Theft in the Evening Star, 1900 & 1920

In the 1900s, the language used regarding theft is pretty factual and straightforward. Of course, of all the 20 cases reviewed of that year, none of them were using violence for their theft, so no gun violence, no knife threats, or even physical assault. Even during the sentencing cases such as the Convicted of Theft, the article was straightforward, the offender admits the theft of stealing from a clothing store, and then the judge finds him guilty and allows the offender to choose either a $20 fine (roughly $750 in todays’ currency) or 60 days in prison (Convicted of Theft, 1900). Mostly all of the articles in the 1900s are like this, pretty tame and straight to the point of what occurred.

            In the 1920s, the language remains mostly unchanged. All 20 cases that were reviewed also had no involvement of violence in their theft which also aligns with the majority of cases with no identification of the offenders, so the publishers’ tone in these articles also remain pretty tame and straight to the point. The only exceptions to this are the Thieves Strip Automoblies While Owner is in Theater article where the publisher wrote a 708 word article about how a car was completely striped of their equipment with the tone of being fascinated yet distraught of this revelation (Thieves Strip Automoblies While Owner is in Theater, 1920), and the German Thieves Pilfer Grave of Gen. Von Moltke where the publisher is a bit melodramatic of how the once proud German state fell into such disarray after the war that the citizens are resorting to grave robbing a proud military figure just to get some money (German Thieves Pilfer Grave of Gen. Von Moltke, 1920).