The Boarding House Brawl
A Seattle assault case takes a surreal turn when a local judge publicly accuses a witness of perjury but refuses to punish her because he has become 'accustomed' to it.
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 assault and battery trial came to an abrupt and unusual termination in Justice Moderberg's court last night. The court, after getting at the facts in the case, barred the complainants and cited the defendant. The defendant was Mrs. Hendricks, whose husband kept a boarding house on Second Street. The complainant was Mrs. Watson. The latter testified that she and her husband had been at the boarding house, and at that time, Mrs. Hendricks had tried to collect pay for the rent. The witness and her husband decided to leave and went to the boarding house to obtain a settlement. The plaintiff claimed that Mrs. Watson presented a bill for the board of herself and husband and demanded some of the money of her wages. Mrs. Hendricks refused and claimed a scuffle followed. Mrs. Hendricks claimed she was pushed out of the room, and as she was near the door, she fell and bruised herself. She asserted that Watson then raised a board as though to strike her, when her husband ran up and stopped the row. Watson claimed that Mrs. Hendricks got part way out of the room and put her foot in the door to prevent it being closed. Her foot was caught and she fell. He said he picked up a board to barricade the door and had no intention of hitting her. After hearing the testimony, Justice Moderberg fined Mrs. Hendricks, the complaining witness, part of the amount of the costs. He also made something of a sensation by accusing her of perjury, stating that in any other country it would have sent her to prison. He said, however, that it was such an everyday occurrence for witnesses to perjure themselves that he had grown accustomed to it and was obliged not to notice it, as he had found that it was impossible to punish them.
“It was such an everyday occurrence for witnesses to perjure themselves that he had grown accustomed to it and was obliged not to notice it.”
The casual nature of Justice Moderberg’s admission regarding systemic perjury mirrors contemporary frustrations with judicial accountability. Just as in 1888, the volatile friction between landlords and tenants—particularly regarding board, rent, and perceived debt—remains a central, combustible issue in Seattle's housing landscape.
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