Show A CATOMNETAILS I is Successfully Introduced Into the New York City Home t is an Electrical Appliance Tho Most Incorrigible Incor-rigible Hoys are Snbdned by itThe Pnnishnimit 1 Effective Special to THE HEpALD Examiner Dispatch Ncw YORK March Superintendent C 11 Harrison of the New York City Home at Verona N J believes that the punishment should fit tho crime He argues that if u good deal of electricity is a very good thing as a punishment for a murderer a little electricity furnishes an excellent method of punishing a minor of ender The Newark City Home is a sort of house of refuge for the incorrigible boys and girls of Newark and for nearly five years Mr Harrison has been punishing hem for their youthful offenses by admin i stering to them more or less severe electric shocks His currant differs from the one used at Sing Sing Auburn and Donnoraara i n that it is produced by a powerful gal enic battery while that of which Kemm leI Smilor Loppy and others have died is generate by a great dynamo Dr Henry B Whitehorne Verona the regular physician at the home is the inventor inven-tor of an electric method of punishment Dr Whitehorno produced a particularly powerful galvanic battery and instead of attaching to the positive and negative poles ho usual brass handles affixed thereto two appliances one was an electrode so shaped DS to fit closely to the back of the juvenile j juve-nile neck the face of the electrode elec-trode being covered with a thin sponge The other pole was connected with a catoninetails formed of six hairlike wIres about three inche3 long protruding from an insulated handle Dr VVhitehorne tried the contrivance on himself and was convinced that it ought to scare the wits out of the worst youngster in Essex county That by the way is supposed to be the danger of the new form of government govern-ment A boy named Rafforty one day tried to stab a companion during the play hour at the home Ho was a welldevel oped lad of fifteen solidly built and of an exceedingly vicious disposition Mr Harrison and Dr Vvhitehprne determined to administer the electrical punishment The boy was called into the superintendents superintend-ents office He was surly and defiant expecting ex-pecting to receive a sentence to bread and water rations closo confinement or some thing of the sort He was very ignorant and probably had never heard of electricity electric-ity beyond the fact that it was used in sending telegraphic messages The boy was made to take off his jacket to roll up his sleeves to the elbows These proceedings proceed-ings were unusual and Rafferty was frightened almost at their beginning When he was asked to sit in a chair by the < table tho lad felt sure that his last hour had come Dr Whitmore placed the olec rode with the moistened sponge firmly to the back of the boys neck and turned on a slight current The boy whimpered a a little but as he felt nothing more braced up a bit Mr Harrison then touched tho wire catoninetails to one of tho lads bare ars which complete the current Such B yell as young Rafferty gave would have made a Sioux envious He leaped from the chair and breaking the current stood < shivering in an agony of fear He had never felt anything like that before He was forced back into the chair however and the current was applied again This time Mr Harrison passed sixty wires of the catoninotails all over the boys arms breast and face Every wire carried part of tho current making the most intense pricking burning sensation The lad seemed unable tomove as the current wa made heavier and after a few minutes he was released a limp meek and exceedingly weak boy For several days he was half ill was unable to oat and seemed possessed of no energy or vitality He gradually recovered re-covered however and spread through the home tho most harrowing tales of the awful torture to which ho had been subjected sub-jected Rafferty never had to be punished again Other boys scores of them have been subjected to the electrical punishment since then but the same boy has never been brought up for punishment twice Only a few of the older girls have bean punished in this way Superintendent Harrison told 1 reporter tonight that thu electrical punishment had done much to preserve the discipline of tho institution |