The Marriage Trials of Jack and Mrs. Smith
A domestic dispute over alleged infidelity and threatening letters spills into open court, captivating a curious Walla Walla public.
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.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith, who have aired their marital troubles through the columns of the newspapers of late, regaled a curious crowd with past events in their lives in Judge Huffman's court this afternoon. Mr. Smith had his wife arrested on a charge of threatening his life and asked that she be placed on bonds to keep the peace. The events, she threatened him divers times, happened so long ago that witnesses were at a loss even to recall the months in some instances. Testimony in the shape of letters the principals have been sending back and forth were introduced to the merriment of the crowd, as some of them savored of sensationalism and vulgarity. Especially so was a note Mrs. Smith mailed her husband in March in which she addressed him as 'Husband Jack, now a Macque' and informed him that she had just bought a revolver and would use it if he did not quit flirting with the girls. Up to going to press, no decision had been rendered.
“Mrs. Smith mailed her husband in March in which she addressed him as 'Husband Jack, now a Macque' and informed him that she had just bought a revolver and would use it if he did not quit flirting with the girls.”
Publicizing marital grievances through letters and newspaper columns was a common, if voyeuristic, form of civic entertainment in the early 20th century. Today's digital equivalent involves social media disputes, but the human desire to consume and comment on the private failures of neighbors remains remarkably unchanged.
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