The Great Blaine Trousers Heist
A group of burglars target a local drug store owner’s home with a very specific, bumbling objective: stealing the guests' pants.
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.
Burglars broke into the Roberts house last night, but contented themselves with stealing the pantaloons of the guests. It is evident that they are not novices at their profession. Between 11 and 12 o'clock, G. M. Roberts, before closing his drug store, took between $90 and $100 from the till and placed it in his trousers' pocket. The robbers, it is presumed, saw him and followed him to his home. Waiting until all was quiet they entered and gathered up all the bifurcated articles of male wearing apparel in sight and decamped, missing, however, the coveted article. Six pairs of pantaloons were stolen.
“The robbers... gathered up all the bifurcated articles of male wearing apparel in sight and decamped.”
Historical reporting of crime often focused on the absurdity of the theft rather than the underlying poverty that likely fueled it. The 'bifurcated articles' detail provides a stark look at the material stakes of life in a frontier town.
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