Four Shirts, Soft Hands, and Ten Years: Olympia Sends a Window-Smasher to the Penitentiary
A burglar who broke into two downtown jewelry stores and made off with a watch and some plated ware gets the maximum from Judge Robinson — and nearly faints when he hears it.
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.
It is altogether likely that thieves and hobos will hereafter steer clear of Olympia, and particularly of Judge Robinson. John Kane, who distinguished himself by boldly breaking the windows of Neuffer and Carlyon's jewelry stores, and stealing a watch from one and some plated ware from the other, will have sufficient time in the penitentiary to consider his faults and mend his ways. When he was arrested on Sunday evening he was as impudent as possible, and on being searched Captain Andrews found him clad in four shirts.
"You bet your boots. If there are any shirts in the country I'm going to have them," said the prisoner.
Yesterday morning Deputy County Attorney Milroy filed an information against him for burglary. In the afternoon he was arraigned and pleaded guilty, his probable object being to obtain a winter's lodging. Judge Robinson asked him if he had anything to say, and he replied that he was guilty. He had worked off and on for four years, but refused to tell the judge the nature of his industry. His hands were soft and white, and when the judge told him he could go to the penitentiary for ten years at hard labor, the prisoner nearly fell over.
Sheriff Prince was instructed to place him in the steel cell and see that he got to the penitentiary. "The judge is pretty hard on me," said the prisoner after he had recovered his composure. He was placed in the cell, and will accompany any others of his class who are sentenced to the home beyond the mountains.
“"You bet your boots. If there are any shirts in the country I'm going to have them."”
A smash-and-grab over a watch and a few plated spoons drew a decade of hard labor in 1892 Olympia — a sentence the prisoner seems to have invited in order to get a warm cell for the winter. The anecdote is a small window onto how brutally the era weighed property crime, and how thin the line was between petty theft, homelessness and a life sentence. Modern Thurston County arguments over bail, sentencing and housing the unhoused run straight through his four shirts and soft white hands.
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