The Pugilist's Revenge
A Tacoma man finds a lawyer in his wife's rooms and responds by destroying the visitor's clothing in a stove.
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.
'Jumbo' Cantwell tonight found a young lawyer who had been interested in the settlement of the estate of Harry Morgan in Mrs. Cantwell's rooms. He immediately set about and thrashed the lawyer and then stuffed the latter's fur overcoat, hat and gloves into a stove and burned them. The lawyer fled. Mrs. Cantwell went to look for Judge Reed of the municipal court, but no warrants were issued. A few weeks ago Cantwell, returning from San Francisco, was enraged at Mrs. Morgan's conduct during his absence. She fired several shots from a revolver at him. Later he married her at Victoria. She denied this. According to the original arrangement the fact of the marriage was not to be made known until Harry Morgan's estate was settled.
“He immediately set about and thrashed the lawyer and then stuffed the latter's fur overcoat, hat and gloves into a stove and burned them.”
This domestic feud reads like early-century tabloid fodder. It highlights how the era’s 'estates' and personal legal matters were often settled with physical confrontation rather than just paperwork, a stark look into the volatile social landscape of boomtown Tacoma.
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