Boy bandits find grown-up justice

Nov. 25, 1893: Three boys who, in broad daylight on horseback, approached a Chinese vegetable salesman and robbed him of his watch and $28.50 appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court, where each was held on $1,000 bail, The Times reported.

“Clyde Ewing, Al Page and William Emmet, would-be desperadoes and dime-novel heroes, were treated to a chapter in real life, the like of which they undoubtedly failed to find between the yellow covers of the literature with which they have been storing their minds of late,” the newspaper said.

“When the courts get through with them it is more than probable that the romantic part of their experience will have been entirely lost sight of. The youthful trio belong to that class of boys who ever long to attain a reputation of the ‘blood, fire and murder’ order by daring exploits in emulation of the example of all the noted highwaymen they may have read about.”