The Perilous School Run
An innocent bystander is struck by birdshot from a gang of children wielding illegal weapons near the Denny School.
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.
The slungshot nuisance among school boys is often bitterly complained of. Yesterday afternoon Adolph Minch, who is a petit juror in Judge Osborn's court and who lives at 314 Union street, was the unfortunate victim of a mob of boys armed with these pestiferous weapons. Mr. Minch was going to North Seattle and while passing the Denny school on Fourth street noticed a crowd of twenty or thirty boys who had evidently just been let out. He passed on and had gone about twenty paces when he felt a stinging sensation in the back of his head and a shock as though a bullet had struck him. Blood poured down the back of his neck from two ugly wounds back of his ear. As he turned he saw one of the boys put something in his pocket, which evidently was a slungshot. Mr. Minch complained to Prof. Jones, of the Denny school, but was unable to state definitely who committed the assault. Bird shot were used and the wounds are very painful.
“Blood poured down the back of his neck from two ugly wounds back of his ear.”
Violence involving youth in school corridors was a civic nuisance then as it remains today, showing that anxieties about 'rowdy' behavior and school safety are recurring themes in Seattle urban life.
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