The Police Sweep Through Whitechapel
A massive police crack-down on the city's red-light district leads to crowded courtrooms and a battle over jury trials.
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.
Since the edict went out from the chief of police that all houses of ill-fame and gambling places should be closed, the officers have continued to wage war on the disorderly element. The officers confined their energies to the women, for they herded them into police headquarters in droves, while only twelve gamblers have been arrested. Among those arrested were eight colored women, twenty Japanese women, several French women from the French quarter, Whitechapel, and a list of American women. At the police court, the scene was beyond description; the courtroom was packed to suffocation. The crowd of men did not diminish, and it seemed as if the whole of criminal Whitechapel had turned out to see what the law would do. When the city attorney announced the women could go home until Monday, there was a commotion and they went out chattering and talking excitedly like so many magpies. Many of the women have employed attorneys and are demanding jury trials, leaving the judge with weeks of work ahead of him.
“It seemed as if the whole of criminal Whitechapel had turned out to see what the law would do.”
This raid occurred in the area historically known as Whitechapel, a district long since redeveloped. The aggressive moral policing of women, often targeting specific ethnic groups, serves as a stark reminder of Seattle’s history of selective law enforcement.
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