A Ghastly Discovery in Tacoma
A railroad laborer found dead in a lodging house was subjected to post-mortem indignities, raising questions about his final hours.
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.
Tacoma, May 4 — John Dillon, a railroad laborer, was found dead this morning in a room over the Green Tree saloon. He had been dead for several hours. In a horrific scene, rats had gnawed holes in Dillon's fingers and toes, tracking blood onto the floor and into their holes. Dillon may have died from a dose of poison; he had been under a doctor's care for cramps and had been prescribed a liniment containing gelsemium. The druggist who prepared the medicine noted that the bottle appeared to have been tampered with. Coroner Hoska is expected to hold an inquest tomorrow.
“Worst of all, rats had added to the uncanny sight by gnawing holes in Dillon's fingers and toes, and then, with blood-wet feet, tracked about on the floor.”
Lodging houses over saloons were central to the migrant labor experience in the 1890s, offering precarious shelter to workers like Dillon. The grisliness of the discovery highlights the lack of safety nets and the isolation that often attended the lives of transients in the early industrial West.
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