The Glass-Chewing Drifter of Seattle
A traveling laborer with a bizarre appetite is arrested after a barroom brawl ends in broken glass and a ruined mirror.
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.
J. A. Jackman, a traveling railroad laborer, was arrested about 7 o'clock last night, charged with the malicious destruction of property. Early yesterday morning he was in the Monte Cristo saloon, and during an altercation with the bartender, he seized a cuspidor and hurled it through a $40 mirror. Many of the glasses and bottles arranged at the base of the mirror were also broken. Jackman has a strange habit of chewing glass. He had destroyed three glasses which had been handed to him by biting them and chewing the pieces. The bartender objected to this proceeding, and the melee resulted.
“Jackman has a strange habit of chewing glass.”
While the Monte Cristo saloon is long gone, the struggle over public space and rowdy behavior in downtown Seattle remains a constant in local reporting. The story highlights the rough-hewn, transient nature of the labor force that built the city during the boom years.
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