Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The 45-year-old heir of a wealthy Spokane family was frittering away his fortune at a shocking rate: $80 per hour, according to a headline.

Frank Laws, 45,  had been left $80,000 by his father. Police said they received a tip from one of his friends and discovered him in his usual condition: drunk and surrounded by “the vampires and parasites who prey upon him while in his cups.”

Laws was attending a party in a lodging house, woozily writing checks and passing them out “gratuitously” to three women and two men.

He apparently had $80 in cash when he entered the party. When police arrived, he had 50 cents.

Police arrested him for his own protection, and not for the first time. Police had locked him up several times “to save him” from dissipating his entire fortune while drunk. The amount he gave away in checks was unknown.

From the dogfight beat: Humane Society officials warned of a new trend in North Idaho towns: dogfighting.

Pit bull terriers, trained in Spokane to fight to the death, were being sent to Idaho towns for this “brutal and degrading sport.”

Some dog owners were even putting poison on the hair of their animals, to further injure opponents.