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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