A nine year old McRoberts boy has been cleared of criminal charges in the death of a neighbor boy, also nine, who died after the two were fighting. Virgil Holbrook, who weighed 69 pounds, was cleared after an examining trial in Whitesburg. According to evidence, the two little boys were out near McRoberts hunting cows with some older boys when one of the older boys offered Holbrook ten or fifteen cents to whip Winifred Adams. The fight began and Holbrook struck Adams several times in the back with his fists. After considerable wrestling and rolling, the Adams boy returned home with his face flushed and complaining that he was injured. The Adams boy's condition gradually grew worse until physicians were called and he was sent to Jenkins hospital, where he died fifteen days after the fight. "The whole routine of evidence showed that it was a little boy fight with no intent of doing serious injury or placing a little life on the alter," writes Mountain Eagle editor Nehemiah M. Webb. The editor criticizes "young men, and often older ones, [who] prompt and egg on children to fight, making them believe it is brave and honorable for them to do so. Passions and anger in children, and in grown persons, create poisons in the body that may result in death"
A nine year old McRoberts boy has been cleared of criminal charges in the death of a neighbor boy, also nine, who died after the two were fighting. Virgil Holbrook, who weighed 69 pounds, was cleared after an examining trial in Whitesburg. According to evidence, the two little boys were out near McRoberts hunting cows with some older boys when one of the older boys offered Holbrook ten or fifteen cents to whip Winifred Adams. The fight began and Holbrook struck Adams several times in the back with his fists. After considerable wrestling and rolling, the Adams boy returned home with his face flushed and complaining that he was injured. The Adams boy's condition gradually grew worse until physicians were called and he was sent to Jenkins hospital, where he died fifteen days after the fight. "The whole routine of evidence showed that it was a little boy fight with no intent of doing serious injury or placing a little life on the alter," writes Mountain Eagle editor Nehemiah M. Webb. The editor criticizes "young men, and often older ones, [who] prompt and egg on children to fight, making them believe it is brave and honorable for them to do so. Passions and anger in children, and in grown persons, create poisons in the body that may result in death"
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