The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-06-12
The Killing In the House OF Refuge

The Killing In the House OF Refuge
P0po Jones and His Regulations
ssReform 1t Altogether"
II will be found that when the HERALD
described Pope Jones, of Randal's Island, in
all the bizarrerie of his assumption as spiritual
guide over his flock of juvenile delin-
quents, that the colors were not nearly so
dark as the original warranted. The matter
of religion which he manipulated so oddly and
so coolly will wear mild look beside the chap
ter Of horrors which is spread out in the secu-
lar management Of the concern. If Jones was
Pope he was resolved to be Grand Inquisitor
too, and he must have studied closely the
deeds of Mendoza, Torquemada and Ximenes
in order to show the young human goats under
his charge how the Pope Of Randall
Island could treat the hereto members
among them. All this is being developed at
the trial Of Justus Dunn, who stabbed Keeper
Calvert in the knee in revolt against the
Inquisition Of Pope Jones, as Toulouse did
with its inquisitors in 1245 A. D. Even with
so small a Popedom as Randall's Island his
tory will repeat itself.
It is fortunate for humanity that this case of
Justus Dunn came before Judge like Gun
ming s. Bedford, who promptly overruled the
objections of the counsel for the people to the
the widest latitude to both sides in order
that the whole truth might be reached. SO
the story Of Pope Jones, as told by
his own lips and published in another
column, will read very strangely under the date
at the head Of the page; for the reader, after
perusing the evidence, might think it was an
extract from the "Direcorium haquisaoruns''
of Nicholas Eymeric, and written in the four
teenth century instead Of the nineteenth.
There can be little doubt that the grand in
quisitors Of the darker days were men who
saw nothing but merit and goodness in
their conduct, and Pope Jones on the stand,
rolling his cold eyes and snivelling towards
heaven over the saving virtues of ''the whip
ping closet" the corrective beauties of thumb
hanging, blending it with dissertations on
prayer books and ''broad Christian truths
would make capital companion picture to
the author we have alluded to laying down the
law of the holy Office. ''It is impossible"
says Pope Jones, with the air Of savant, s:to
strike a boy upon the skin, or, perhaps,
over the clothing, without making mark. -
This piece of information, however, is rather
incomplete unless we have some information
as to the force of the stroke and what it was
laid on with Yet it is terrible to reflect
that all this enormity would not have
come to light had not young boy
killed keeper who was in the
habit of savagely maltreating him, un-
der the assumed superintendent of
Pope Jones. What manner of being this
Calvert was may be darkly drawn from the
evidence of Dennis O. Cornell, another of Pope
Jones young delinquent charges. O'Connell
had been dashed by an officer of the prison, and
this keeper (Calvert) came siding up and
asked the lad, ''How do you like your candy?"
Can there be reformation where such an
appeal to the worst passions of humanity
comes in the nature Of cowardly taunt from
one whose duty it should be to lead the erring
boys forward to better life? But these
points, bad as they are, do not tell the whole
of the sickening story. When Calvert was
dead and the boy Dunn lodged in the Tombs,
it is in evidence that Pope Jones promised
liberty from his popedom to Thomas Byrnes,
another erring boy, as soon rs he had given
evidence in the case. And yet the oily smile
of Pope Jones was there to make his bland
laudations of himself still the blander.
The case of the boy Justus Dunn is in the
hands of an intelligent jury, who will be
charged by fearless judge, when all has been
said on both sides that can be, and the verdict,
we believe, under these auspices, will be a just
one. But the interest for the community lies
altogether outside of the distressing case
which is only grave symptom of the disease
that is furnishing moral pests for society by
the hundred. There is and can be no reform
attained under system such as fourishes
under Pope Jones. man of his nature,
training and egotism can no more trans
form these wild young goats of Gotham
into lambs than could DIR. Darwin their
animal analogues. The responsible gentlemen
of the Board of Managers owe it to themselves
and the public that Pope Jones should be sent
to air his theology and his thumb-hanging
elsewhere. These boys should not be let out,
so to speak, to grasping contractors, who reap
the profits of fear out of every stroke Of the lash
on boy bare back. Where any religious feel
ing remains it should be carefully cultured in
stead of being trodden down to the dead level of