City Lawlessness

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 4, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 18.

City Lawlessness.—Of conditions in San Francisco, the daily Examiner says that “the present conditions resemble those of a lawless mining-camp rather than those of a great and civilized city. Crimes of violence are of almost daily occurrence. Footpads ply their trade with as little danger of being molested by the police as a carpenter or blacksmith going about his lawful work. Burglars break into houses, get away with their booty, and apparently have as little trouble in disposing of it as any merchant in selling his wares. Men are knocked down, shot, kicked and robbed, and nobody but the victim suffers for it. Robbers break store windows on the principal streets, walk away with what they can gather up, and are not molested.” Furthermore, the same journal says that “eighteen crimes of robbery, accompanied in most cases by violence, and in one case by murder, were committed in San Francisco in the first twenty-two days of March, and in only three of these cases were the criminals caught.”