The Case of the Stolen Stick of Wood
An overzealous police officer makes an arrest for the theft of a single stick of wood, only for the municipal court to dismiss the case with a blessing.
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.
Officer John said yesterday, 'I have been reading the Post-Intelligencer, and I made up my mind that no guilty man, or woman either, should escape.' John's remark was made just after coming out of the municipal court where Emma Williams, one of his prisoners, had just been discharged on the accusation of stealing a stick of firewood. The complaint was made by J. H. Gorman, a contractor, living at 321 Cherry. Mr. Gorman had been missing his wood, and as Mrs. Williams was a neighbor, he concluded that it would be well to have her arrested. The court, when it heard that the amount stolen was just one lone stick, concluded not to assert its prerogative and dismissed Emma almost with a blessing. Officer John maintained that he had done right. 'The Post-Intelligencer is all the time growling about our not making arrests. It is a sin to steal a pin,' he added reflectively.
“It is a sin to steal a pin.”
This story serves as a darkly comedic look at the historical pressure on police to produce 'results'—a tension between performative law enforcement and actual justice that continues to plague Seattle's modern civic dialogue.
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