A Wealthy Suitor, a Slashed Awning, and Twenty-One Counts of Jealousy
A prominent Seattle property owner is charged with shredding his ex-fiancée's store awning hole by hole, driven — she says — by jealousy of the man helping her run the shop.
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.
SEATTLE. Dec. 3. — The arrest of Charles Fierce, a wealthy and prominent citizen, residing at 119 Pine street, on a charge of malicious destruction of property, bids fair to develop into one of the most diverting court happenings of the season. Miss Mina C. Robbins, who owns and conducts a cigar and fruit stand at the corner of Third avenue and Seneca street, is the complaining witness, and she unfolds a tale of remarkable jealousy and vindictiveness on the one side and of detective work of Sherlock Holmes quality on the other. The affair, so far, has not ended happily for anybody.
The immediate charge brought against Mr. Fierce by Miss Robbins is the slashing of her store awning, and the awning in question certainly bears all evidence of the visit of a Jack the Slasher. It is a mass of slits and rents from end to end, and the patches are more numerous than the whole cloth. In order to make the damage a matter of record, Miss Robbins counted up the apertures the other day and found there were twenty-one. All of these she blames on Mr. Fierce.
"That man has just about killed me with worry," said she. "His actions made me ill in the hospital for a week."
Fierce is a nice-looking man, 40 years of age, and the owner of much city real estate. He has lived in Seattle about six years. The reason he assigned for his actions, when caught in the Diller cafe on Thanksgiving morning, was that he was very jealous of Mr. Anderson, whom I have helping me in the store. I knew Mr. Fierce last winter, and we were engaged to be married for a long time, but the engagement was afterward broken. He is so jealous of Mr. Anderson that he is endeavoring to put me out of business here, and that is the cause of his ruining the awning. One night he also took the stand on which I display fruit, threw it in the street and it was run over and smashed. He cut the side flap of the awning squarely in two and I had to take it down."
All of which, and doubtless more, will be brought out at the trial, if the matter is not settled out of court.
“That man has just about killed me with worry. His actions made me ill in the hospital for a week.”
A spurned suitor turned his jealousy on his ex-fiancée's storefront, slashing an awning to ribbons — petty property crime with an obsessive edge. It reads like a modern stalking complaint dressed in 1903 clothes: a wealthy man, a determined shopkeeper documenting every hole, and a broken engagement that would not stay buried.
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