The Repeat Offender and the Judge
A habitual offender known as 'Patsy' is back in court shortly after being ordered to leave Seattle, sparking a curious exchange with Judge Glasgow.
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.
Patsy Cammings, a well-known character on the Sound, was in city jail on account of his convivial habits when the Northwestern Industrial Army formed. Judge Glasgow had granted him release on the condition that he never show his face in Seattle again. Imagine the judge's surprise when he saw the identical Patsy in the prisoner's row yesterday afternoon. Patsy pleaded guilty to being intoxicated and claimed he had been held in county jail by Judge Hanford for sixty days. He requested twenty-four hours to try once more to get out of town, and the judge granted the request.
“I got out at 8 o'clock last night and took a couple of drinks of beer with some Tacoma friends and, well the police run me in. I wasn't drunk, but it don't make any difference.”
The practice of 'banishment' or 'move-along' orders for vagrancy or public intoxication was a common, if legally dubious, method of managing 'local characters' in early Seattle. Today, similar dynamics play out in the way municipal courts handle minor, poverty-related offenses, though the legal tools have shifted from banishment to the modern carceral and social service systems.
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