Show AN lLLINOI LYNCHING A Negro Taken from the Decatur Jail and Hanged NO RESISTANCE TO THE MOB The Victim Protests His Innocence to the Last Ha I Given Ton Minutes in Which to Pray After Which Ho Is Strung Up to a Telegraph Pole Charged with an Awful Crime DEOATUR Ills Jnne 3A mob which gathered yesterday on the arrival here Ot the negro captured near Sullivan Ills and charged with outraging Mrs Hub Mil last Monday near Mount Zion forced its way into the jail at 3 oclock this morning and took the ravisher out and lynched him No resistance was made to the mob Owing to threats of lynching earlier in the day an extra force of twelve men was put Inside the jail and another force outside side A scout was sent out to Mount Zion early in the night and reported everything quiet there and fears of trouble were about given up though 500 curious people stood around the jail all night unwilling to miss the chance 01 a sensation About oclock twentyfive armed men marched to the jail in a solid body and demanded admission This was refused and the wooden outside door was at once battered down with a sledge hammer while the crowd looked on without pro test Once inside the lynchers demanded the keys which the guards declared they did not have The lynchers at once set to work on the iron door with a cold chisel and opened it in twenty minutes Then came the steel door which resisted anther an-ther twenty minutes In the meantime a great crowd of citizens had gathered outside and looked on The city marshal appeared and forced his way inside but was kicked in the stomach by the lynch era and hustled out after which he also subsided Finally the lynchers reached the cell of the negro whose name was Sam Bush They put a leather strap around his neck and took him to a telegraph post under the glare of the electric light Then they gave him ten minutes to pray after which they swung him up dropped him and then put him on top of a hack The strap was tied to the cross arm of the post and the hack driven from under him He was pronounced dead in two minutes by two doctors who appeared on the scene and noted the ebbing of the wretchs life He protested his innocence to the last As soon as deathwas assuredthe Mount Zion mob left for home The men wore no masks and made no attempt to conceal their identity Among the number were William Vest the husband of the woman outraged last Monday From all circum stances i seems measurably certain that Bush was guilty The most remarkable feature of the whole affair seems to be that twentyfive men could march into a town of over 20000 inhabitants and without with-out even a show of resistance batterdown the doors of the jail and hang a human being |