The Criminal Odyssey of 'Little Tom' Wallace
From stealing famous paintings in San Francisco to robbing a Seattle hotel, the notorious career of a career burglar ends in a local cell.
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.
Detective Edward Cudihee left for Portland yesterday to secure 'Ted' McClelland, one of the men who aided in the larceny of money from a store window a week ago Saturday. With McClelland captured, all three accused are in jail. Jennings, who admits he hid in the store and stole the jar, is one of the most notorious criminals in the United States. His real name is Thomas Wallace, and he is a graduate of the San Francisco industrial school. His crimes include the 1876 larceny of the famous painting 'Elaine' by Toby Rosenthal, valued at $27,000. He later burglarized the Occidental Hotel in Seattle and a hotel in Portland, for which he served four years in the Oregon penitentiary. Wallace is considered one of the smartest hotel workers in the country, known for carrying his 'nips'—the tools of his trade.
“Wallace is one of the smartest hotel workers in the United States. He always carries the tools of his trade with him in the shape of a pair of 'nips'.”
Historical crime reporting often romanticized 'smart' criminals while detailing their sordid pasts. The description of 'hotel workers' or burglars provides a window into the urban crime waves that accompanied Seattle's rapid expansion in the 1890s.
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