The Teenager Who Rushed Toward the Pen
A young drifter steals a horse in Yakima, only to be caught in Toppenish the very next morning.
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.
Between 10 and 12 o'clock Monday, someone entered the stable of P. J. Flint and took his horse, saddle, and bridle. Mr. Flint notified Deputy Sheriff Lincoln Dilley, who tracked the horse to the old town by noon. The sheriff caught the culprit at Toppenish early the next morning. He proved to be Julius Loeber, who claimed to be under fifteen years of age. Loeber admitted to stealing the horse, as well as a robe from the Hotel Yakima and a blanket from John Bartholet’s barn. Loeber stated he had left Helena with his brother to seek work in Seattle, but finding it not to his liking, had started to walk back. Deciding that riding would be more pleasant, he ended his journey facing a prison sentence.
“Reaching Yakima he made up his mind that riding would be much more pleasant, and as a consequence he rode into the shadow of the penitentiary.”
A stark example of how juvenile delinquency was handled in the 1890s, with young drifters fleeing poverty-stricken industrial conditions and ending up in the penal system, a persistent issue in American civic life.
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