The Midnight Theft on Eighth Street
A Seattle business partner loses his savings and his watch in a stealthy early-morning home invasion.
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.
Burglars entered the house of Capt. D.K. Howard on Eighth street, about 4 o'clock yesterday morning, and carried away a $100 gold watch and $25 in money belonging to John Schaffer, Mr. Howard's partner. His pantaloons were taken from his room upstairs, where he was sleeping, to the parlor below, where the pockets were rifled. When the milkman made his rounds at 4 o'clock in the morning, he found the kitchen window pried open and the back door ajar, and gave the alarm. There is no clue to the burglars.
“His pantaloons were taken from his room upstairs, where he was sleeping, to the parlor below, where the pockets were rifled.”
Residential burglaries remain a common concern in modern Seattle, though the 1889 method of rifling through trousers in a quiet parlor has been replaced by modern anxieties over property crime and home security. The mention of a 'milkman' discovering the crime highlights a lost rhythm of city life where daily delivery services served as the eyes and ears of the neighborhood.
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