The Hotel Yakima Pocket-Picking
A theft at a temperance lecture leads to an arrest, a suspicious discharge, and a swift sentencing for a second offense.
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.
Frank Lewis, Charles Morgan, Billy Hanlon, and Frank T. Martin were arrested Saturday night by Chief McMorty on the charge of robbing Miss Ida Jester of $33. Miss Jester is an employee of the Hotel Yakima, and when she attended the temperance entertainment at the opera house, she carried her money in the pocket of her cloak, which she hung up in the ante-room. On coming out, she found that the pocket had been relieved of its wealth by the light-fingered gentry. The parties arrested had previously been soliciting “eating money” on the streets, and when polled, a total of $9 was found on their persons. Sufficient evidence could not be secured and Justice Henton discharged them, whereupon Frank Martin was rearrested on the charge of stealing a pair of pants from J. H. Carpenter & Co. The stolen bifurcated garment adorned his bow-legs at the time, and he was given 30 days in the county jail and fined $25 and costs.
“The stolen bifurcated garment adorned his bow-legs at the time.”
Petty theft and vagrancy arrests remain a consistent friction point in city reporting; the focus on the 'bifurcated garment' highlights how mid-19th-century reporting turned everyday struggles into colorful, often dehumanizing, vignettes.
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