THE BOY HOMICIDE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 738, 9 June 1876, Page 3

THE BOY HOMICIDE.

—o—(Graphic.) When Harrod, a boy of twelve, was tried for the murder of H»bblewhite, a boy of ten, the judge asked the jury to view the case as if the prisoner was a grown-up man. But the jury plainly could not remove from their minds the impression made by the small childish figure that stood before them in the dock, and so, though the crime Harrod had committed seemed uncommonly like murder, and though he was accused of killing another boy, and though he was accused of killing another boy in a very similar manner last October, they found him guilty of manslaughter, and he has been sentenced to fifteen years’ penal servitude, subject to the approval of the Home Secretary. It is very puzzling to know what to do with persons of tender years who commit such crimes as are usually preceded by a lengthened career of vice. Public sentiment revolts from putting so young a boy to death. This feeling probably prompted the merciful verdict of the jury. A flogging of the utmost severity short of endangering life would perhaps be the most Appropriate penalty for such an offence as that committed by Harrod, because these cruel natures which delight in torture are usually keenly susceptible to the infliction of sharp physical pain upon themselves. But the flogging over, the boy would remain, and what then could be done with him t He could not be suffered to return to his native village, for, to say nothing of the risk of bodily illusage, the hatred with which he would be regardek would cause him to grow up with the feelings of an outcast at enmity with all mavkind. Evidently he must be kept in seclusion, though not necessarily for so long a period as fifteen years. A boy of twelve immured np to the age of twentyseven would be as unfit to cope with the world, as Casper Hauser, when first discovered, was unfit th use his legs. The best mode, probably, of treating such an abnormal specimen of humanity would he set him at liberty whenever, in tne opinion of those entrusted with his cars, such liberation may be safely effected—as, for example, when ho has acquired the means of gaining a livelihood ; and to open his prison doors so unobtrusively that ho may plunge into the outside world unnoticed, and so, perhaps, retrieve hia villainous childhood;

A “POOH PRISONER.” —o—

William Howitt, who Is upwards of eighty, resides in Rome with his wife, Mary Howitt, the poetess, who is engaged upon a work which necessitates her residing in the Italian capital Mr Howitt has written a remarkable letter respecting the Pope, in which he says the American Catholic clergy were anxious that the Pope should send something to the Philadelphia Exhibition, so the Pope has consented to send a few specimens of mosaic and of tapestry. Cardinal Antonelli is commissioned to say that he would send more but for his "financial straits” and unfortunate, deprivation of his States of which ho has been the victim.” Mr Howitt hereupon explains, “The humbug! All this is true beggars’ whitlo, which the Church has made universal as far as its rule has extended. Deprivation of his States has been the finest thing in the world for him. Those States only contained three millions of inhabitants, not so many as exists in London by a great deal. He has no longer the expense of them* but their unfortunate deprivation has been made the means of working on the feelings of the whole Catholic universe, and of pouring into his coffers treasures sueh as his predecessors in their most halcyon times never possessed The fiction of his miserable imprisonment, with his lying on rotten straw, the open sale of little bundles of these fabled straws in most Catholic countries, the photograph of him, peeping through his iron bars, with a soldier, with musket and bayonet fixed, on each side of him—all these outrageous lies have drawn an actual river of gold from the bosoms of the silly. Popish pelicans that far outrivals the ancient Pactolus. The priests, by such means, have drawn not merely from the stupid rich, but from the millions of poor girls—servants and workwomen—their few pence, which should have gone to the savings bank or to buy them comforts, and these arts of priestly robbery have been enforced by the assurances of eternal damnation if they did not do everything to relieve the suffering of the holy father. By these infamous means no less than twenty millions of francs have been poured into the Papal chest during the year of jubilee just passed, and all this is described as the voluntary tribute of the faithful 1 And all this time this King of Humbugs, this socalled miserable prisoner, has been living in a palace of eleven thousand rooms, crammed with such wealth as never before was collected in one place, not even in the Bank of England. Treasures of gold, of silver, of the most beautiful and noble works of art, statues, pictures by the finest masters, bronzes, coins, medals, crosses sparkling with the most valuable diamonds, rubies, emeralds, etc, vessels and ornaments in silver and gold of the most exquisite workmanship, by such masters as Benvenuto Cellini; by the richest arrasses and tapestries, all these arranged in galleries miles in length, and this wretched prisoner attended by hundreds of guards in an old costume very like our Windsor Beefeaters, and by crowds of cardinals, monsigneurs, archbishops, bishops, priests, and lacqueys without end. As for money, besides the 20,000,000 francs paid in for Peter’s pence and jubilee indulgences in 1872, the imbecile ex-Emperor of Austria has left him 3,000,000 dollars, and rich arras and gold vesse's to adorn his chapel. The Duke of Modena, the fatherinlaw of the ex-King of Naples and Count Chambord, has made him his heir, and it is said he will derive LIO,OOO from this source annually. The last English aristocratic dupe, Lord Ripon, has lately arrived in Rome, bringing with him a present of LIO.OOO. A Be'gian senator has brought another little present of LB.OOO sterling. A silly old lady has lately left him half a million of francs. French pilgrims have brought him silver statues of the virgin which, on a spring being touched, opened their arms and showered down streams of gold, and one Madonna even gave birth to a silver baby, to the Pope's great delight; and all this in the short space of one year. And yet he has the unparalleled impudence to tell the Americans that he cannot send much to the Exhibition because of his poverty.”