The Amazon of Second Street

Policeman Brooks has a sore head and a pair of blackened eyes, the result of attempting to arrest a man who happened to have a colored amazon for a wife. The battle occurred in front of the Occidental Hotel building, on Second Street near Yesler Avenue, and was witnessed by at least 1,000 highly interested spectators. Officer Brooks, who is a small man, was returning home about 5 o'clock in the evening when he saw two white men biting, slugging and clawing each other like demons on the pavement. Standing at one side was a colored woman urging 'Ed,' one of the men, who was bleeding at the nose, to break the other fellow in two and throw the ends away. Officer Brooks rushed up and parted the men. He hung on to 'Ed,' but the other man ran away and could not be found. Up to this time, the colored woman had taken no part in the fight, but when she saw the officer was bent on taking 'Ed' to prison, her eyes flashed fire. Then, for one short second, there was a cyclone of black legs, arms and white skirts. She shot out her fists, a la Dempsey, and the officer's hat went flying out in the mud. 'You arrest my husband, will you? I'se black, I is, but I'll learn every white policeman he'd better leave my Ed alone!' and again the long arms shot out like piston rods. The officer was powerless. He would not strike the woman, though he could have done so, and the crowd jeered unsympathetically. Just then Captain Rent and Officers Sanstrom and Osborn arrived and took the belligerent woman and her white husband to the lock-up. The man said his name was Ed J. Jones, but the woman said, 'My name is Sallie Doe, like all the other folks say who get put in the calaboose.'