The Case of the Vanishing Drunkard
An officer leaves his post to call a patrol wagon for an unconscious man on the sidewalk, only to find the man gone when he returns.
Officer Thorne found a man lying on the sidewalk on South Third Street, between Yesler Avenue and Washington Street, last night about 11:30 o'clock, to all intents and purposes dead to the world through the imbibing of too much liquor. The officer used all the modern means known to the police to awaken the man, but they failed. Then he rushed to the nearest telephone and called the patrol wagon, intending to load his man as so much dead weight. The patrol wagon responded and the officer led the way to where his 'drunk' lay a moment before. The man was gone and Thorne is now trying to figure out how it happened.
“The man was gone and Thorne is now trying to figure out how it happened.”
Public intoxication was a constant target of late 19th-century Seattle policing, often resulting in arrest and fines. The officer's confusion mirrors the often chaotic, unrecorded, and transient nature of life in the pre-Klondike Gold Rush city.
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