Take a nostalgic trip back in time to explore criminal activity from 100 years ago
While real time travel isn’t possible, you can go back in time through the files of newspapers and magazines and compare problems from 100 years ago with today.
A look back is always fun and it is even easier now that I can call up the archives of the Belleville News-Democrat at home through the Belleville Public Library system.
While we have fewer chicken thieves these days, we do have other ways to steal. And just like there always is someone interested in taking your money now, there were plenty of scams back 100 years ago.
In March of 1920, the News-Democrat reported on an illegal gambling establishment whose intent to garner money from patrons went awry. The establishment was just outside East St. Louis, in what now is Alorton, and was touted as a soft drink parlor. But craps was the real purpose of the venture.
A visitor from Toledo, Ohio, somehow had an amazing streak of luck and with some friends took away more than $13,000 in two nights, pretty much defeating the purpose of the game for the owners. That translated to more than $175,000 when adjusted for inflation through the years, according to a website called Dollar Times.
To add more injury, the county sheriff had the game stopped when he heard about it. The newspaper also had a feature on A.C. Bunsen, formerly of Belleville, who was in the canary raising business.
“Although in the business of raising canaries for more than twenty-five years, beginning in Springfield, Ill., and later moving to Detroit, Mr. Bunsen did not enjoy pronounced success until the recent rage for canaries in theaters and restaurant,” the paper noted.
Thus he was here to buy all the singing canaries he could to supplement the 1,000 or so he raised every year, he said.
Another story headline had me confused as it said that the local American Legion post was going to get rifles for its firing squad. Who were they going to execute, I thought?
But it turns out that the firing squad was to fire the ceremonial three volleys at funerals not to punish errant members.
The U.S. War Department would provide 10 rifles along with ammunition to any post which needed them. The rifles would help clear up a sticky situation for the George E. Hilgard post in Belleville as it appeared they had borrowed rifles from all over.
“Last Fourth of July the post’s firing squad borrowed the six rifles of the Hecker (Legion) Post and lost them at the Fair Grounds,” the story read. “In order to make part restitution to the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic (a civil war veterans group) the legion post also would get four rifles seized as evidence during the East St. Louis race riots.
Army musicians, AWOL privates, Daylight Savings Time
In other military news, “Chance for Tooters to Join Army,” a headline said. Not that kind of tooting. The Army was looking for musicians for the Army band. The pay ranged from $36 to $81 a month.
And two privates from Fort Omaha, Nebraska, were arrested in Belleville for being absent without leave so they could visit the girls they left behind. Although they were in jail for a while, friends, along with the girls they came to visit, later drove them to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis.
Finally, back then, Daylight Saving Time was new, having been introduced during World War I but already it had its critics.
The newspaper noted, “The weatherman’s notion of daylight saving is matched by that of the pious old lady who ‘Hopes the government won’t begin to fuss with the time’ as she wants her clock to run “just as the Lord intended it should.’”
Amen.