Robert Todd Lincoln --The vitals

[David Lockmiller]

(01-16-2018 09:25 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Thank you, Scholar, for the varying accounts of this incidence. Any idea how old Robert was at this point? Old enough to know better as far as the treatment of animals?

Love the first description with the phrase "...the spankable sector of a small boy's anatomy." Also enjoyed Burlingame's sentence about Mary Lincoln's use of language that was not Sunday School appropriate. This might be applied in another thread on this forum about the use of vulgar language... Even a future First Lady slipped up -- and I can see that happening in Mary's case since she had been privy to conversations with her father's political cronies at an early age.

1. Newspaper article:

"Chauncey H. Graves, 83 years old, of Mound City, Mo., says Abraham Lincoln was no weakling in applying a barrel stave to the spankable sector of a small boy's anatomy. Graves, Robert Lincoln and many other boys in the neighborhood were putting on an animal show in the Lincoln barn. The 'wild' animals were dogs suspended from the rafters in a fashion to cause them to 'growl' like lions. A neighbor reported the cruelty to Mr. Lincoln, who, stave in hand, unexpectedly visited the show. After loosing the dogs, Mr. Lincoln rounded up the show managers and applied the barrel stave so effectively the show business stopped."


2. From Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1 (Burlingame):
"....Now and then these roles were reversed: Lincoln would use corporal punishment, and his wife would object. Once he found young Robert and his friends putting on a play with dogs. The boys fastened a rope around one canine's neck, tossed the rope over a beam, and tugged hard to make the beast rise up. When the animal-loving Lincoln beheld the scene, he grabbed a barrel stave "and immediately began plying it indiscriminately on the persons of such boys as were within reach". Mary Lincoln reportedly "was very angry, and reproached her husband in language that was not at all adapted to Sunday School." Citation listed: Illinois State Register (Springfield), 13 July 1860.

I can understand why Mary became "very angry." What I don't understand is why she "reproached her husband in language that was not at all adapted to Sunday School."

Perhaps you could explain. In my opinion, if the newspaper article is truthful and correct, Abraham Lincoln did exactly the right thing. Perhaps you disagree.