The Midnight Pork-Thieves of Belltown

This thing of having a lot of hungry tramps nosing around in your backyard at all hours of the night—repeated instances of which have occurred in this city during the past few weeks—is beginning to grow a trifle monotonous, and should be stopped. Scarcely a night has passed of late that we have not heard of the larceny of some article of food or clothing from residences in the upper part of town. So common have they become, in fact, that we have hitherto refrained from speaking of each new case for fear of boring the readers of the DISPATCH, and simply accepted it as a necessary evil. Although in the majority of instances the articles taken are of minor value, it is not well that these nocturnal nippers should entertain the idea that their petty thefts are unnoticed. The latest instances of petty thefts we hear of occurred on Tuesday night at the residence of Jeremiah Driggs, in Belltown, from whence a quantity of pickled pork was taken from an outside cupboard. Last night a lot of flour and butter and several loaves of bread were stolen from the residence of K. C. Ward, corner of Third and Pine streets.