Twelve Days in Jail for a Drunken Woman—and the Men Who Walked Free
A Port Townsend letter protests a double standard after a woman is locked up for disorderly drinking while the town's inebriated men go unpunished.
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.
In this town there is a woman, Mrs. ——, who has endured many sad changes in life. She has been weighted down with trouble and disappointments, and has also become addicted to drink. A few weeks ago she was on a bender (of course no man gave her the liquor), was arrested and brought before a justice of the peace for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, and by a decree of said court was confined in durance vile twelve days in the county jail.
Now we believe that laws should be properly executed and all persons pay just penalty for crime. There should be no favored class before the law, nor one class persecuted by the law. It is a well-known fact that at times since the settlement of this town our streets have been disturbed, more or less, by drinking men, and nights made hideous by the idle talk and broils of the inebriates. But who has ever before remained in jail twelve days for drunkenness and disorderly conduct? Is it worse for a woman to get drunk, to swear or use vulgar language than it is for the Lords of creation? How does the treatment that has been dealt out to this unfortunate woman compare with the words that fell from the lips of our Savior to the guilty women of Jerusalem—'Go and sin no more'? If Mrs. —— should remain in jail until some PURE man, without sin, should unlock the door, how long would she remain there?
Port Townsend, W.T., Dec. 20th.
“Is it worse for a woman to get drunk, to swear or use vulgar language than it is for the Lords of creation?”
The letter's charge—that the law punished a vulnerable woman for public drunkenness while ignoring men's street disorder—echoes current debates over addiction, gender, and who gets jailed. It also shows how a small-town jail sentence could become a public argument about respectability and equal justice.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.