The Clock Thief of Lane and Weller
Henry Kohler, a man with 'large green eyes,' has finally been arrested after a months-long trail involving a stolen eight-day clock and a string of local petty thefts.
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.
Henry Kohler, a small man with large green eyes that glistened with disgust at the turn of affairs, was locked up in the city jail yesterday afternoon. On September 10, the residence of Mrs. J. H. Arnold at Lane and Weller streets was burglarized while the family was away picking hops. A few days later, Officer Glascock found Henry Kohler trying to sell an eight-day clock to a second-hand dealer on the waterfront. Kohler was arrested on suspicion but was discharged when no one claimed the clock. Three weeks after Kohler disappeared, it was discovered the clock belonged to Mrs. Arnold. The police have been watching for Kohler ever since. During the evening, it was learned that Kohler had on his feet a pair of shoes stolen from John Petersen’s shoe shop at the corner of Jackson and Fourth streets last Thursday. It is also claimed that Kohler is the man who offered for sale fifty pounds of butter stolen from the Academy of the Holy Names.
“Henry Kohler, a small man with large green eyes that glistened with disgust at the turn of affairs, was locked up.”
Petty theft reports in 1893 Seattle reveal the persistent nature of neighborhood crime and the often informal way police managed 'suspicious characters' before formal booking. The specific mention of hop-picking families and waterfront second-hand shops places this clearly in the context of a rapidly growing, working-class frontier city.
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