DIME NOVELS AND BOY DESPERADOES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 13, 20 July 1888, Page 11

DIME NOVELS AND BOY DESPERADOES.

(From the Catholic Standard.)

A gang of thirteen boy burglars has been discovered near Providence, R.I. Their ages ranged from that of their captain, eighteen years, down to twelve. They were regularly organized under horrid oaths of secrecy, and were governed by a regular 6et of rules and by-lawi. They robbed school-houses and a number of dwellings, both by night and by day. For several weeks past they engage;! ia outrageous proceedings, go that thy almost " created a reign of terror." Some of them proposed 10 set fire to the town in several places, so as to bring about a general conflagration, but others of them opposed this and wished to limit their operations to robbery. One night Beveral of them did start out to fire the town, but their movements attracted suspicion and they were arrested. Some ethers who bad been suspected were also arrested. But those who were arrested rigidly kept their oath of secrecy, and it was not until their leader and the rest of the young desperadoes were " spotted " and arrested, that the story of their organisation came out. Mo3t of them were of " good families," and when, by the advice of legal counsel, they told of their organisation and of their crimes, it was plain to be seen, as they themselves confeFsed, that their banding together and their entering upon their criminal course was suggested and prompted by the dime novels they habicually read. A like gang of young boys equally criminal and desperate was discovered a few days ago in the outskirts of New York. These, too, were not outcasts or children of poor parents, but the sons of well-to-do persons.

Still another such gaDg was not long a?o discovered in a town near Philadelphia. All of them without exception were the sons of very respectable persons. They met together and smoked cigars and read dime novels in a cave they had dug in a hillside in a secluded spot in the town. They first raided cigar and provision stores, and then growing bolder, committed other robberies. They were amply provided with pistols and knivts, and were planning to go out to tbe Rocky Mountains to kill Indians and bears.

Another most pitiable instance of this youthful reading and hearing read of dime novels occurred recently in another town near Philadelphia. A quite small boy was discovered under his desk in school, striking and kicking violently. When lifted out and asked what bewas doing, his answer was that he " thought be was fighting Indians " He is still in a dazed condition, and it is a question whether his mind is not permanently impaired. Should not these and other instances that are constantly occur* rine teach parents to exercise an oversight over what their children read ? It is an old and true adage that " evil communications corrupt." And what can be more immediately and directly corrupting than books which suggest evil thoughts ? Yet countless parents seem to think it matters little what their children read, or, rather, they do notthiDkor care at all . Yet on them rests the responsibility, a responsibility they cannot escape, of how their children shall grow up and what habits they form.