He writhed in agony and his sufferings can be imagined when it is said that several blood vessels burst during the contortions of his body. When he fell from the stake he was kicked back and the flames renewed. Then it was that the flames consumed his body and in a few minutes only a few bones and a small part of the body was all that was left of Sam Hose.
One of the most sickening sights of the day was the eagerness with which the people grabbed after souvenirs, and they almost fought over the ashes of the dead criminal. Large pieces of his flesh were carried away, and persons were seen walking through the streets carrying bones in their hands.
When all the larger bones, together with the flesh, had been carried away by the early comers, others scraped in the ashes, and for a great length of time a crowd was about the place scraping in the ashes. Not even the stake to which the Negro was tied when burned was left, but it was promptly chopped down and carried away as the largest souvenir of the burning.
CHAPTER III.
ELIJAH STRICKLAND, A COLORED PREACHER, LYNCHED.
Sunday night, April 23d, a mob seized a well-known colored preacher, Elijah Strickland, and, after savage torture, slowly strangled him to death. The following account of the lynching is taken from the Atlanta Constitution:
Palmetto, Ga., April 24.—(Special.)—The body of Lige Strickland, the negro who was implicated in the Cranford murder by Sam Hose, was found this morning swinging to the limb of a persimmon tree within a mile and a quarter of this place, as told in the Constitution extra yesterday. Before death was allowed to end the sufferings of the Negro, his ears were cut off and the small finger of his left hand was severed at the second joint. One of these trophies was in Palmetto to-day.
On the chest of the Negro was a scrap of blood-stained paper, attached with an ordinary pin. On one side this paper contained the following:
“N. Y. Journal. We must protect our Ladies. 23—99.”
The other side of the paper contained a warning to the Negroes of the neighborhood. It read as follows:
“Beware all darkies. You will be treated the same way.”