[1] It has recently been stated that stomata do not exist in the
peritoneum.
[2] For further details of the pelvic glands see "Seventh Report of
the Committee of Collective Investigation," _Journ. Anat. and Phys._
xxxii. 164.
LYNCH, PATRICIO (1825-1886) Chilean naval officer, was born in
Valparaiso on the 18th of December 1825, his father being a wealthy
Irish merchant resident in Chile, and his mother, Carmen Solo de
Saldiva, a descendant of one of the best-known families in the country.
Entering the navy in 1837, he took part in the operations which led to
the fall of the dictator, Santa Cruz. Next, he sought a wider field, and
saw active service in the China War on board the British frigate
"Calliope." He was mentioned in despatches for bravery, and received the
grade of midshipman in the British service. Returning to Chile in 1847
he became lieutenant, and seven years later he received the command of a
frigate, but was deprived of his command for refusing to receive on
board his ship political suspects under arrest. The Spanish War saw him
again employed, and he was successively maritime prefect of Valparaiso,
colonel of National Guards, and, finally, captain and minister of marine
in 1872. In the Chile-Peruvian War a brilliant and destructive naval
raid, led by him, was followed by the final campaign of Chorrillos and
Miraflores (1880), in which he led at first a brigade (as colonel) and
afterwards a division under Baquedano. His services at the battle of
Chorrillos led to his appointment to command the Army of Occupation in
Peru. This difficult post he filled with success, but his action in
putting the Peruvian president, Garcia Calderon, under arrest excited
considerable comment. His last act was to invest Iglesias with supreme
power in Peru, and he returned to his own country in 1883. Promoted
rear-admiral, he served as Chilean Minister at Madrid for two years, and
died at sea in 1886. Lynch is remembered as one of the foremost of
Chile's naval heroes.
LYNCHBURG, a city of Campbell county, Virginia, U.S.A., on the James
river, about 125 m. W. by S. of Richmond. Pop. (1900) 18,891, of whom
8254 were negroes; (1910) 29,494. It is served by the Southern, the
Chesapeake & Ohio and the Norfolk & Western railways. Its terraced hills
command fine views of mountain, valley and river scenery, extending
westward to the noble Peaks of Otter and lesser spurs of the Blue Ridge
about 20 m. distant. On an elevation between Rivermont Avenue and the
James river are the buildings of Randolph-Macon Woman's college (opened
in 1893), which is conducted by a self-perpetuating board under the
auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and is one of the
Randolph-Macon system of collèges and academies (see ASHLAND, VA.). In
Lynchburg, too, are the Virginia Christian college (co-educational,
1903), and the Virginia collegiate and industrial school for negroes.
The city has a public library, well-equipped hospitals, public parks and
the Rivermont Viaduct, 1100 ft. long and 140 ft. high. Lynchburg is the
see of a Protestant Episcopal bishop. Tobacco of a superior quality and
large quantities of coal, iron ore and granite are produced in the
neighbourhood. Good water power is furnished by the James river, and
Lynchburg is one of the principal manufacturing cities of the state. The
boot and shoe industry was established in 1900, and is much the most
important. In 1905 the city was the largest southern manufacturer of
these articles and one of the largest distributors in the country. The
factory products increased in value from $2,993,551 in 1900 to
$4,905,435 in 1905, or 65.9%.
Lynchburg, named in honour of John Lynch, who inherited a large tract of
land here and in 1757 established a ferry across the James, was
established as a village by Act of Assembly in 1786, was incorporated as
a town in 1805, and became a city in 1852. During the Civil War it was
an important base of supplies for the Confederates; on the 16th of June
1864 it was invested by Major-General David Hunter (1802-1886), but
three days later he was driven away by General Jubal A. Early. In 1908
the city's corporate limits were extended.
LYNCH LAW, a term loosely applied to various forms of executing rough
popular justice, or what is thought to be justice, for the punishment of
offenders by a summary procedure, ignoring, or even contrary to, the
strict forms of law. The word _lynching_ "originally signified a
whipping for reformatory purposes with more or less disregard for its
legality" (Cutler), or the infliction of minor punishments without
recourse to law; but during and after the Reconstruction Period in the
United States, it came to mean, generally, the summary infliction of
capital punishment. Lynch law is frequently prevalent in sparsely
settled or frontier districts where government is weak and officers of
the law too few and too powerless to enforce law and preserve order. The
practice has been common in all countries when unsettled frontier
conditions existed, or in periods of threatened anarchy. In what are
considered civilized countries it is now found mainly in Russia,
south-eastern Europe and in America, but it is essentially and almost
peculiarly an American institution. The origin of the name is obscure;
different writers have attempted to trace it to Ireland, to England, to
South Carolina, to Pennsylvania and to Virginia. It is certain that the
name was first used in America, but it is not certain whether it came
from Lynch's Creek, South Carolina, where summary justice was
administered to outlaws, or from Virginia and Pennsylvania, where men
named Lynch were noted for dealing out summary punishment to
offenders.[1] In Europe early examples of a similar phenomenon are found
in the proceedings of the Vehmgerichte in medieval Germany, and of
Lydford law, gibbet law or Halifax law, Cowper justice and Jeddart
justice in the thinly settled and border districts of Great Britain; and
since the term "lynch law" came into colloquial use, it is loosely
employed to cover any case in which a portion of the community takes the
execution of its ideas of justice into its own hands, irrespective of
the legal authorities.
In America during the 18th and 19th centuries the population expanded
westward faster than well-developed civil institutions could follow, and
on the western frontier were always desperadoes who lived by preying on
the better classes. To suppress these desperadoes, in the absence of
strong legal institutions, resort was continually made to lynch law.
There was little necessity for it until the settlement crossed the
Alleghany Mountains, but the following instances of lynching in the East
may be mentioned: (1) the mistreatment of Indians in New England and the
Middle Colonies in disregard of laws protecting them; (2) the custom
found in various colonies of administering summary justice to
wife-beaters, idlers and other obnoxious persons; (3) the acts of the
Regulators of North Carolina, 1767-1771; (4) the popular tribunals of
the Revolutionary period, when the disaffection toward Great Britain
weakened the authority of the civil governments and the war replaced
them by popular governments, at a time when the hostilities between
"Patriots" and "Tories" were an incentive to extra-legal violence. In
the South, lynching methods were long employed in dealing with
agitators, white and black, who were charged with endeavouring to excite
the slaves to insurrection or to crime against their masters, and in
dealing with anti-slavery agitators generally.
In the West, from the Alleghanies to the Golden Gate, the pioneer
settlers resorted to popular justice to get rid of bands of outlaws, and
to regulate society during that period when laws were weak or confused,
when the laws made in the East did not suit western conditions, and when
courts and officials were scarce and distant. The Watauga settlements
and the "State" of Franklin furnished examples of lynch law procedure
almost reduced to organization. Men trained in the rough school of the
wilderness came to have more regard for quick, ready-made, personal
justice than for abstract justice and statutes; they were educated to
defend themselves, to look to no law for protection or regulation;
consequently they became impatient of legal forms and lawyers'
technicalities; an appeal to statute law was looked upon with suspicion,
and, if some personal matter was involved, was likely to result in
deadly private feuds. Thus were formed the habits of thought and action
of the western pioneers. Lynch law, not civil law, cleared the western
forests, valleys and mountain passes of horse and cattle thieves, and
other robbers and outlaws, gamblers and murderers. This was especially
true of California and the states of the far West. H. H. Bancroft, the
historian of _Popular Tribunals_, wrote in 1887 that "thus far in the
history of these Pacific States far more has been done toward righting
wrongs and administering justice outside the pale of law than within
it." However, the lack of regard for law fostered by the conditions
described led to a survival of the lynching habit after the necessity
for it passed away. In parts of the Southern states, where the whites
are few and greatly outnumbered by the blacks, certain of the conditions
of the West have prevailed, and since emancipation released the blacks
from restraint many of the latter have been lawless and turbulent. The
Reconstruction, by giving to the blacks temporary political supremacy,
increased the friction between the races, and greatly deepened
prejudice. The numerous protective societies of whites, 1865-1876,
culminating in the Ku Klux movement, may be described as an application
of lynch law. With the increase of negro crimes came an increase of
lynchings, due to prejudice, to the fact that for some time after
Reconstruction the governments were relatively weak, especially in the
districts where the blacks outnumber the whites, to the fact that
negroes nearly always shield criminals of their own race against the
whites, and to the frequent occurrence of the crime of rape by negro men
upon white women.
Since 1882 the Chicago _Tribune_ has collected statistics of lynching,
and some interesting facts may be deduced from these tables.[2] During
the twenty-two years from 1882 to 1903 inclusive, the total number of
persons lynched in the United States was 3337, the number decreasing
during the last decade; of these 2385 were in the South and 752 in the
North; of those lynched in the East and West 602 were white and 75
black, and of those in the South 567 were white and 1985 black.[3]
Lynchings occur mostly during periods of idleness of the lower classes;
in the summer more are lynched for crimes against the person and in the
winter (in the West) for crimes against property; the principal causes
of lynching in the South are murder and rape, in the North and West,
murder and offences against property; more blacks than whites were
lynched between 1882 and 1903, the numbers being 2060 negroes, of whom
40 were women, and 1169 whites, of whom 23 were women; of the 707 blacks
lynched for rape 675 were in the South; 783 blacks were lynched for
murder, and 753 of these were in the South; most of the lynchings of
whites were in the West; the lynching of negroes increased somewhat
outside of the South and decreased somewhat in the South. Lynching
decreases and disappears in a community as the population grows denser
and civil institutions grow stronger; as better communications and good
police make it harder to commit crime; and as public sentiment is
educated to demand legal rather than illegal and irregular infliction of
punishment for even the most horrible of crimes.
See James E. Cutler, _Lynch Law_ (New York, 1905), an admirable and
unbiased discussion of the subject; H. H. Bancroft, _Popular
Tribunals_ (2 vols., San Francisco, 1887); C. H. Shinn, _Mining Camps:
A Study in American Frontier Government_ (New York, 1885); and J. C.
Lester and D. L. Wilson, _Ku Klux Klan_ (New York, 1905).
(W. L. F.)