EDITOR'S TABLE. 



241 



can no more escape the use of the for- 

 mer than the recognition of the latter. 

 Facts are nothing until they are brought 

 together, compared, interpreted, and 

 some view of them arrived at — and that 

 is a theory. From the most trivial 

 events in daily life to the grave and 

 critical decisions of deliberative bodies, 

 from the question of taking along an 

 umbrella to that of the financial policy 

 of the nation, or a declaration of war, 

 action follows theory as the all-essential 

 thing in the determination of results. 



A tragedy has just been enacted in 

 Boston, which affords an impressive il- 

 lustration both of the importance of 

 theories and the terrible evils that flow 

 from the adoption of wrong theories. 

 A year and a half ago a lad named Jesse 

 Pomeroy was convicted of the atrocious 

 crime of luring young children into by- 

 places and gashing and mutilating them 

 in the most cruel manner. He carried 

 on this savage practice for months, op- 

 erating upon no less than seven chil- 

 dren, and was then taken up by the 

 authorities. How to estimate his con- 

 duct, and what to do with him, was 

 then the question. The nature of the 

 acts that he had perpetrated, by their 

 wanton and persistent cruelty, marked 

 him out as not only an exception to the 

 class of youthful offenders, but as an 

 inhuman monster, wanting in moral 

 sense and destitute of the common at- 

 tributes of humanity. His conduct 

 showed that he was abnormally and 

 insanely constituted. Tliat he was a 

 deficient human being was just as evi- 

 dent as a matter of fact as if he had 

 been born blind, deaf, or without arms. 

 But the authorities proceeded upon an- 

 other theory — they assumed that he 

 was like other bad boys, and could be 

 reformed, and so they sent him to the 

 State Reform School. After remaining 

 there a year and five months he was 

 released " on probation " — five years 

 before the time at which he would 

 have been entitled to a legal discharge. 



On the 22d instant "the body of a 



VOL. V. — 16 



boy, four years of age, was found by the 

 water-side in South Boston, bleeding 

 from a multitude of wounds. There 

 were eighteen stabs in the region of the 

 heart. The hands were cut, as if in the 

 little fellow's attempt to ward off the 

 blows of the murderer. The throat 

 was slit, and one eye was nearly cut 

 from its socket. Footmarks in the mud 

 seemed to prove that the child had 

 been led to the spot by some older 

 companion, who must have lifted him 

 down from the wharf, where the prints 

 first appeared ; and the condition of the 

 body showed that the murder had been 

 committed but a very little while before 

 its discovery — that is to say, in broad 

 day." Jesse Pomeroy was suspected 

 of the deed, arrested, and confessed that 

 he perpetrated it. 



This case, shocking as it is, is by no 

 means rare in its quality. The in- 

 stances are numerous of individuals 

 who have displayed a propensity for 

 the apparently wanton infliction of pain 

 and destruction of life. The life-de- 

 stroying impulse may take the direc- 

 tion of suicide, or be turned against 

 others, and frequently manifests itself 

 as an ungovernable propensity to kill 

 infants and young children ; and exam- 

 ples are not wanting in which persons 

 are conscious of this terrible tendency 

 in themselves, and, while still able to 

 resist it, invoke restraint from others 

 as their only protection. There is such 

 a thing as insanity — a diseased condi- 

 tion of mind in which reason and self- 

 control are destroyed and responsibihty 

 ceases. There cannot be a doubt that 

 Jesse Pomeroy belongs to this class, and 

 his first perpetrations of cruelty should 

 have been held to establish this as ab- 

 solutely as if his intellect had been shat- 

 tered and he had been a raving maniac. 

 If the theory at first acted upon, that 

 he was soundly constituted, responsible, 

 and capable of reform, be carried out, 

 of course nothing remains but to stran- 

 gle him in due form — and that is the 

 short method which society generally 



