Shelby  County  Indiana
Newspaper  Articles

Marietta

The  Daily  Evening  Democrat
November 14, 1881
Page 1
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H O R R I B L E
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Cutting Affray Between Two
Boys,
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Which Occurred In This City on Sat-
urday Evening.
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Frank Herner, a Fourteen-Year-Old
Bootblack, Stabs "Lonnie" Marietta,
Aged Ten.
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Young Herner Acknowledges to Being
Drunk at the Time He Committed
the Assault.
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The Weapon Used Was a Large Pocket
Knife, the Blade of Which Entered
Under the Shoulder Blade, and it
is Thought Penetrated
the Lungs.
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          Between four and five o'clock Saturday afternoon this city was the scene of another cutting affray between two boys, in which one of them was possibly fatally injured.  The facts in the case as learned from the principals and witnesses in the horrible affair are as follows:  At the time above mentioned  Bert and  Frank Mather  and  Hord Weakley  were engaged in playing marbles on the corner of Pike and Franklin streets, when their attention was arrested by three boys,  Ed. Curson,  Leonard Marietta  and  Frank Herner,  the two former of whom were throwing rocks at Herner who was rapidly advancing on them.  As he neared them, Marietta, who is ten years old, started to run when Herner called to Bert Mather to catch him, which he did, without any idea that anything serious would result therefrom.  While he was holding him Herner ran up and plunged a knife in the boy's back, inflicting a possibly fatal wound, the blade entering just under the shoulder-blade and penetrating the lungs, making a cut about an inch long on the surface.  After the cutting, Herner, who is only fourten[sic] years old, ran west on Franklin street and concealed himself back of the Ray House, where he was soon after found by our efficient constable,  Dick Thrall,  and locked up.  Marietta started to walk home, but became so faint with loss of blood that a buggy was procured and he was taken home in it.  Herner was interviewed at the jail yesterday morning and his version of the affair is that Marietta and the other boys above mentioned were all playing marbles together when he came up, and that he, being drunk at the time, pushed Marietta roughly to one side, to which the latter replied by throwing stones at him, when he cut him, as above stated, while the Mather boy was holding him.  On being asked where he procured his liquor he repled[sic] that he found a half pint bottle of gin in the woodshed of the Ray House, which he drank and threw the bottle away.  Herner is one of a gang of boys that have infested the streets of this city at all hours of the night for several years past, never going home through the summer or winter, until during the latter season the weather gets so cold that they are compelled to go home or freeze.  Of this gang Herner is one of the toughest specimens, and although only fourteen years of age, has all the vices of a hardened sinner of fifty.  A proficient in the use of tobacco, a frightful swearer and an ability to drink raw whisky without winking made him an acknowledged leader among the blloblacks and street gam?ns, of which this city has quite a ...
he has not been at home, but has picked up a living wherever he could, the few dims he earned at blacking boots going for liquor and tobacco, and but little for food.  But a short time ago the writer saw him pull a brush off from a string of those articles hanging in front of  Dr. Floyd's  drug store, which he came around afterwards and paid for on seeing a notice in the Democrat to the effect that he was known to be the thief.  With him, at all hours of the night, could be seen from two to four of his particular cronies, who were always on the watch for something to pilfer.  His bed at night was for sometime a store-box on  Julius Joseph's  corner, where he has been seen early in the morning coiled up asleep by many of our citizens.  In fact he was a regular street Arab, who looked upon society as his prey, and whose notions of the rights of property were embodied in the motto that everything belonged to him that he could carry off.  When asked by the reporter of the Democrat why he did not stay at home instead of sleeping out, he replied that he didn't know, and evinced no feeling whatever when questioned about the assault committed by him.  His language to a lot of boys who had congregated around the jail yesterday morning was so horribly obscene that the neighbors adjoining made complaint to  Deputy Sheriff Magill,  who was compelled to threaten to lock him up in the dungeon before he consented to behave himself.  The victim of his drunken, insenate rage is a quiet, delivate looking little fellow, with none of the vices of his assailant, and who probably never stayed away from his mother over night without her consent in his life.  His condition is still very critical, but the chances are now in favor of his recovery.  We think we express the opinion of the large majority of our citizens when we say that it is time for the City Council to take some steps to suppress the young hoodlums who infest our city.  These incorrible boys will soon become desperate men, to get rid of whom it may cost the county thousands of dollars in expensive criminal trials.  The cheapest plan is to commence now.  In our neighboring city of Columbus boys under age are prohibited by city ordinance from being out on the street after 9 o'clock p.m. without the consent of their parents.  Mayor Allen  recommended the Council to pass a similar ordinance soon after he took his chair as president of that body, but no action was ever taken on the question.  We urge the Council to take up this matter at their meeting to-morrow night and give it their earnest attention.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming

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