ABSTRACT
Public hanging continued in the New World as the accepted punishment for a long list of crimes, which at one time included perjury and horse thievery. William Jones's hanging drew five thousand citizens, black and white, to Lexington. Volunteer guards were appointed, and it was reported that a "king, going to be crowned, could not have borne himself with more dignity." On February 25, 1880, the Constitution reprinted an editorial paragraph, under the heading "Public Hangings," taken from the Baltimore Sun. The editor of the Greensboro, Georgia, newspaper joined in: "One of the greatest banes of this country has been the public execution of criminals. A public execution is a relic of barbarism, and Georgia is walking barbarous ways as long as she permits it." The English tradition of public hanging as public circus had yet to die out in Georgia and other parts of the nation, chiefly the South.
