>Old West Police Log

>Please enjoy some excerpts from May 1869:

May 13 – Hell hath poured forth her minions upon us and the cities have selected their most infernal and desperate villains and sent them forth to a congress of thieves to our town, to commit their most hellish deeds and daring robberies. Scarcely a night passes but someone is robbed or a house broken into and plundered. The utmost surveillance upon the part of our worthy officers hold crime in check, so long as they are watching. We now fill 12 out of 16 cells in the county jail, and if justice were done to a large number of men in our community, twice as many cells would be occupied, and five gallows as well.

Could you please tell me what the heck that means? Where is my 1869 to 2006 translator? I guess it’s not so much a police log as it is a op ed piece.

May 13 – An attempt was made by a whelp in this town, who is well known, to blackmail Frank Pauson out of $200. In doing this he has disgraced himself, but he has always been too lazy to earn a respectable living anyway.

Apparently the guy wasn’t that well known. No one knows what his name is now.

May 15 – On Thursday night somebody stole a revolver from J.S. Lord. If there is any city in California that can show a stronger record for thievery than Truckee, we want to know about it.

Wow. The bitterness just doesn’t lose flavor over time does it?

May 29 – The man who has been in the calaboose for the last ten days, on a charge of being a participant in the robbery of Campbell’s Truckee Hotel cellar, broke out of jail on Wednesday night by digging his way out through the door with a chisel, which was given him by someone on the outside. The other prisoner, who was in on a charge of petty larceny, crawled out through the hole and went up town and got a drink and then returned to his cell; he thought that the free board was too good a thing to be missed.

Calaboose?!? Is that like a jail made from a train car or something?