Monkeying with the Mocking Bird and Sweet Hallie – 1900
Sam’s Troubles
Visited Madame Goldsmith and Received a Beating
The article below appeared in The Missoulian on November 29, 1900:
29 Nov 1900, 3 – The Missoulian at Newspapers.com
“Ha yust het ma once pretty hard, yudge,” said Sam Stromberg to Justice Hayes in asking for a warrant for the arrest of Allie Goldsmith, a mixed blooded resident of the red light district.
Stromberg is an unsophisticated Swede who blew into town Tuesday with the closing of a saw mill where he worked. He began to see what the town was like by acting as longshoreman in unloading schooners; finally winding up at the resort of the woman which is situated at the tough end of Front street. While there trouble arose over some financial transaction and it ended by the “lady” beating the convivial Sam with an iron stove poker – according to Sam.
The woman was brought before the court to tell her part of the affray. There she demanded a jury trial and all other aids that an unjustly accused person is entitled to. The matter of a jury was taken under consideration by the court and the matter will be brought up tomorrow.
Sam Sorenson’s Sores.
He Monkeyed With the Mocking Bird and Sweet Hallie.
The article below appeared in The Missoulian on December 1, 1900:
01 Dec 1900, 1 – The Missoulian at Newspapers.com
Hallie Goldsmith, a dark skinned woman of West Front street, was yesterday fined $25 by a jury in the court of Justice Hayes on a charge of assault on Sam Sorenson.
Sorenson as a proof of the Amazonian tendencies of the woman displayed, as an exhibit to the jury, his head which carried the marks of severe usage in a varied display of cuts and bruises, which he alleged were made by an iron poker in the hands of the Goldsmith woman.
Naturally the woman denied the charge and testified that she had struck Sam twice: and then only with a piece of wood. But Sam’s injured head and a hat that appeared to have been burned by a hot iron overcame her story and she was levied on for $25 which she paid.