The Seven-Year-Old Stick-up Artist
A young boy pulls a professional-style robbery on a peer in broad daylight, leaving police baffled.
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.
Tacoma, Jan. 18—A 7-year-old boy held up Normey Berton, of 1107 E Street, aged 8 years, in broad daylight yesterday. The job was done in true highwayman style, including a large amount of profanity and vigorous rough handling. Normey was going to a butcher shop when a boy whom he did not know approached him, asking where he was going. Normey told him. 'What you got in your hand?' The other boy asked. Normey said he had an order for some meat. 'You can't get any meat on tick,' the other retorted, swearing. 'I know it,' Normey rejoined proudly; 'I got the money for it in my pocket.' Normey was pinioned while the other boy demanded the 'two bits' which he had in his trousers pocket. After securing the money the young Chris Evans ran away, and the police cannot locate him, as Normey only remembers that he wore 'boots,' and cannot recall the cut or color of his clothes.
“The job was done in true highwayman style, including a large amount of profanity and vigorous rough handling.”
While juvenile crime stories are a staple of urban reporting, the specificity of the 'highwayman' technique and the young victim's pride in his cash purchase creates a vivid, albeit jarring, portrait of street life in 1894 Tacoma. It serves as a reminder that the anxieties of the 1890s streetscape were often intensely local and interpersonal.
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