Reddit is right: Stone-throwing used to be a problem in Boston
A Reddit post on Sunday brought attention to a long-forgotten epidemic for Boston: Stone-throwing boys.
The post featured a map of South Boston, published in The Boston Journal on September 3, 1904 that advised readers of which streets were “infested’’ with boys throwing stones.
Hurtling stones used to be a favorite pastime for boys, who wreaked havoc on victims on foot, in automobiles, and on horseback.
In Everett in 1908, it was a serious problem, according to The Boston Globe. Everett police and the metropolitan police had been receiving complaints for some time about stones being thrown by young boys at passersby. “A large number of juveniles’’ appeared before a judge.
But all he could do was put the kids on probation.
That is, until Jerome Cahill and Michael Fitzgerald. The two boys from Everett loved to throw stones. And after they got tired of throwing stones at inanimate objects, they graduated to aiming for moving targets, according to a report by the Globe published on April 19, 1908.
The constant traffic on the Revere beach parkway made for enticing targets.
Miss Emma G. Hobbs of East Boston told the Globe she was riding on the parkway and was almost thrown from her horse when Cahill and Fitzgerald stuck again.
The two boys got a creative punishment for their favorite pastime. Under orders from a judge, they were taken to a sand pit in Everett and made to repeatedly throw stones, supervised by three policemen.
The worst part of the punishment was the the taunting of the crowd that gathered to watch the unusual punishment. They made remarks like, “Say, youse kids throw like girls,’’ according to the Globe.
After half an hour, the boys were told to pick up the stones they had thrown, and throw them back in the opposite direction. The boys went home with sore and stiff arms, “having had too much of their sport,’’ according to the Globe.
A generation later, the problem arose again.
In December, 1934, a Waltham boy lost an eye after a “battle with stones’’ with a group of boys, according to the Globe.
So the next time you’re concerned about the violent video game your little brother is playing, be glad he’s not part of a stone-throwing infestation the next street over. And remember that saying about judging and casting stones.
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