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The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, July 9, 1864

YOUNG OFFENDER

While we were lounging in the City Jail yesterday afternoon, Officer Cook brought in a little girl, not more than seven or eight years old, whom he had arrested for stealing twenty-five dollars from a man in an auction-room the day before. She gave her name as Amelia Brown Wascus, and seemed to be a half breed Indian or negro - probably the latter, if one may judge by the kind of taste she displayed in laying out the stolen money, for she had spent a portion of it in the purchase of a toy hand organ with limited accomplishments, and those of a marked contraband tint - the same being indexed on the back of the plaything as "Buffalo Gals," and "My Pretty Yaller Gals." She had expended about fifteen dollars for various trinkets, and the balance of the money had been recovered by Officer Cook from the child's mother. Amelia cried bitterly all the time she was in the station-house, but she said nothing, and appealed for no compassion save in the pleading eloquence of her tears. She was taken to the Industrial School, and her accomplice - for it seems she had one of about her own age and sex - will follow her if she can be found.

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