The Midnight Robbery at the I.X.L. Saloon
A rancher falls victim to a pocket-picking scheme that spiraled into a violent street holdup.
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.
Joseph Bagley, a North Seattle youth, is under lock and key at the police station on the charge of having picked Joseph Bochane's pockets of $7 in the I.X.L. saloon on Front Street near Bell, Sunday night. Bochane, who was intoxicated when he told his story, claims that after his pockets were picked, four men held him up on Front, between Battery and Bell streets, and took $20 he had concealed in his inside pocket. Officer Jackson, who made the arrest of Bagley in connection with the petit larceny case, thinks there is something to the holdup story. Bochane is a rancher from Hastings. He had $76 Sunday afternoon.
“Bochane, who was drunk when he told his story, claims that after his pockets were picked four men held him up on Front, between Battery and Bell streets.”
This incident occurred in the Belltown neighborhood, which remains a center for nightlife and public safety discourse. The story captures the vulnerability of rural visitors in a rapidly urbanizing Seattle, a tension that persists in the city's relationship with its shifting downtown core.
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