The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1874-08-06
The Boy with q White Eye.

The boy with the white eye has con.
fessed to themurder of the little girl
whose body was found in a South Bos
ton cellar q few days ago. He is now
in Jail for the murder of the boy Mil
len. Scientists have examined his case
and pronounced it one of curious alb
normal alteration. Since he was an
infant his whole nature has been taint.
ed with brutality, and his chief amuse.
ment has been the infliction of pain.
In a word, he was, and is, young In
dian of the worst type, with the soul OF
a beast. Not content with killing, he
mutilates grotesquely and horribly the
bodies of his victims. He loves to
dabble in blood, to feel it warm on his
hand. He delights to observe the in
tense look of agony upon the childish
face gradually oblitered by the shadow
of death. Such is Jesse Pomeroy, the
boy with the white eye. He has no ex-
cuse to offer for his crimes, save that
he cannot help committing them. He
is eighteen years old, and is possessed
of keen common sense and fair share
of educational intelligence. He lacks
the moral quality. He is creature
without conscience, as was Margrave,
the strange creation of Bulwer.
Eugene Sue, in his Mysteries of
Paris" has sketched with remarkable
power character which he calls "The
Slasher," and which must seem to most
readers as an impossible sort of man.
The Slasher comes up from the slums !;
he has had the dreadful training which
the worst neighborhoods of Paris are
capable of giving. He was murderer;
but is finally redeemed. This Slasher
had at one time been butcher, and he
is repr resented as going thoroughly wild
over the sight of blood. To kill sheep
and oxen produced in him an ecstacy,
a delirium of the maddest Joy. He
,ted like demon in the slaughter
house he forgot his surroundings; the
sight and smell of blood brought on a
perfect craze.
There are men who doubt the exist
ence of any such influences. But the
story of this boy murderer shows that
there was basis for the fearful sketch
of the Slasher.
The mother of the boy tellsa strange
story, one that will attract the closest
study of medical men, and of theolo-
gians, for the question of moral respon-
sibility in his case is not easily settled.
The mother is spoken of as pleasant,
intelligent lady. She told the physi-
cans that cher husband was butcher,
and that short time before the birth
of the boy she was in the habit of 60
ing daily to the slaughter house to wit
ness the killing of the animals, and
that, somehow, she took particular
delight in seeing her husband butcher
the sheep, the calves and the cattle,
and not unfrequently she assisted him
in this bloody work. She also said
that after Jesse was born, and became
old enough to have knife in his hand,
he was all the time, when opportunity
offered, sticking a knife into pieces OF
meat, and when little older and about
his fathers market, he did the same
thing. He was simply marked by his
mother, just as other children have
been, only in different way"
1t is an awful thing to think that such
a story as this is true, and that even the
moral character may thus be influenced
by such paternal accidents. The physi
cal effects of such accidents are vel
known, and in "Elsie Venner," Oliver
Wendell Holmes gives in a mastery
way his theory of the effects of sucl
events as told by the mother of young
Pomeroy upon the intellect and soul.
When we think what might be done
in converse of all this in the pre-nata
culture of mankind, we see what {
grave responsibility rests upon every
family physician.