The Burglar and the Sleeping Giant
An attempted break-in on the Hoquiam road ends in a bizarre failure when the thief discovers the occupant's surprising immunity to being disturbed.
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.
Monday night an attempt was made to burglarize the house of a Frenchman living on the Hoquiam road. The floor was bored through and the plank sawed and taken out until a hole large enough to admit a man was effected. When the intruder made the discovery, however, he realized he had been at work directly under the bed of the gentleman whose property he intended to rob. The perpetrator retreated, likely intimidated by the fact that the owner was sound asleep the entire time, his snoring described as being like the sharpening of a circular saw. It seems that even for a professional, the risk of disturbing such a heavy sleeper—or perhaps the prick of conscience—was too much to overcome.
“For, no sensible burglar would entertain fears of interrupting the slumbers of a man who had continued his dulcet snores, like unto the sharpening of a circular saw, while a hole about two feet square was sawed into the floor under the couch whereon he rested.”
This odd tale of a thwarted burglar illustrates the lawless, frontier atmosphere of 1890s Grays Harbor, where modest cabins were built with whatever materials were at hand. It serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of early homesteaders on the outskirts of growing mill towns like Aberdeen.
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