Vigilante Justice in Ellensburg
A mob of 'whitecaps' forced an officer to surrender his prisoner, a Chinese man accused of harassment, for a public whipping.
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.
No effort is being made by the authorities to find out who the 'whitecaps' were who forced Officer Steigler to give up the keys to the jail, and took the man to the outskirts of town and gave him a well-deserved thrashing on Thursday night of last week; public sentiment for this once being favorable to the lawbreakers. An onlooker said that the man yelled like a steam calliope from the moment he was taken from the jail until he was turned loose. The whipping was done in the vicinity of the mill, and the blacksnake was applied with vigor on his naked hide. No mercy was shown, and he will carry with him for many a long day the welts raised by the lash. This man seems to have a mania for exposing himself to school girls, and he had once before been arrested in this city for a like offense, and for kindred disgusting actions the citizens of Ellensburg nearly drowned him through holding his head in a barrel of water last summer. It is said that he boarded the east-bound train at Selah station the following morning.
This article highlights the violent 'whitecapping' movements common in the Pacific Northwest during the late 19th century, where extra-legal vigilante violence was often excused by the press when directed at minority populations. It reflects the deep-seated xenophobia and lack of due process that characterized the era's civic life.
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