Locked in the Slammer
A Seattle lawyer gets a rude awakening after being accidentally locked in the city jail while visiting his client.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Probably the angriest man in town last evening was W. W. Stewart, a lawyer. Stewart had been retained to defend a man named Hogan, who is in the city jail upon a serious charge, and yesterday afternoon about 4 o'clock jailer Noble admitted him to his client's lonely cell. After interviewing the prisoner for about half an hour, Stewart concluded he would hurry around and hunt up some cases, but, lo and behold, the jail doors were barred and double bolted! The angry lawyer shouted and smote the iron doors, but in vain. The jailer had forgotten all about him and, when 6 o'clock arrived, had turned the keys over to jailer Townsend. About 7 o'clock the night jailer heard sounds coming from Hogan's cell and opened the door for the purpose of telling the prisoner if he didn't make less noise he would put him in the 'star chamber.' The doors flew open and Stewart marched out before the astonished jailer, quite the angriest man that ever graced police headquarters.
“The doors flew open and Stewart marched out before the astonished jailer, quite the angriest man that ever graced police headquarters.”
While police lockups and lawyer-client dynamics have evolved significantly since 1892, the classic trope of the 'incompetent clerk' or 'forgotten visitor' remains a staple of local civic lore. Today's downtown Seattle jail, the King County Correctional Facility, is a far more secure and digitized environment, though the occasional human error remains a timeless byproduct of bureaucracy.
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