A Scandalous Escape and Elopement in Tacoma
A prominent Tacoma man's affair with his friend's schoolmate ends in a bizarre jailhouse arrest after a botched elopement involving the man's own child.
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.
Minnie Collins, prominent in Ithaca, New York society, and Ernest N. Hazard, manager of the Edison water works, are in the county jail. Mrs. Hazard, an old schoolmate of Minnie, has brought suit for divorce. Miss Collins had been visiting the Hazards when she feigned a return trip to Ithaca; instead, she went to Hot Springs, where Hazard met her, and they returned to Tacoma under aliases. Hazard told his wife he was going to Seattle on business. When Mrs. Hazard discovered he had taken their two-year-old child, Percy, she alerted authorities. The couple was found at the Occidental Hotel where they had been living in squalid conditions. Blankets were hung over the windows, and the child was found in a starving condition, suffering from cold and diarrhea. Miss Collins was arrested after she tried to hide under a bed, which authorities ultimately had to carry away to extract her. Both were remanded to jail in default of bail.
“Miss Collins crawled under a bed when the officer appeared to arrest her before daylight this morning. She refused to come out, and the bed had to be carried away to reach her.”
This story highlights the sensationalized reporting of 'morals' and domestic strife in the 1890s. It reflects a time when private marital infidelity was a matter of public, lurid record, often used to shame the women involved while focusing on the property holdings of the men.
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