A Night at the 'Mid-Way'
Police raid a notorious variety house gambling den, only to discover the house had been robbed by its own patrons.
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.
While the mayor’s message was boasting that gambling had been successfully suppressed, police were raiding the gambling den of the Mid-Way variety house in Seattle. The game had been operating openly since November. Detective Cuddy, perhaps doubting the mayor's claims, raided the place and arrested Ralph Vaughn, the dealer. It appears that the night before, a group of men had been 'crap shooting' when one of them robbed the game of $100. By cutting a hole through the back of the table drawer, the thief made off with the cash and a six-shooter. The police had been kept in the dark until their sudden raid revealed the operation.
“Detective Cuddy must have heard of the proud claim of the mayor concerning the purity of the police department, for he displayed remarkable energy.”
The irony of a mayor's 'clean city' proclamation being immediately punctured by a police raid is a timeless political trope in Seattle, echoing the city's long history of tension between progressive optics and vice economy.
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