The Chambermaid’s Lock: A Seattle Hotel Guest’s Brutal Mistake

Hotel chambermaids have a somewhat hazardous occupation down in San Francisco, judging from the following story given in the Call:

If Charles Roe, a wealthy Chicagoan who was a guest at the Hotel Plaza, could have the opinions expressed by the lady guests of that fashionable caravansary, he might consider himself the brute he is charged with being. According to the former, Mr. Roe is a mean, bad thing, a brute, a villain, and other distasteful titles.

Fortunately for Mr. Roe, these phrases remain in the realm of words, and he is speeding back to Chicago to attempt to escape the effects of a $10,000 lawsuit filed against him yesterday by Miss Lillie H. Boyd, a chambermaid at the hotel, who accuses him of severely beating her.

Through her attorneys, Messrs. Knight and Hooper, the lady filed her action, alleging that he unlawfully and brutally beat her, much to her bodily pain and suffering, and as a result she is confined to her bed and will not be able to attend business for many days, and that she has expended the sum of $150 on doctors' bills.

A pretty good story of a much-injured chambermaid and a violent man under fire illustrates the filing of the suit. On Tuesday last Miss Boyd in the course of her employment had occasion to enter Mr. Roe's room. Believing him to be out she opened the door and entered, but was surprised to see the defendant asleep on his couch. She deposited some clean towels on the bed and shut out of the room for fear she might awaken Mr. Roe, whose drunkenness was known to the servants of the hotel.

In her excitement, by force of habit, she locked the sleeper in. When he attempted to leave some minutes later, he was astonished to find himself a prisoner. He became insanely furious and nearly broke the call bell in an effort to let himself out.

The 'women' came rushing down the hall with ice water, hot water, and a bill of fare, and other necessaries usually provided for by the guests. When he arrived outside Mr. Roe's apartment, they were commanded on pain of instant death to release its inmate. The quaking bellboy rushed in after Miss Boyd, and after some delay found her. He explained to her the state of affairs and she, remembering to her sorrow that she had locked the door, tried to repair her mistake by unlocking the door. Her apologies, although profuse, only drove Mr. Roe into a further frenzy, and forgetting her and his own gallantry, he roughly caught her and threw her on the floor.

Her screams attracted a male guest, who grabbed the infuriated man before he could wreak any more injury on the maid, and by trial to make amends for his hasty action, but the maid would have none of it. The shock to her nerves, the bump on her head, and a slight injury to her back necessitated her taking to her bed, where she remains being attended by a number of physicians whose bills she thinks will aggregate $150.