A One-Legged Man, a Stolen Boat, and a Cork Leg to the Gut
A stolen rowboat, a determined owner, and a watchman with a wooden leg turn a quiet evening at the Madison Street slip into a comedy of errors.
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.
Hans Jensen's boat and Tom Dutton's cork leg caused trouble and fun combined at the city slip last evening. On November 21 last Jensen's boat was stolen from the foot of John Street in North Seattle. Detective Cudihee did some hard work on the case, but could not find the guilty party or a trace of the boat. Yesterday a boat sailed into the harbor from Kingston and landed at the slip at the foot of Madison Street. The occupant asked Tom Dutton, who keeps a stand nearby, to keep an eye on the boat. Not long after this, Hans Jensen, who had rowed to the city from Dogfish Bay, arrived in port and saw his boat. He recognized it and ran to the police station and then to the justice courts. All out of breath he told his story to Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Bass. Detective Cudihee was there and told the man he would go with him and see about the matter. When they reached the slip Jensen ran down to the boat ahead of Cudihee, and with one jump spanned the few feet separating her from the float and was on board. Imagine Cudihee's surprise at this moment to see a cork leg appear from somewhere on the boat, catch Jensen in the stomach and in a jiffy land him ashore. Despite the predicament of his client, Cudihee stood still for a moment and laughed until the tears stood in his eyes. Then he went down and found Tom Dutton and his cork leg in possession. Dutton insisted on holding the fort and Cudihee told him that, if the man who had the boat did not come back, he would take Dutton to the station. Dutton said Cudihee wouldn't and asserted that he was a puncher. Cudihee did not doubt it after seeing Jensen knocked out. Pretty soon M. Hauan, who came with the boat from Kingston, arrived, and refused to deliver the boat into Jensen's possession, claiming that he had purchased it in good faith, and that Jensen must prove ownership. Then Cudihee took Hauan and Jensen to headquarters. 'Hold on,' yelled Dutton, 'who's going to take care of the boat?' Cudihee replied that Dutton was now custodian for him. Hauan was locked up at headquarters on a warrant charging grand larceny.
“Imagine Cudihee's surprise at this moment to see a cork leg appear from somewhere on the boat, catch Jensen in the stomach and in a jiffy land him ashore.”
A stolen boat, a mistaken identity, and a prosthetic leg used as a weapon—this is the kind of hyperlocal, absurd crime blotter that made 1890s Seattle papers so readable. The waterfront at Madison Street was a busy place for such scrapes, and the story's humor lies in the collision of a serious theft charge with the slapstick of a man defending someone else's boat with his wooden leg.
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