The Burglar Who Knew the Layout
A gambler is arrested after allegedly breaking into a boarding house and cleaning out trunks with a chisel.
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.
Two rooms in Emma Norton's house at 315 Washington Street were burglarized yesterday morning between the hours of 12 and 1 o'clock and a diamond and $15 in cash taken. The case was immediately reported to the police, and Detective Philbrick arrested Harry Dougherty, a gambler, on suspicion of having done the work. The occupants of the house were downstairs when the burglar quietly entered the house and went to the upper story. With a chisel he pried open the trunks and then selected what he wanted. The contents were mussed slightly, but whoever did the work was acquainted with the lay of the land. Dougherty admits that he was in the house twice during the evening, the last time near midnight. He says, however, that at no time was he alone. He says the only time previous to the present arrest that he was in jail was some time ago, when he was taken to Portland on the charge of burglary but turned loose immediately.
“The contents were mussed slightly, but whoever did the work was acquainted with the lay of the land.”
Boarding houses were the center of Seattle's domestic life in the 1890s, and theft from them was a common, if disruptive, peril. Today, the location at 315 Washington Street sits near the heart of Pioneer Square, a neighborhood that still grapples with the same tensions between transient populations and residents.
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