Ungodly Errand, Knightly Purpose
Chicago’s ‘Midget Bandit’ Fernekes
“Ungodly Errand, Knightly Purpose”
‘The boy soured on humanity when he realized that he could not support his 16 year old wife on a salary of $9 a week. He then Started his career of crime [6]’.
In 1914, short statured Henry J. Fernekes first made the news robbing people at gun point, with the excuse that he did it because couldn’t afford to care for his new wife. This entranced the media as he was portrayed as a child criminal with the right intentions. The 18 year old charmed the public in his excuse for a string of robberies and after he was nabbed for his crimes, he joked with his captors and seemed unusually smug. He only made $9 a week at his clerical job, and had married a girl that the family did not approve of. He kept his ‘robbery kit’ in his book bag once used for school and with his full confession [6]. The year 1914 was also the year of the first use of the word Sociopath, which epitomized a cultural obsession with trying to understand the criminal mind [11]. The man who coined the term sociopath, Dr. William J. Hickson, examined Henry saying: “Fernekes is a high-grade…
