Daily Gazette & Comet [Baton Rouge , LA], January 19, 1860
Mr. Editor—As a chronicler of events, your attention is invited to the American Graveyard, near the Garrison. Almost every afternoon you might witness scenes of vandalism unequaled anywhere in the world. The rising generation, boys from ten to eighteen, repair thereto and amuse themselves by shooting at a mark on monuments and headstones! thus desecrating what in all nations, even where paganism prevails, is held sacred. Tuesday afternoon the youngsters were in ecstacies when a good shot was made, that shattered some monuments or headstones over loved ones. The guilty ones are not of the lower classes. The sons of some of our most worthy and well behaved citizens are there, and some not twelve years old had pistols in hand yesterday. It is the imperative duty of every good citizen to see that their children have no pistol, or other bodily weapons in their possession, and to ascertain the company they keep, as near as possible. It would surprise some our most orderly citizens to take a walk unperceived in that rendezvous of those depredators, and see their very young sons, pistol in hand, engaged in those sports. Something must be done to stop those proceedings, and it is impossible for the police to effect much without the cooperation of the parents (especially as the graveyard is not fairly under the municipal jurisdiction).
A Parent.