A False Hotel Job and a 15-Year-Old's Narrow Escape
Ida Embertson came from Snohomish expecting work at the Northern Hotel. Police said U. Morton met her and took her to a lodging in a low district; both were arrested.
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 arrest of U. Morton and Ida Embertson has furnished a story that has few parallels in this city. The girl is pretty, only 15 years old. Morton, it is claimed, wrote to her under an assumed name that he had secured a place for her at the Northern Hotel. She came to the city, and the next day met Morton, who, it is alleged, took her to a lodging in the low district. Officer Corbett heard of the matter and arrested both Morton and the young girl. She was placed in the charge of Matron Taylor and did not seem to realize how near she was to being ruined. Her mother is in Snohomish, unfortunately having left the city the day before her daughter arrived.
“Her mother is in Snohomish, unfortunately having left the city the day before her daughter arrived.”
The “hotel job” that was not a job is an old Seattle story: a rural teenager, a city stranger, and a thin safety net. Then as now, the press often framed the girl's danger as a matter of reputation; the record at least preserves the police matron and the arrest.
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