Blood and Bullets at the Race Track
A Sunday prize fight in Seattle turned into a chaotic brawl when a ringside gambler pulled a revolver and fired indiscriminately into the crowd, leaving three men wounded.
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.
The Seattle-Britton match ended in a serious row. The prize fight near the race track Sunday evening between William Scott of Seattle, known as 'Scotty,' and Frank Britton of Toronto, whose slangy cognomen is 'the kid,' ended in a disgraceful general fight, during which three men were shot, one of them quite seriously wounded. It had been previously announced that the fight would take place after a horse race, which was evidently gotten up so that the presence of the crowd at the track might be easily explained to any prying officers. After the race, the crowd, about 200 in number, adjourned to Chase's hotel, a hostelry near the track, and a ring was pitched in one of the rooms. When Scott and Britton entered the ring a dispute arose regarding the selection of a referee. After much wrangling Teddy Guthrie was chosen. During the fourth round, the sluggers clinched, and both refused to lead out in the break away. Scott secured a left hold and threw Britton, who immediately demanded the fight on a foul. This demand Guthrie refused to accede to, and a fight between him and Britton began. Britton led off with his right and hit Guthrie on the side of the head, and the referee retaliated with a kick on Britton's stomach. This began a general rough-and-tumble fight. Part of the crowd drifted into an adjoining room, when one of their number, Bob White, a 'booster' for a shell game, drew his revolver and fired six shots indiscriminately into those who surrounded him. The sound of the shooting spread consternation among the crowd, and a stampede ensued. When the rooms were cleared, it was found that Tom and Frank Clancy and James Maxwell, well-known sports, had been shot, all of them in the leg. The only one seriously wounded was Maxwell.
“The race was evidently gotten up so that the presence of the crowd at the track might be easily explained to any prying officers.”
While legal, high-stakes prize fighting is a staple of modern entertainment, this 1890 report captures the era's 'Wild West' atmosphere where unregulated gambling, sport, and violence often collided on the fringes of an expanding city. The use of a 'sham' horse race to evade police scrutiny mirrors the underground nature of illicit economies that, while differently structured today, remain a persistent feature of urban police reports.
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