100 years ago in Spokane: Ungentlemanly bandit riles store clerk

If and when police caught a youthful bandit who held up the Monroe Park Grocery, the young store clerk, Miss Elizabeth Eichenauer, told the Spokane Daily Chronicle she had plans to make a special trip to the police station.

Why?

To give the bandit a piece of her mind for using swear words during the holdup.

“He was good looking but he swore at me when he went out,” Eichenauer said. “I hope they catch him. I’d tell him what I think of anyone who swears at a lady after treating her the way he treated me.”

The young bandit walked into the Monroe Park Grocery, and asked Miss Eichenauer if she had any money. “I thought he was joking, and I said, ‘No.’”

Then he stuck a gun in her face, and snatched $40 from the till. As he departed, he ordered her to stay where she was. She replied, “You needn’t worry, I’m not going to do anything.”

Then he said, “You’re damn right you aren’t.”

She said that “damn” is what really made her mad.

“I should think even a bandit could be a gentleman,” she said.