Sappho Turtle, Jailed for “No Soup” 12 Years Ago, Found Under City Scales.
Soup For Firemen.
    Police records from the dim ages past, dim because they are 12 years old, were exhumed today in the search for the history of Sappho, the snapping turtle that was dug out of the mud underneath the old city scales that are being removed from the police station.
    According to the records, which are meager and had to be completed by the oral testimony of Judge Walter A. Taylor and Police Captain Thomas Kennedy. Sappho was captured 12 years ago by the then assistant chief of police Thomas Tyrrel. She was a mere infant and was practically worthless as a “soup bone” so she was sentenced to a few years in the basement of the city jail.
    Uncomplaining, Sappho was taken to the basement cell and incarcerated in an old wash tub. But the police forgot to clip her toe nails and Sappho decided that the city jail was no place for a respectable female turtle so she crawled out and the police searched in vain for 12 long years. Their labors were rewarded yesterday when they located Sappho, a goodly growth of moss covering her hard shell back, hidden under the scales. She had grown to be quite a girl now and is destined to be soup for the fire department.
    The records show that she was jailed August 13, 1911, but no charge was preferred against her. Fearing trouble because of this, the police reporter started out to discover the reason for her being locked up. In Judge Taylor’s diary is the following notation:
    “August 13, 1911. Today sentenced Sappho Turtle to 10 years in the cooler on raw beefsteak. Complaint-no soup.”
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