The first school shooting in the United States?

SERIOUS ACCIDENT.

Careless Use of Firearms Again.

   It is but a short time since we read an article from some philosophic old fogy, bewailing the fact there were no more boys. The animal once called so, is extinct, and his place has been taken by precocious, premature men things that at twelve years of age drink whisky, smoke cigars, chew tobacco, talk "horse" and "woman," and swear with the best blackguard in the business. Another amiable propensity of this pleasant animal is to carry firearms. He is not happy unless he is the possessor of a pistol of some sort, as much like his daddy's as possible, however, and the bigger the better. One consequence is the frequency with which we hear of accidents to life and limb resulting from the careless use of firearms among them.

   Yesterday about one o'clock the school of Mr. Mitchell, on Lincoln street, was thrown into an uproar by the discharge of a pistol, and the cry of one of the boys, Eddy Bannon by name, that he was shot. On examination Mr. Mitchell found that a lad named Mike Harrigan, sitting next to Bannon, had shot him through the left elbow with a small cartridge pistol, carrying a ball about the size of a squirrel shot. The wound, though painful was not dangerous. Harrigan was terribly frightened at what he had done, and protested that he did not mean to do it that it was an accident, etc. Mr. Mitchell gave him a sound thrashing, and the police took his pistol away from him which hurt him more, we wager, than the licking, or sympathy for his companion, wounded by his carelessness. Memphis Appeal, Feb. 16.

[Nashville Union And American, Nashville, Tennessee, Thursday, February 18, 1869. New Series--No. 148. Pg. 1]

   My, my, how times have changed, eh?