Note 17 — CANTO I. OURSELF!

Those LL. D.s’ of Lynch’s Law.

Lynch Law, is, we believe, synonymous with mob law, sometimes called club law. By this law summary injustice is executed by an ignorant and furious multitude, who burn and destroy, plunder and murder, without measure and without mercy, the property and persons of anybody and everybody who happen to be obnoxious, or are pointed out as objects entitled to the particular attention of their mobocratic mightinesses. Sometimes the poor individuals who are so unlucky as to fall into the clutches of these horrible human harpies, are subjected to mock trials, in which the accusers enact the parts of law makers, judges and executioners. A man by the name of Lynch, who lives, or has lived, somewhere in the West, was active in this mode of taking cognizance of offences, whence the whole process is called Lynch law. But thereby hangs a tale, which we either do not recollect, or have never heard; and in either case, we shall not, at present, trouble your worships with its recital.