A Night in the Ideal Saloon
When a woman in a Washington Street brothel suffered an overdose of morphine, the man who brought it to her fled in panic to the courts—only to be arrested himself.
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.
A man named Grant was taken into the custody of Officer Jones yesterday morning for giving an overdose of morphine to a woman known as 'Nellie,' an inmate of a brothel in the rear of the Ideal saloon on Washington Street. Nellie was a friend of his, and was confined to her bed by illness. He was attending her, and gave her morphine pills. He acknowledged that he had taken some himself, and could not remember how many he had given her. He went to sleep on a chair, and after some time was aroused by her heavy and stertorous breathing. Grant hastened for a doctor. The physician was unable to effect any immediate change for the better in the woman's condition, and the man became frightened and surrendered himself. He had a brief examination in justice court and was committed to jail until tomorrow to await a change in the woman's condition. She was removed to the home of her sister on the hill. The attending physician stated last evening that she would recover.
“He acknowledged that he had taken some himself, and could not remember how many he had given her.”
This 1888 incident captures the harsh reality of life in early Pioneer Square, where unregulated substances and precarious housing conditions intersected in ways that remain familiar to modern observers of Seattle's ongoing public health and homelessness crisis. The 'Ideal Saloon' and the surrounding district were centers of a transient, often desperate, economy that the city still grapples with today.
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