Fears Prisoners Will Be Lynched

• Cornelius Robinson and William Thompson

FEARS PRISONERS WILL BE LYNCHED Sheriff Loaves Montgomery for Mobile. A MOB AWAITS THE SHERIF? Officer Powort 8am the Chances Are That the Prisoner Will Be Taken From Him by a Mob and Put to Death. Mobile, Ala., Oct. C Twr tr,-dred masked men met Sheriff y” .i with the two negroes In ‘ . ‘Ve al Richardson switch, 3 m’ orth ol Mobile, on the Souther ond, took his prisoners from him dint hanged them on the spot.’ No others hurt. Tremendous crowds surrounded the railroad station during the morning, and when the report of the lynching of the rapists was received the greatest excitement prevailed. The. crowd was apparently dissatisfied with the method of lynching, hanging, and a mob has departed for the scene of the lynching, with the declared intention of burning the bodies. Birmingham, Ala., Oct. 6. Sheriff John F. Powers of Mobile, accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Charles Green and C. J. Flourney, a Mobile newspaper man, arrived here early Friday afternoon to take back to Mobile Will Thompson and Cornelius Robinson, two negroes, who have been held here for safe keeping, to answer charges of assaulting white girls In Mobile. Robinson is the negro, .whose crime caused a mob to storm the Mobile jail a few nights ago, In which one man was killed and another wounded. Sheriff Powers left with his men Friday nijht, but he fears they will never reach Mobile alive. “I do not believe that without the military protection that has been denied us,” said the sheriff, “that we stand any chance of getting our prisoners to Mobile and getting them tried. Even if we are successful in reaching Mobile, Judge Semmes has declared that he will not hold court under military protection, and with the people feeling as they do, it is absolutely impossible for him to hold court in any other way. “If he attempts it, it will surely mean that a mob will wreck the courthouse, and take the prisoners. I propose to do everything in my power to get the prisoners to the jail in Mobile in safety, but the chances are against me.” The two prisoners will be arraigned Saturday afternoon and tried next Jeek. . On Way to Meet Sheriff. Mobile, Ala., Oct. 6. A committee of 50 determined men left here on the Southern railway at 5 o’clock Saturday morning to meet Sheriff Powers of Mobile county, who is returning from Birmingham with the two Mobile negroes charged with rape. The committee expects to meet the sheriff and prisoners about 30 miles north of Mobile. It is not known what the program is, but the feeling here is that the prisoners will be taken from the sheriff and lynched or burned outside of Mobile. Two thousand men met the Louisville and Nashville train Friday morning, but were disappointed at the non-arrival of the sheriff and prisoners, who had gone by the other route.

“Fears Prisoners Will Be Lynched .” The Tuscaloosa News (Tuscaloosa, Alabama), October 07, 1906.