained to mark tho place of the sacrifice wore a few pieces of charcoal. The cause of ho crime was that Henry Vance, a deputy policeman, tn the course if his duty was called to errest Henry Smith for being drunk anddisorderly. The negro was unruly, and Vance was forced to use his club. The negro swore vengeance, and several times assaulted Vance. The father is prostrate with grief, and the mother now lies at death’s door, but she has lived to see the slayer of her innocent child suffer the most horrible death that could be conceived.

LILIUOKALANI. The Dethroned Queen of the Hawaiian Islands.