From the Richmond Sentinel, 6/24/1864, p. 1
Throwing Stones. - Like
all other classes of the community, the boys have felt the demoralizing
influence of the war. Their increased viciousness is in nothing more
conspicuously displayed than in the matter of throwing stones and engaging in
rock battles in the streets and public places. In the Capitol Square, as little
regarding the sentinel on duty there as if he were a dummy, they make the Clay
statue and the Washington monument targets for their missiles, and on the
President’s, Navy, Gamble’s and other hills about the city, they engage in mimic
warfare with slings, sticks and stones continually. These practices have grown
to be so serious a nuisance that complaints, both loud and deep, come in to the
Mayor daily, and he has determined to exert his power to put them down. The
police are ordered to arrest every boy, big or small, caught throwing stones or
other missiles. The first capture under this order was brought before the Mayor
yesterday, in the person of a boy fourteen years old, named Joe Berry. Officer
Kelly had caught him on Gamble’s Hill, engaged in throwing stones from a sling,
at some boys on the opposite heights, known as Penitentiary Hill. - The Mayor
fined the boy’s father five dollars and required him to give security in two
hundred dollars that his son should keep the peace. If the boy is caught
throwing stones again his father will have to pay the money.
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