The Boy Who Stole Gold Nuggets and Slept with Dogs
Eight-year-old Harold Hubbard burglarized a Seattle home, hid his loot under the sidewalk, and spent the night in a dog show—only to confess the next day.
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.
Harold Hubbard, aged eight years, was brought to police headquarters this afternoon and a charge of burglary was placed against him. Harold admitted robbing the home of his aunt, Mrs. York Harrington, and stole a gold watch, three gold nuggets, several ladies' beads and a sack full of money. He placed the articles in a satchel and hid them under the sidewalk near the house.
A purse containing $15 also missing. He went down in the steamer State of Washington, which left for Anacortes, and told the purser he wanted to go to Nebraska. He then went to the dog show grounds and slept under the tent with the animals all night. Today he told where his stolen articles were concealed, and they were recovered.
Harold's father is in Alaska, and his mother in Wisconsin. This is not his first offence, and the people with whom he has made his home say it is perfectly natural for the young fellow to steal.
This 1903 account of a child thief reads like a whimsical scene from a Dickens novel or a modern coming-of-age film, yet it highlights the porous boundaries of Victorian-era policing. While today we might view such an act through the lens of juvenile justice or poverty, the newspaper frames it with amused detachment, treating the boy’s elaborate escape attempt—hiding under dog show tents—as a quaint oddity rather than a cry for help.
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