Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1899 — NEGROES BURNED AND HANGED. [ARTICLE]

NEGROES BURNED AND HANGED.

Terrible Penalties Visited by Georgiana on Black Criminals. Sam Hose, the Georgia mulatto who ten days ago murdered Alfred Cranford and subsequently criminally assaulted the dead man’s wife, paid an awful penalty for his crime. Lashed to a large tree, with his ears and fingers cut off, Hose was roasted to death. Over twenty-five hundred white people of both sexes stood around the tree and watched the horrifying spectacle. Hose was captured by the Jones brothers of Houston County at his mother’s cabin. They expect to receive the reward of $1,750 offered for his arrest. When first taken from the train the doomed man was marched at the head of 500 people to the jail and delivered to Sheriff Brown. This, however, was simply to secure the reward to the Jones brothers. The victim was at once taken from the sheriff’s custody and marched toward an open field. He was taken to the place where Mrs. Cranford was stopping and identified by her.' En route ex-Gov. Atkinson and Judge Freeman pleaded with the crowd, but the only answers to their exhortations were: “On to Palmetto!’’ “To the stake.” “Burn him!” “Think of his crime!” When the great pine tree selected for the place of execution was reached the negro was placed with his back to the tree, and be was allowed to talk. He confessed killing Cranford and claimed he was hired by Lige Strickland, the negro preacher at Palmetto, to commit the crime. Before he finished talking the crowd tore his clothes off of him and wound a heavy chain about his body and the torch <was applied. His body had been drenched with kerosene, and a pile of inflammable material was piled at his feet. The negro gave an awful shriek when the flames began to shoot up over his body, and succeeded in partly breaking away. He was pushed back to the tree and bound securely. The body was cut to pieces when life was extinct. Lige Strickland, the negro preacher who was accused by Sam Hose of paying him to kill Farmer Cranford, was tried by a mob at Palmetto, Ga., and found guilty. He was promptly hanged. The body was found swinging to the limb of a tree about a mile from town. The ears and fingers were cut off, and on the body was pinned a placard with the following words: “We must protect our Southern women.” The New York fire department is equipped with chaplains, just the same as a regiment of soldiers. The officials consider that it is as necessary to have chaplains at fires as it is to have them accompany troops at the firing line in time of Loss of life at fires is sometimes very heavy, and there should always be some one present to administer spiritual consolation. The United States Industrial Commis* sioD has decided to devote the 1 sitter o&rt