Evening Times Republican

LYNCHING OF WARD.

Details of the Lynching of George Ward, Who Killed an Indiana School Teacher Last Night.

Terre Haute, Ind., Feb. 26--George Ward, the negro who confessed to the murder of Miss Ida Finkelstein, was taken from Vigo county jail by a mob at 12:30 today. The mob, which had been once repulsed by deputy sheriffs with shotguns, broke into the jail while the sheriff was at the court house. A rope was placed around the negro's neck and he was dragged to a wagon bridge across the Wabash river, three blocks away, and hanged to the drawbridge. A crowd, variously estimated at from 2,000 to 3,000, gathered at the jail immediately after it became known the murderer was under arrest.

The mob used a large piece of timber for a battering ram and broke in the jail door, and with clubs, guns and revolvers drove back the few deputies on guard. On the way to the bridge the victim was beaten with sticks and shot at by members of the mob, and was unconscious when hanged, and in all probability dead. When the body dropped from the bridge one strand of the rope broke and the leaders of the mob, thinking their victim might drop into the river, hauled the body up again and dragged it to the west side of the river and burned it.

The stake was omitted. The body was in a horizontal position, the feet protruding at one end, the head at the other. The fire had barely been started when a man arrived with a can of turpentine, which was fed to the eager flames. After that combustible oils seemed to flow spontaneously toward the fire and the flames leaped high while the body of the wretch was slowly consumed. There was no attempt at disguise on the part of the members of the mob.

Within ten minutes' time of when the mob reached the bridge with the victim the people began to assemble in ever increasing numbers. When the body was taken down to be carried to the fire the bridge west of the draw was barricaded and the crowd was stopped there, but the east bank of the river and the bridge on the city side of the draw was crowded with thousands of men, women and children gazing at the awful spectacle of a human body being consumed in vengeful flames.

In all that crowd not one word of sympathy was to be heard for the poor wretch, though many deprecated the final act of burning.

[The details of Ward's crime can be found on page 7 of this issue.]

Puny children with weak constitutions can attain an unusual degree of bodily and mental vigor by taking Rocky Mountain Tea this month. Made by the Madison Medicine Company; 35 cents. McBride & Will Drug Company.