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Origin of Phrases - L
Lynching
Two centuries ago, Captain William Lynch cut a wide swath through parts of Virginia. As magistrate of a kangaroo court, he heard brief testimony and then sentenced several Pennsylvania County ruffians to hang. Lynch might have been forgotten, had his exploits not come to the attention of a literary giant. Writing in Southern Literary Messenger, Edgar Allan Poe described the Virginia cleanup of crime as a "lynching.".
