Knockout Drops and a Beating in the Lumber Yards
Two railroad men lost a week's wages in two nights behind Newport's main street — one drugged in a saloon, one knocked down and stripped of his new mackinaw.
Another case of rolling occurred on Tuesday night in the lumber yards just back of the main street. A railroad laborer lost his shoes, hat and what money he had on his person. An attempt was also made to relieve the man of a new mackinaw that he had purchased. He made a fight to regain his property, but was knocked down and badly bruised for his trouble.
A railroad laborer who had just returned from Blueslide, where he had been working for some time, was rolled for over $100 on Monday night. He claims to have been drinking in one of the resorts and thinks that he was given knockout drops.
“He claims to have been drinking in one of the resorts and thinks that he was given knockout drops.”
A railroad crew's payday was cash in a pocket, and the dark ground between the yards and the saloons was where it got taken. The two cases here — one drugged, one beaten — describe the same economy that shadows any boom town: transient labour, cash wages, and a nightlife district happy to relieve a man of both. Newport's yards are quiet now, but the shape of the story hasn't changed much.
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