The Hotel Clerk’s Cold Comfort
A traveler spends a night of debauchery and wakes up convinced he’s been robbed—only to find the city's hospitality was more secure than his own memory.
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.
One evening during the present week, a man who was stopping at one of the hotels in this city handed his gold watch and a number of twenties to the hotel clerk for safe keeping, and then went out with the intention of doing the city by gas light. During the night, he imbibed freely and became so much intoxicated as to be only half conscious of passing events. While in this condition, some person went through him, relieving him of what remained in his pockets. In the morning, he felt for his watch and money, and finding his watch gone and his pockets as empty as a contribution box, and at the same time recalling in an indistinct sort of way the efforts of someone to rob him, he supposed of course that all was gone. In this dilemma, he repaired to the hotel and told his troubles to the clerk, and then asked advice as to what officer he should employ to recover the stolen property. The clerk listened to his story very attentively, and exclaimed: 'You fool, you left your watch and money with me!'
“In the morning he felt for his watch and money, and finding his watch gone and his pockets as empty as a contribution box... he supposed of course that all was gone.”
This 1878 anecdote captures the classic 'boomtown' anxiety of old Seattle, where the mix of gold-seekers, transient labor, and vice created a permanent state of paranoia. Today’s Seattleites may have traded the 'gas light' nightlife for tech-bro nightlife, but the city remains a place where one’s personal security and sobriety are often the only currency that really matters.
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