A Leap from the Window at 1718 Madison
Assistant city electrician E.C. Buckley barely escaped a brutal assault after his landlord, driven by baseless jealousy, armed himself and hunted him down.
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.
E. C. Buckley, assistant city electrician, lies at Providence hospital suffering from terrible injuries inflicted yesterday by H. H. Burt, who was maddened with drink and jealousy. Buckley has roomed with the Burt family at 1718 Madison street for eight months, and of late Mr. Burt has become imbued with the idea that there was undue intimacy between his wife and their roomer. For the last three days, Burt had been sitting by a table with a large knife, muttering threats. Yesterday afternoon, Buckley returned home to find Burt waiting for him. A struggle ensued, and Buckley was forced to jump from his second-story window to the ground to escape. He struck the ground and broke his leg, leaving him helpless. Burt pursued him, beating him until bystanders from a Madison streetcar intervened. Buckley maintains his only relationship with Mrs. Burt was one of neighborly kindness, including fetching medicine for her sick child. Burt is now in jail.
“If he had a family and was a man he would protect his honor.”
This incident occurred in the First Hill neighborhood, an area now dominated by high-density residential and medical infrastructure. It serves as a jarring reminder of how the 'boarding house' era, where strangers shared domestic space, frequently dissolved into domestic violence fueled by the era's possessive, patriarchal view of marriage.
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