The Chicken Hustle of Old Seattle
An enterprising pair of thieves managed to con a local woman out of her own dinner in a brazen backyard heist.
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 Salem Mercury tells of a bold, bad man, thus: 'Yesterday a lady living near the city mill observed a couple of men in the back yard of her residence. They deliberately drove her chickens into the coop, when one of them entered and, selecting a choice fowl, caught it, and handed it over the fence to his companion who paid him for it, and then both walked off. The lady, supposing that her husband had sent them after the chicken, allowed them to depart without objection on her part. Imagine her surprise when her husband returned home and informed her that he knew nothing of her visitors. It was, evidently, some tramp, who had sold one of her chickens to some innocent party, claiming to own them himself, thus realizing enough coin to buy himself a couple of drinks. It was a bold act and neatly accomplished.'
“It was, evidently, some tramp, who had sold one of her chickens to some innocent party... It was a bold act and neatly accomplished.”
While chicken theft feels like a quaint relic, the hustle of selling a neighbor's property back to an 'innocent party' is a timeless urban grift. Today's Seattle struggles with property crime and opportunistic theft often feel like a digital-age continuation of this 19th-century street-level resourcefulness.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.