A Scandal in Tacoma: The Gun-Toting Wife and the 'Typewriter'
A Peruvian socialite hunts down her husband’s suspected mistress in a public scene of jealousy and potential violence.
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.
The Peruvian prime minister's cousin, Louis G. Monterosa, this morning promised in the police court to mend his ways, and the charge of adultery being withdrawn by Mme. Monterosa, the prisoner was allowed to go. Mme. Monterosa had accused him of intimacy with a pretty typewriter, Mrs. Hudgins, and she caused him to be arrested on a charge of adultery. Then she started out to revenge herself on the woman who had won Monterosa's affections. She was armed and proposed to shoot. In Mrs. Hudgins' apartments she found two women, and, not being sure which was the guilty one, she decided not to kill either on the spur of the moment. While she was making further inquiry, Mrs. Hudgins was spirited away in a cab by her friends and the outraged wife has not been able to find her. With the woman out of the way, Mme. Monterosa was willing to allow Louis his liberty. Monterosa's mother died recently, leaving him a small fortune. He has been eking out a living here by teaching Spanish. He comes of one of the upper-ten families of Peru.
“She was armed and proposed to shoot.”
Public spectacles of 'scandalous' domestic disputes were a staple of 1890s press, often framing the private lives of women in terms of their morality. While the specific brand of 'gun-toting' tabloid drama has evolved, the public fascination with the private entanglements of the 'upper-ten' continues to dominate local media discourse today.
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