Christmas Revels- Richmond 1863

Accidentally shot.

--At an early hour last Friday morning, a party of boys assembled at the east end of the city, to fire Christmas guns and otherwise celebrate the day. They had been together but a short time when one of them fired a horseman's pistol loaded with powder, the load from which struck Peter Kenny, a lad, on the left shoulder, inflicting an ugly and painful wound. As the wounded boy pronounced his injuries to be the result of accident, the police made no effort to arrest any of the party.

Drowned.

--On Saturday last, a lad named Andrew Allen, was drowned in the Dock. With two other boys young Allen was at play on the ice, which was very rotten, when the party broke through and disappeared. Two of the lads soon arose at the opening through which they fell, and succeeded in getting out, but Allen went under the ice, and drowned before any assistance could be rendered him.

The Mayor

--on Saturday had a good sized army of white men before him, all with violating the rules of decency, he laws of the State by getting drunk on Christmas beverages, annoying sober people, fighting each' other, kicking doors, breaking windows, and crying fire.

A party of young men, after imbibing freely, made Broad street hideous with their yells — alarmed the residents by kicking at doors — and crying fire at the top of their voices. After a few potations of the distilled damnation now served to the worshippers of Bacchus, it is not to be wondered at that they forgot all sense of propriety and became turbulent and disorderly. The Mayor held them to bail to keep the peace.

A soldier, after seeing the elephant, ran his head through a window, breaking the glass and cutting his face in several places. When he came into Court he was well marked with blood and bruises, the fruits of his charge on the old king's fortifications, which have never yet been carried by storm. He was sent to the Provost.

A white woman, for wearing men's apparel in the streets, and a white man for accompanying her, were held to ball; and two women, for hair-pulling and cat-scratching, were put in limbo.

Two men, for interfering with the police, were locked up to answer hereafter, and scores of negroes, for minor offences, were punished with stripes.

-The Daily Dispatch (Richmond, Va.) December 28, 1863