The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1910-12-15

To this he appends copies of the
records in his case.
Record of His Crimes.
One of Pomeroy's playmates wrote
his recollections of the murderer
about twenty years ago. He said that
as boy Jesse was quiet, retiring,
taciturn, and not fond of games. His
favorite reading was the dime novels
of Beadle and Munro. They used to
play Indians" and Jesses favorite
hero was Simon Girty, the renegade,
while the other boys swore by Ken
ton, Boone and the Wetzels.
1T was all wildly extravagant talk, y
said Jesse's schoolmate, land not
worth writing about but for the fact
that at that very time Boston was in
sea of excitement over the outrages
perpetrated by some unknown per-
son on little boys of from eight to
nine years of age.
"One week the news would come
that little boy was found tied to a
telegraph pole on the Old Colony, or
Boston, Hartford & Erie road, hor-
ribly mutilated, with his back in rib
bons and caked with salt. The next
week or month another little boy, it
was never boy of Jesse's size or
age, or anywhere near it, would be
found in Chelsea, or East Boston, or
Jamaica Plain, or Dorchester, mutt
lated and cut in the same way. Some
times boy was found tied to a tree,
sometimes in an old barn, but oftener
to telegraph pole on some railroad.
Fathers began to tell their boys to
be careful of man with red hair and
beard" as the Goth was described by
his victims, and mothers were anx-
ious If their boys were out of their
sight for half day.
Jesse Always Silent.
I'VE used to talk of the acts of this
earlier Ripper among ourselves, but
Jesse never had anything to say about
it, one way or the other. Then the
number of boys who were chased
and escaped by the enamel of their
teeth, at about this time was legion.
One boys name l remember-the
others I've clean forgotten-was Oil
yer Whitman. The Ripper had been
In his clutches, and he fought like a
tiger to run like comet. With awe
we looked upon Ollie after that Jesse
said nothing. But he thought: What
a liar you are, Ollie Whitman!
"One fine day there came into the
schoolroom in which Jesse had seat
and desk the head master, a Mr..
Barnes, ! think; an officer, and one
of the unknown's victims. The little
fellow had been found, I think, in
Chelsea hung up and cut up. When
he recovered he said it wasn't a man
with red whiskers and hair who had
treated him so, but a boy who looked
to be four or five years older than
himself. So they took this poor little
mutilated chap around to all the
schools in Boston, / believe, until they
came to, think, the Bigelow school
His Identification.
"'Do you see him here? said the
master to the little victim
MOO, hesitatingly replied the lit
tie fellow. Then. sharply, from the
lady teacher:
Pomeroy! why don't you hold up
your head?
Slowly Jesse raised his head and
the boy screamed:
"'That's him! that's him! I'd know
him by his eyer
And SO Jesse was arrested, tried,
found guilty and sentenced to the
Westboro reform school, If Jesse had
been i'll that day--ill enough to have
kept himself in the house-he might
be rivaling Jack the Ripper now"
Pomeroy got out of the reform
school In about year. Up to this
time he had always stopped short of