The Tragedy on Howard Street
A household servant disappears after a toddler dies from arsenic poisoning.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Richard Parker, the infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Parker, who live on Howard street near Fifth, died at 1 o'clock yesterday morning from a dose of "rough-on-rats." It is suspected that a 14-year-old Swedish servant girl, who was employed to take care of the baby, gave the poison to her charge in order to get rid of it and thus lighten her duties about the house. The girl has disappeared. Sunday afternoon about 2 o'clock Mrs. Parker, who was downstairs, heard the baby, who was upstairs, crying and choking. She went to care for it and found the girl trying to give it a drink of water. It had some brown powder in its mouth which looked like rough-on-rats. The infant went into spasms, and Dr. E. F. Stevens was called. He worked with the child for two hours, giving it an emetic and applying the stomach pump. The baby finally showed signs of recovering, and the doctor went away. About 10 o'clock, however, a change for the worse again set in, and Dr. P. B. M. Miller and Dr. H. Davis were called. They declared that the infant had been poisoned, and their efforts to save its life were fruitless. Yesterday morning Coroner Horton held a post-mortem examination, and traces of arsenic poisoning were discovered.
“The infant went into spasms, and Dr. E. F. Stevens was called. He worked with the child for two hours, giving it an emetic and applying the stomach pump.”
This horrific incident highlights the precarious reliance on under-aged, live-in domestic help in the 19th century, a common but often invisible pillar of middle-class household stability. While the details of the story reflect the era's tabloid-style reporting on domestic servants, it marks a grim moment of tragedy in a neighborhood that has since been completely subsumed by the urban core.
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