Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Mrs. A.P. Ness, “a pretty young woman” on trial for assault, freely admitted that she whacked her landlady and gave her a black eye. But only after her landlady had called her “not decent” and hit her with a broom handle.

“I took the broom away from her and caught her by the neck,” she told the court. “Then I waded in and beat her with this fist and she cried for help and I let her up.”

She claimed that the landlady accused her of having a dirty house. She told Mrs. Ness that “respectable people would not leave the house dirty” and that Mrs. Ness was “not decent because anybody who used peroxide on their hair wasn’t decent.”

The judge found Mrs. Ness guilty but levied only a $1 fine.

From the bar fight beat: A Norwegian “giant” – 250 pounds and 6-foot-4 – laid waste to the Bar Bee Bar, breaking up the chairs, windows and even the pool table.

He was finally subdued by five police officers, but only after he had “tipped over the large coal stove, which was red hot, and threw it at Sergeant Bunker.”

The cause of his rage was unspecified.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1967: The U.S. space probe Mariner 5 flew past Venus.