The Brutal Betrayal of Ida Bracken
A husband forces his wife into prostitution before assaulting her in a notorious district rooming house.
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.
Ralph Ross was to have had an examination before Justice Green yesterday morning, upon a charge of threatening to kill Ida Bracken, but the case was compromised by Ross pleading guilty to assault and battery and paying a fine of $10. It is about six months since Ralph Ross, one of the most despicable of two-legged beings, married under an assumed name the girl Ida Bracken, at that time virtuous and innocent. He brought her over here from the Sound country, and by brutal treatment forced her into a life of prostitution. As a natural result she soon refused to be hampered by Ross, and being cast off he tried to get even by brutally assaulting her at her room in the notorious joint over Henry Meyer's saloon, corner of Second and Washington streets. When the miserable whelp was brought face to face with the law, he whined and begged until the woman he had ruined agreed to the compromise spoken of above.
“One of the most despicable of two-legged beings, married under an assumed name the girl Ida Bracken.”
The intersection of 2nd and Washington in Pioneer Square was the heart of Seattle's 'notorious' district in 1884. The paper's stark, unvarnished coverage of Ross’s exploitation of his wife highlights the extreme vulnerability of women in the early frontier city, where domestic abuse was often dismissed as a mere police matter.
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