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.[1] 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.[2] 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.)
LYNDHURST, JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, Baron (1772–1863),
lord chancellor of England, was born at Boston, Massachusetts,
in 1772. He was the son of John Singleton Copley,
the painter. He was educated at a private school and Cambridge
university, where he was second wrangler and fellow of Trinity.
Called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1804, he gained a considerable
practice. In 1817 he was one of the counsel for Dr J.
Watson, tried for his share in the Spa Fields riot. On this
occasion Copley so distinguished himself as to attract the attention
of Castlereagh and other Tory leaders, under whose patronage
he entered parliament as member for Yarmouth in the Isle
of Wight. He afterwards sat for Ashburton, 1818–1826, and
for Cambridge university 1826–1827. He was solicitor-general
in 1819, attorney-general in 1824, master of the rolls in 1826
and lord chancellor in 1827, with the title of Lord Lyndhurst.
Before being taken up by the Tories, Copley was a man of the
most advanced views, a republican and Jacobin; and his
accession to the Tories excited a good deal of comment, which
he bore with the greatest good humour. He gave a brilliant and
eloquent but by no means rancorous support to all the reactionary
measures of his chief. The same year that he became
solicitor-general he married the beautiful and clever widow of
Lieut.-Colonel Charles Thomas of the Coldstream Guards, and
began to take a conspicuous place in society, in which his noble
figure, his ready wit and his never-failing bonhomie made him
a distinguished favourite.
As solicitor-general he took a prominent part in the trial of Queen Caroline. To the great Liberal measures which marked the end of the reign of George IV. and the beginning of that of William IV. he gave a vigorous opposition. He was lord chief baron of the exchequer from 1831 to 1834. During the Melbourne administration from 1835 to 1841 he figured conspicuously as an obstructionist in the House of Lords. In these years it was a frequent practice with him, before each prorogation of parliament, to entertain the House with a “review of the session,” in which he mercilessly attacked the Whig government. His former adversary Lord Brougham, disgusted at his treatment by the Whig leaders, soon became his most powerful ally in opposition; and the two dominated the House of Lords. Throughout all the Tory governments from 1827 Lyndhurst held the chancellorship (1827–1830 and 1834–1835); and in the Peel administration (1841–1846) he resumed that office for the last time. As Peel never had much confidence in Lyndhurst, the latter did not exert so great an influence in the cabinet as his position and experience entitled him to do. But he continued a loyal member of the party. As in regard to Catholic emancipation, so in the agitation against the corn laws, he opposed reform till his chief gave the signal for concession, and then he cheerfully obeyed. After 1846 and the disintegration of the Tory party consequent on Peel’s adoption of free trade, Lord Lyndhurst was not so assiduous in his attendance in parliament. Yet he continued to an extreme old age to take a lively interest in public affairs, and occasionally to astonish the country by the power and brilliancy of his speeches. That which he made in the House of Lords on the 19th of June 1854, on the war with Russia, made a sensation in Europe; and throughout the Crimean War he was a strong advocate of the energetic prosecution of hostilities. In 1859 he denounced with his old energy the restless ambition of Napoleon III. When released from office he came forward somewhat as the advocate of liberal measures. His first wife had died in 1834, and in August 1837 he had married Georgina, daughter of Lewis Goldsmith. She was a Jewess; and it was therefore natural that he strenuously supported the admission of Jews into parliament. He also advocated women’s rights in questions of divorce. At the age of eighty-four he passed the autumn at Dieppe, “helping to fly paper kites, and amusing himself by turns with the writings of the Greek and Latin fathers on divorce and the amorous novels of Eugene Sue.” His last speech, marked by “his wonted brilliancy and vigour,” was delivered in the House of Lords at the age of eighty-nine. He died in London on the 12th of October 1863. He left no male issue and the title became extinct.
See Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England, vol. viii. (Lords Lyndhurst and Brougham), by Lord Campbell (1869). Campbell was a personal friend, but a political opponent. Brougham’s Memoirs; Greville Memoirs; Life of Lord Lyndhurst (1883) by Sir Theodore Martin; J. B. Atlay, The Victorian Chancellors (1906).
LYNDSAY, SIR DAVID (c. 1490–c. 1555), Scottish poet, was
the son of David Lyndsay of the Mount, near Cupar-Fife, and
of Garmylton, near Haddington. His place of birth and his
school are undetermined. It is probable that his college life
was spent at St Andrews university, on the books of which
appears an entry “Da Lindesay” for the session 1508–1509.
He was engaged at court, first as an equerry, then as an “usher”
to the young Prince James, afterwards James V. In 1522 he
married Janet Douglas, a court seamstress, and seven years
later was appointed Lyon King of Arms, and knighted. He
was several times engaged in diplomatic business (twice on
embassies abroad—to the Netherlands and France), and he was,
in virtue of his heraldic office, a general master of ceremonies.
After the death of James V., in 1542, he continued to sit in
parliament as commissioner for Cupar-Fife; and in 1548 he
- ↑ They have been corrected and somewhat modified by Dr. J. E. Cutler, from whose book the figures above have been taken. Lynching as used in this connexion applies exclusively to the illegal infliction of capital punishment.
- ↑ For present purposes the former slave states (of 1860) constitute the South; the West is composed of the territory west of the Mississippi river, excluding Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma; the East includes those states east of the Mississippi river not included in the Southern group; the East and the West make up the North as here used—that is, the former free states of 1860.
