Lodging House Feud Escalates in Seattle Courts
Seattle jury acquits lodging-house manager Henry Williams, who then has accuser Louis Martin arrested for assault.
Justice Hancock Neagle and a jury yesterday tried and acquitted Henry Williams, manager of the Fashion lodging house, Washington street, on charges made by Louis Martin. The complainant alleged that he had had some words with the defendant on a matter connected with renting rooms at the Fashion, and that the latter had struck him first with a piece of coal and then with some blunt instrument. He exhibited in evidence a scalp wound with five stitches in it. Some witnesses were produced who testified that the defendant had struck no blow, and the jury acquitted him. Immediately thereupon the defendant had the plaintiff arrested on the charge of assault and threatening to kill, and Martin will be tried by Justice Neagle at 1 o'clock today.
“Immediately thereupon the defendant had the plaintiff arrested on the charge of assault and threatening to kill.”
Lodging houses were the essential, often transient, housing of early 1890s Seattle. The legal tit-for-tat between a landlord and tenant over rooming disputes captures the intense interpersonal friction common in the city's crowded, quickly built boarding districts.
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