Two Men Arrested for Assaulting Wives
Tacoma police jail two husbands following violent domestic disputes; both face immediate judgment in court.
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.
Two alleged wife-beaters were arrested yesterday and are now being held in the city jail awaiting trial before Judge Griffin. P. J. O'Brien and J. C. Curren are the names of the two men charged with the disgraceful offense. O'Brien was arrested early in the day by Officer Olson. It is said he went to his home in an intoxicated condition and proceeded to open hostilities. Mrs. O'Brien withstood her wrathful spouse as best she could, but was badly in need of repairs when the officer arrived on the scene. The Curren affair was identical with the O'Brien melee. Curren, it is charged, administered a brutal drubbing to his wife, and she, in desperation, sent her oldest boy to the police station for help. When Officers Foster and Hminus arrived, Curren had desisted but was still yelling verbal invective, calling his wife a 'low-down creature.' When Curren demanded to know the authority for his arrest, the officers forcibly carried him to the patrol wagon. Judge Griffin will deal with the pair tomorrow, and if the charges are proved, they will undoubtedly become members of the street sweeping force.
“Mrs. O'Brien withstood her wrathful spouse as best she could, but was badly in need of repairs when the officer arrived.”
Domestic violence reporting in 1904 often focused on 'intoxication' as the primary cause, while today's discourse acknowledges more complex patterns of power and control. The threat of public labor—'street sweeping'—as a form of punitive sentencing highlights a bygone era of penal practice in Tacoma.
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