Lynch Law

The substitution of an irregular trial for the regular proce of law, common in the Western States of America during the wilder days of the fifties and sixties, and now rife in the Southern States, in the case of negroes charged with offences against white women. The name is supposed to be derived from James Lynch, of Piedmont, Virginia, who introduced it in 1688, to enable criminals to be promptly dealt with when the proper officers of the law were scattered and hard to come at.