PENNY DREADFUL CRIME.

Mt Benger Mail, Volume 17, Issue 850, 29 August 1896, Page 3

PENNY DREADFUL CRIME.

Complaint has been frequent of late in the States that penny dreadful literature, so common there, was fast creating among boys an utter contempt for law and disregard for honesty. In a recent issue the ' World' says : There appears to be an epidemic of crime among small boys. The fate of J. Watson Hildreth, the boy train-wrecker recently sentenced to life imprisonment at Rome, N.Y., and of his friends, Plato and Hibbard, who aided him in wrecking a New York Central train, and who were each sentenced to forty years in prison, has not been a warning. Probably the wickedest and most irreclaimable youths that have ever faced a police magistrate are the "Vreeland twins," highwaymen and pretty much everything else that is bad, who live with their parents, respectable people in Passaic, N.J. The boys are known as "Vreeland's terrible twins." They arc only eight years old, but began their boisterous career almost as soon as they could walk. They have been in gaol in Paterson, and have been put under bonds to keep the peace. For three years they have been chastised daily, sometimes once, sometimes half a dozen times. A short time ago the twins entered the public school after school hours and defaced the blackboards, tore up all the copy books, threw the inkwells at the ceiling, emptied the contents of the teacher's desk out of the window, and were banging noisily on the piano when caught. They stole tools from a carpenter's chest, and were trying to destroy a flat car when the train started. They jumped off, and the tools were carried to Buffalo. One day recently they turned highwaymen, and are now out on parole for taking bicycles from the Wilson boys. The twins are small for their age, and very thin. They are dressed alike, and few persons can tell them apart. Mrs Vreeland at times cannot tell which is George and which is Dave. Since their latest escapade they have been tethered during the day in the yard of their home. Eighteen New York boys under sixteen years of age were arraigned before Magistrate Simms one morning recently for various crimes, from gambling to larceny. The worst lad in this group was "Patsey" King, eleven years old. He was arrested while trying to steal a lamp post. He u put up a fight," as he called it, when the policeman arrested him. On the same day sixteen other boys were arrested in Central Park for various offences. The boys seem to hesitate at nothing, not even highway robbery, as the following incidents will go to prove. Eleven-year-old Theodore Miller was going home when he was "held up" by Christian Yehling and two other small boys, who " knocked him out" with a brick and stole his groceries. Yehling was arrested, and is now in charge of the Gerry Society. He is only twelve years of age. Ten-year-old Thomas Kearney is known as the leader of the " Desert Gang," which is composed of boys varying from six to fourteen years of age. Tommy was in Jefferson Market Police Court two successive mornings on serious charges. The first was assault and battery, preferred by nine-year-old Yetta Lehman, who accused him of beating her on the street owing to a quarrel in school. Tommy was remanded for examination, but was back again next morning, accused of having knocked Mrs Lehman senseless with a brick because she had had him arrested for beating Yetta. His case is still pending. A despatch from St. Louis reports that "Cotton-Head" Schmidt, a sixteen-year-old German youth, has been sentenced to be hanged on June 18 for murdering Bertram Atwater, a Chicago artist. Troy (N.Y.) has a masked boy highwayman. William Blanchfield, of Salem, Washington County, returned home late, and as he was unhitching his team a boyish figure, masked, thrust a pistol into his face and made him give up all the money he had, and his watch and chain. Subsequently Harry Hector, fifteen years old, was arrested, and admitted that ne was the robber. He is in gaol. Chief of Police Burke, of Passaic, N.Y., recently arrested George Dabriski, twelve years old, and arraigned him before the Recorder on a charge of piracy. He stole a batteau from a boatman and became a pirate, stealing whenever and wherever he could. He was finally caught in a dory stolen from a sloop, and was sent to the reform school.

Three boys attempted suicide in New York on the same day because they were hungry, and one because he was in love. Tony Denfrio loved Nellie Wring. She was cold to him, and so he went to a romantic spot in Central Park took poison. The doctors prevented him from dying. Jacob (Singer, a homeless lad, fourteen years old, threw himself under a street car. He was saved from death by the vigilance of a boy friend named Tom Kinnery. Singer is now being cared for by the Gerry Society. In Newark fourteen-year-old Gustftve Schneider tried to kill himself by gashing the arteries in his wrists with a jagged piece of glass and an old knife. When found he pleaded to be allowed to die, saying he was tired of life. Sixteen-year-old Robert Rutledge, of' Plainfield, N.J., entered the church of the Plymouth Brethren there and stole the communion wine. He was picked up in the street an hour later, hopelessly intoxicated. Boy thieves travel in bands in Gotham. Five boys between ten and twelve years of age were arraigned in the Centre street Police Court, charged with burglarising a fruit stand. Magistrate Simms turned Jthe lads over to the Gerry Society. All the prisoners were neatly dressed, and seemed to think the whole matter a huge joke. On the same day three New York street arabs—Harry Koscnfeld (nine years old), Harry Kolzin (tun years old), and Morris Wentraub (eleven years old)—were tried before Judge Fitzgerald on the chargo of picking pockets. The jury, after listening <o the evidence, which plainly showed the boys to have'eommitted the act, returned a verdict of " Not guilty, on the ground that the youngsters did not appreciate the criminality of their act." Judge Fitzgerald discharged the boys, ••'" v. ft