The Short-Lived Reign of the 'Hotel Barber' Scoundrel
After five weeks of marital and managerial incompetence, a Seattle hotel proprietor's husband is sent packing—without the horse he tried to steal.
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.
T. J. Spencer, the barber, who married Mrs. T. Pyle, proprietress of the Aurora hotel about five weeks ago, left the city Sunday evening, to remain. Spencer was not a veteran landlord, and the fine business of the house fell off at a lively rate under his management. Neither was he a satisfactory husband, and when he informed his bride at the table Thursday that he had a wife and two children elsewhere, she invited him to depart. He demanded a farewell gift of a horse, but got nothing. He bought a railroad ticket for Umatilla, and his supposed destination is Illinois. Spencer is thought to have put away a snug sum out of the hotel earnings during his brief career as a Boniface. Mrs. Pyle, an estimable woman, is to be congratulated on her riddance of the scoundrel.
“Spencer was not a veteran landlord, and the fine business of the house fell off at a lively rate under his management. Neither was he a satisfactory husband.”
The struggle of small business owners facing financial mismanagement by partners or spouses is a timeless domestic drama. While the terminology—'Boniface' for an innkeeper—has faded, the vulnerability of women business owners in the 19th century regarding marriage and property mirrors the ongoing necessity for financial autonomy.
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