The 'Fagin' System Comes to Lake Street
A bold gang of burglars, aided by a small child, strips a local family home of everything from baby shoes to Sunday dinner.
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.
A gang of burglars was at work on Lake Street Saturday night. O. E. Hammond, who lives at 1010 Lake street, was the heaviest loser. When Mrs. Hammond arose Sunday morning, she found the kitchen window down about two inches from the top and discovered that everything purchased the day previous for Sunday dinner had disappeared. Worse, a new silk umbrella, a hat, a new dress, the baby’s shoes, the baby’s dress, and even a hairbrush had taken flight. Mr. Hammond, a telegraph operator, discovered footprints outside the kitchen window: one set belonging to a man with a bulged foot, and the others of a little boy. It was easily seen that 'Fagin’s system' had been used to good advantage, with the man directing the boy’s movements. After the Hammond house, the burglars hit a Mr. Fox, stealing a five-gallon can of coal oil and a lot of vegetables, then moved to the New York dairy on Yesler Avenue, making off with thirty-six cans of fruit, milk, and butter.
“From this it was easily seen that 'Fagin's system' had been used to good advantage.”
This 1894 account of a 'Fagin’s system' burglary—referencing the Dickensian child-thief ring—highlights the precariousness of domestic life in turn-of-the-century Seattle. While the neighborhood geography has transformed, the era's fear of organized 'pauper' crime remains a recurring ghost in modern debates over property crime and civic safety.
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