The Elopement That Baffled Tacoma and Seattle
A husband seeks his wife after she runs off with a gambler, only to find the new arrangement agreeable to all parties involved.
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 story connected with the arrest and release by the police of James Robinson, a Tacoma sport, is one of the strangest that has come to light for some time. It appears that a carpenter named Berry, together with his wife and three children, lived in Tacoma, and Robinson was taken into the family about a year ago. It was during Berry's absence last Sunday that Mrs. Berry and Robinson eloped, taking with them a little baby. They came direct to Seattle and stopped at the Alaska Hotel and then the St. Charles Hotel. The injured husband came to Seattle and put the case in Detective Cudihee's hands. Cudihee found Robinson in the Great Northern Saloon and arrested him. The next day, the wife met her husband at the station and told him she had rather live with the gambler. Berry took the decision in a philosophical manner, and they made arrangements about the disposal of property and the care of the children. After Robinson was released, the three left the station and walked down the hill together, and unless a new arrangement was effected, Robinson retained the woman.
“They talked the matter over, and according to Berry's story she told him she had rather live with the gambler. He took the decision in a philosophical manner.”
This 1893 domestic drama highlights the fluidity of social conventions in the raw, early days of Washington statehood, where law enforcement was frequently dragged into private moral disputes. The matter-of-fact reporting on the husband's 'philosophical' acceptance of his wife's departure reflects a time when private household authority was as much a civic concern as public theft.
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