| 释义 |
lynch law Orig. U.S.
Also Lynch law; in early use Lynch's (Linch's) law.
The practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority; it is now limited to the summary execution of one charged with some flagrant offence.
‘The origin of the expression has not been determined. It is often asserted to have arisen from the proceedings of Charles Lynch, a justice of the peace in Virginia, who in 1782 was indemnified by an act of the Virginia Assembly for having illegally fined and imprisoned certain Tories in 1780. But Mr. Albert Matthews informs us that no evidence has been adduced to show that Charles Lynch was ever concerned in acts such as those which from 1817 onward were designated as ‘Lynch's law’. It is possible that the perpetrators of these acts may have claimed that in the infliction of punishments not sanctioned by the laws of the country they were following the example of Lynch, which had been justified by the act of indemnity; or there may have been some other man of this name who was a ring-leader in such proceedings. Some have conjectured that the term is derived from the name of Lynche's Creek, in South Carolina, which is known to have been in 1768 a meeting-place of the ‘Regulators’, a band of men whose professed object was to supply the want of regular administration of criminal justice in the Carolinas, and who committed many acts of violence on those suspected of ‘Toryism’.’ (N.E.D.)
The particulars supplied by Ellicott, together with other evidence, clearly establish the fact that the originator of Lynch law was Captain William Lynch (1742–1820) of Pittsylvania in Virginia. According to Ellicott, ‘this self-created judicial tribunal was first organised in the state of Virginia about the year 1776’; an article in the Southern Lit. Messenger (1836) II. 389 gives the date definitely as 1780.
1811A. Ellicott in C. V. Mathews A. Ellicott (1908) 220 Captain Lynch just mentioned was the author of the Lynch laws so well known and so frequently carried into effect some years ago in the southern States in violation of every principle of justice and jurisprudence. 1817S. Roane in W. Wirt Life P. Henry (1818) 372 In the year 1792, there were many suits on the south side of the James river, for inflicting Lynch's law. 1819W. Faux Diary 29 Nov. in Memor. Days in Amer. (1823) 304 The people [of Princeton, Indiana]..deputed four persons to inform him, that unless he quitted the town and state immediately, he should receive Lynch's law, that is, a whipping in the woods. 1828J. Hall Lett. fr. West 291 No commentator has taken any notice of Linch's Law, which was once the lex loci of the frontiers. 1835W. Irving Tour Prairies 41 ‘Lynch's law’, as it is technically termed, in which the plaintiff is apt to be witness, jury, judge, and executioner. 1839Stonehouse Axholme 112 The burning Reading's house was..a terrible example of what the Americans term lynch law. 1879Farrar St. Paul I. 570 They seized the opportunity of executing a little Lynch law. 1888Bryce Amer. Commw. III. 309 Lynch law, however shocking it may seem to Europeans, is far removed from arbitrary violence. 1902J. London Daughter of Snows 284 It's lynch law, you know, and their minds are made up. They're bound to get me. 1963Times 18 Apr. 9/1 It smacks more of lynch law than the reasoned kind of wisdom one hopes for in our elected officials. 1974Times 28 Nov. 8/7 Mr Jeremy Thorpe..urged..that the hijackers of the British Airways VC10 should not be handed over to the ‘lynch law’ of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
So lynch-court nonce-wd., a self-constituted tribunal for exercising lynch law; Judge Lynch, the imaginary authority from whom the sentences of lynch law are jocularly said to proceed; lynch mob, a mob intent on lynching.
1838H. Martineau Retrospect of Western Travel II. 87 A distant Lynch mob was outraging..a free and innocent citizen. 1840W. G. Simms Border Beagles 248 The murmurs began to close with the ominous inquiry after that venerable border magistrate, Judge Lynch. 1849Lyell 2nd Visit to U.S. II. 32 My companions..said..‘If you were a settler there [in Florida], and had no other law to defend you, you would be glad of the protection of Judge Lynch’. 1890Corbett Drake v. 73 Few prisoners fared so well at Westminster..as did Thomas Doughty at that first Lynch-court amidst the desolation of Patagonia. 1972B. Garfield Line of Succession (1974) iii. 255 If he pulls through alive you'll just have to hold off a lynch mob. |