A Desperate End on the Waterfront
After allegedly being robbed of fifty dollars in Tacoma, a laborer was found nearly dead from a morphine overdose.
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.
An unknown man, who gave his name as McLaren and Seattle as his address, was found by the police on the Tacoma waterfront this morning in a semi-conscious condition. He complained that his leg was broken, and upon being taken to the police station, City Physician Armstrong was sent for and pronounced his leg uninjured but found him suffering from poisoning. Emetics were administered and in a very short time had taken such an effect that Dr. Armstrong pronounced him out of danger. In his pocket was found a card addressed to W. B. McLaren, Seattle, and on the obverse were these words: 'I have been robbed and done, so good-bye.' The card was one bearing an advertisement of a local drug store. There was also in the same pocket a small box labeled, '10 grains morphine.' At the drug store, all knowledge of the case is denied. Later in the day, the man said that he had come to the city with $50, had been robbed, and had bought 30 cents worth of morphine with which to commit suicide. The police are of the opinion that he had been on a protracted spree.
“I have been robbed and done, so good-bye.”
This account of a desperate man finding no support after losing his meager savings reflects the harsh reality of late-19th-century itinerant life in the Pacific Northwest. Today, the intersection of addiction, poverty, and lack of social safety nets remains a defining, and still unresolved, civic crisis in the same neighborhoods where these men once sought refuge.
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