Charles Lynch

Captain Charles Lynch, of Virginia, author of the infamous lynch law, will forever be linked with “vigilante justice”. Lynch decided that he and his neighbours were too far from lawmakers and sheriffs to punish properly the vandals and robbers terrorizing the rural area. Не encouraged the fellow citizens to sign a declaration he drafted, announcing the intention to “to take matters in their own hands”. “If they (criminals) do not desist from their evil practices, we will inflict such corporal punishment on them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained.”

Although the death penalty was not always exacted, in most cases the punishment turned out to be hanging. In addition to the fact that many innocent victims suffered lynching, a certain amount of guilt among the lynchers can be ascertain by the very technique for hanging criminals.

Lynch and his cohorts practiced a form of passive hanging. A rope was tied around a tree and the condemned man placed on a horse with the other side of the rope strung snugly around his neck. So the criminal was killed not by the captors tightening the noose, but the whim of the horse. When the horse moved far enough away from the tree, the rope choked the horseman.

• виконання вправ до тексту на опрацювання лексики:

1. Match the words from the columns:

1) infamous a) law

2) to punish b) robbers

3) to draft c) the declaration

4) death d) penalty

5) to sustain e) damage

6) innocent f) victims

7) a condemned g) person

8) to desist h) from evil

2. Answer the questions:

1) What is lynching?

2) What is passive lynching?

3) Were the lynchers right?

3. Translate the words and word-combinations into English:

1) невинна людина; 2) навколо дерева; 3) на додаток; 4) взяти справу у свої руки; 5) підписати декларацію; 6) розробити декларацію; 7) нанесена шкода; 8) вимагати смертної кари; 9) добре покарати; 10) автор закону; 11) зав’язати мотузку; 12) намір.

5. Аудіювання другої частини тексту:

Seaside mystery. Part 2

Слова, які зустрінуться у тексті:

To knock - стукати;

busy – зайнятий;

rude – грубий;

to be in love – бути закоханим

to be worried – турбуватися;

Hurry up! – поспішай!

husband – чоловік

1. Answer the questions:

1. Who are Peter and Carlos?

2. Where is the language school?

3. Why does Yoshiko go home after the party?

4. What do Peter and Carlos do after the party?

5. What do they think about Mrs. King?

2. Listen to the second part of the story and match the beginning of the sentence with its correct ending:

1 Peter wants to too busy to see them.

2 Carlos' girlfriend where Yoshiko lives.

3 Peter knows is in love with Yoshiko.

4 They knock Mrs King is busy.

5 Mrs King Mrs King is rude:

6 She says Yoshiko is about Yoshiko.

7 Peter thinks that on the door.

8 Carlos thinks that comes from Spain.

9 Carlos thinks Peter opens the door.

10 Peter is worried go to the beach before it gets dark.

6. Підведення підсумків заняття.

7. Домашнє завдання.