The Butcher's Close Shave
A drunken patron at the local butcher shop turned violent, leading to a physical altercation with the proprietor.
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.
On Saturday night last a man, who was loaded to the guards with fighting whiskey, attempted to carve Mr. Ellis, the butcher, with a razor. Mr. Ellis had already passed through the hands of a tonsorial artiste, and objected to any further shaving so vehemently that when he quit objecting his assailant looked as though he had gone through a Kansas cyclone.
“Mr. Ellis... objected to any further shaving so vehemently that when he quit objecting his assailant looked as though he had gone through a Kansas cyclone.”
This incident highlights the pervasive presence of 'fighting whiskey' and the frequent, often violent, nature of public intoxication that defined late 19th-century frontier commerce before prohibition efforts took hold in Washington.
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