The Bunco Men Convicted
A trio of swindlers who targeted two young Norwegian women finds themselves behind bars, but the local paper blames the victims for their own misfortune.
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.
The conviction of Mike Golden, the third of the bunco men to be convicted of swindling the working girls, Amanda and Aminda Engvik, marks the completion of a case which was well handled by the police department and the courts. It is little more than three weeks since the crime was committed and three of the actors are now under conviction and will soon be doing time in state prison. This is all the more gratifying because it has in the past been almost impossible to convict criminals of this class in Seattle.
While the bunco men richly deserved their fate, one need not waste a large amount of sympathy on the girls who were their victims. It is true that they were robbed of a sum of money which was to them a large amount, but if they had not made the acquaintance of strangers on the street; if they had not gone into a saloon in company with those strangers and wandered into a little-frequented part of the city with them, they would not have lost their money and would now in all probability be at their home in Norway. This was a case in which the folly and imprudence of the victims brought their misfortune upon them.
“The bunco man is a wretched parasite and a pest to society, but he would have a hard time making a living if it were not for the folly of his victims.”
This 1894 editorial displays a callous victim-blaming mentality that was common in the era's press, reflecting how authorities often minimized crimes against vulnerable, immigrant women while simultaneously criminalizing their presence in 'little-frequented' parts of the city. Today, we recognize such rhetoric as a tool used to excuse predators by shifting the moral burden onto those seeking work or housing.
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