Marietta Intelligencer, March 30, 1848
The occurrences of the last week in this town must excite in the minds of all who love morality and good order a desire that something may be done to rescue our youth from the paths of vice in which so many of them are now walking.
On Saturday, John Cable, a boy not yet fourteen years of age, was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment in the Penitentiary for the crime of Arson; and Charles Kerr, aged seventeen years, to three years imprisonment for Horse Stealing. Young Kerr lived in Newport in this County and was convicted of stealing, some weeks since, the Horses of J. Dowling of Fearing.
Young Cable was convicted of burning the barn of J. C. McCoy of Harmar. Two other indictments were found against Cable - one for attempting to burn the house of Mr. McCoy, and one for attempting to poison Mrs. McCoy. Another, we hear, might have been found against him for Perjury, in swearing the crime for which he was convicted upon an innocent boy in an examination before a Justice, soon after the burning.
He has since his imprisonment twice attempted to burn the Jail. When upon his trial, it was found that he had a stone in his pocket, which he declared he would throw at Mrs. McCoy and which was wrested from him with great difficulty. When the Jury rendered their verdict he caught up a Law Book and threw at the Jurors, hitting one of them in the face. He was tried upon only one indictment. So desperate and malicious a criminal as this boy has probably never been seen in our Court House.
Kerr, on the other hand, manifested a penitent spirit. He has no doubt been led into the commission of crime thro' the influence of his uncle, against whom an indictment was found, but who has not yet been arrested.
At the very time when these boys were receiving their sentence, two other boys, one fifteen and the other sixteen years of age, were under examination before the Mayor on a charge of having committed nine burglaries during the previous night. They confessed the crime and are now in Jail waiting their trial. If the complaints against them are all pressed, the shortest term for which they can be sent to the Penitentiary is twenty seven years each. The following is a brief history of their transactions on Friday night.
They broke open Roberts and Beach's Tailor Shop and took a roll of cloth, two pairs of pants and two vests, one of which was on the younger boy when he was arrested. They then went to J. M. Booth's Cabinet Shop, opened a tool chest and took a bit &c., with which they opened A. Regnier's Grocery, from which they took some change, herring, crackers, candy, &c. &c. They went into Soule's Hat Shop, but took nothing by a single piece of silver coin. From T. P. Harsberger's Tailor Shop, they took two coats, a trunk, and sundry articles of small value. From the Library Hall Building they took two silver watches and two gold coins. From Theis' Shoe Shop they took a pair of boots. The Masonic Hall was also broken open, but we do not learn what they took. From the Sons of Temperance Hall they took some of the emblems from the officers' regalia and the marbles used in balloting.
These boys, with four or five others of about the same age or younger, have for several weeks past been engaged in stealing eggs, chickens and provisions in every part of the town, and the night before their arrest one of their associates stole a skiff and went to Parkersburg with eighty dozen eggs - a part of the plunder which the gang had been gathering for the two or three weeks previous. The two lads arrested do not, however, implicate any others in the burglaries, but declare that they had no associates in that business. They told where the stolen property was concealed, and it was found - as was also a great deal that had never been missed. Among other things, they had about 30 keys of all sizes and descriptions.
This is a sad tale of juvenile iniquity and one which we should be slow to give publicity to, if any good could result from withholding a disclosure of it. But we feel that the increase of crime by our youth is a proper though mournful subject of comment, and we are not altogether without hope that by directing attention to the facts, our citizens may be led to seek a remedy. We had better look the frightful evidences of the increasing evil sternly in the face, than quietly to fold our hands in peace and conclude that "Marietta is a very moral town," and "our children," as each many says for himself, "are in no danger," or "there are only a dozen such boys in town and the sooner they are on the gallows the better!"
It is very true that this is a town more free from open vice than almost any other in the State. But it will not long be so unless parents and guardians find more regular, constant and useful employment for their children and wards than scores - we might almost say hundreds - of them now have. If idleness is much longer tolerated in so many of our lads, no man's children will be safe, and instead of a half dozen boys imprisoned for high offences, as there now are, our Jail will soon be incapable of holding a tithe of them.
Our citizens, we are sure, do not know how many boys in this town are unemployed - out of school - absolutely doing nothing but preparing for a life of shame and a death of misery. And the number, we believe, is rapidly increasing. They are now so numerous that those who have employment, or who are sent to school, can hardly pass a square without meeting them. No man can tell how many, or who, will yield to the importunities of these vicious idlers and, beginning perhaps with marbles, will go on to cards, and end with burglary.
Let any man stand for one day about our Court House and see the boys who collect there to play marbles. Most of them are neatly dressed - many have books under their arms and stop for only a few moments as they are passing to or from school, "just to have a little fun." But there is hardly an hour in the day when only such boys are there. The John Cables are there, too, and doing a work of mischief which the teachers and parents of the school-going boys know not of. They are hearing profanity and witnessing trickery; seeing others cheat and learning to cheat themselves.
There are in this town probably a hundred boys between eight and eighteen years of age who are out of employment. The most of them have occasionally some work to do, or are sent now and then to school. But many of them go only when they please. There ought to be authority somewhere to make them go every day when a school is taught, and to keep them at some useful employment when there is no school. If their own parents are indifferent to their welfare, those who do regard the moral training of children as of some moment, should interest themselves in behalf of these candidates for destruction. They should, at least, exercise a more watchful vigilance over their own children, and not rely upon the instructions of the family to protect them from the corrupt influence of vicious associates.
Marietta Intelligencer, April 13, 1848:
Mr. Gates:
Mr. Shoop, the father of one of the boys who recently committed so many burglaries in town, for which two of them are now in jail, having reported to many persons that I sold said boys liquor on the night of their last depredations, I beg to state to the public that the report is utterly false. I never sold them any liquor. I do not keep it on my wharf boat and do not intend to. Since the boats came into my possession, I have neither sold or given liquor to those boys, to any other boys, or to any man, men, women or children. I have not even had it on the boat. I hope this emphatic denial of the prejudicial reports now circulated on the authority of a boy guilty of so many and so heinous crimes as this young Shoop, will put them to rest.
V. Payne.
The undersigned are in the employ of Mr. Payne on the Wharf Boat and know that no spirituous liquor is sold, given away, or kept on his boat.
William H. Douglass.
John Q. A. Cunningham.
Thomas Taylor.
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