Year: 1874

The revelation Of dePravlty, barhSrlty
and ilond like cruelty in the case of Jes-
sc r. Pro neroy, tla oJy-n Irlrrer of
Boston, is unsurpassed in horrifying de-
tails by any thing III the record Of crime.


Some four years since great excitement
was crea.ed III Boston by series o.
cruelties practiced upon small boys who
were from time 10 time enticed from til,
streets into remote fields or deserted and
secluded buildings for that purpose. The
tories Of the little victims all concurred
in ascribing the outrages to boy about
a dozen years old, with an eye that "look
ed like MARBLE" and there was notice
able uniformity in the treatment to which
they were subjected by the malign gen.
Jus. Being securely bound, their tor
mentor would deliberately. proceed to
mutilate them with his pocket-knife,
subiecting them, sometimes for four
hours, to merciless and inhuman tortures.'


He was at last apprehended, identified


onvicted and sent 10 the Reform School,
from which however he was discharged
by a pardon before expiration of his term
of punishment. During his confinement
in the Reform School he is said to have
attempted to practice his characteristic
cruelties upon some of his associates
there.


Last spring boy by the name of Mel
len was murdered under circumstances
indicating that young Pomeroy was the
perpetrator of the crime. The body of
the victim bore iinmistal1able traces of
treatment similar to that which Pomeroy
was accustomed to extend to his victims.
1t was cut and slashed in a horrible man
ner and the poor child had evidently
/ been tortured to death. In March last
bright and pretty little ten years old
girl, named Katie Curran, left her home
in the morning on her way to school.
| From that time nothing was seen of her
| by her parents or acquaintances until he
accidental discovery of her mutilated
remains on Saturday last IN the cellar OF
the building occupied at the time of
| her disappearance by the Pomeroys.
Since that discovery the boy Pomeroy.
who is in Jail awaiting trial for murder
of Mellen, has confessed that he muir
dered her deliberately and utterly with
out provocation other than that afforded
by an uncomfortable impulse TO shed
| blood


The case of Pomeroy seems to furnish an
unmistakable instance Of an irresistible
''morbid impulse to murder" From
his earliest youth his cruel propensities
have been notorious. To inflict afro
cious cruelties on his play-fellows was
always a source of delight to him. 1t
does not seem probable that he is con-
scious of any motive for his cruelties
other than the desiie to crafty an in
stinct of his bloodthirs tiness. When
asked to explain his inducement to muir
der Katie Curran, his reply was simply
that he couldn't help it; he had to do it.
He has evidently acted in obedience to
uncomfortable instinct, the presence and
operation of which is doubtless fully ex-
| plalneQ III h SldlSlneHI HIS
mother to a Committee of Physicians
| since his confession. His father is
butcher, and just previons to Jesse's birth
his mother was accustomed to visit the
slaughter-house daily as an interested
! spectator of and assistant in the process
of butchery. As soon as Jesse was old
enough to handle knife he manifested
peculiar delight in plunging a knife


into pieces of meat. The other members of


the family are kind-hearted and amiable


and ma ifest nothing of that propensity


so fearfully developed in the younger


boy.


The conclusion seems to he inevitable


that Pomeroy is born murderer vic


tim of terrible ante-natal impression.


How far he is responsible for the con-
sequence of that impression, as develop
ed in his own conduct we do not assume
to determine. But the duty of society


in the premises is obyious. Its members
f must be protected against any risk


however remote in time or probability


of repetition of his performances
r There is no little likelihood of his ever
outgrowing his m ,rderous prociivity
that the safety of society demands his
perpetual confinement.