100 years ago in Spokane: Two women who worked at a match factory duked it out in the street

Two women engaged in a brief but spirited boxing match in the street near Yardley.

Mrs. Hattie Francis explained what provoked the altercation between her and Mrs. A.A. Sharp, both employees of the area’s match factories.

“She lied about me,” Francis said. “There’s a truck driver for the company named Mr. Hidden, and he has been taking me to and from work to save car fares. This woman told other girls working that he was kissing me up and down Sprague Avenue. So I went up to her and said to her, ‘The next time you want to lie about somebody, you better pick out somebody your own size.’ And then I hit her.”

Mrs. Sharp apparently got the worst of the match, because she told police that Mrs. Francis was a “female Jack Dempsey.”

Mrs. Francis was arrested for assault and released on bond.

From the court beat: The jury foreman in the Jay Hough forgery case said the jury felt no need to agonize over its guilty verdict. The bond documents, admittedly forged by Hough, “speak for themselves.”

“His plea of duress failed to make any impression with the jury,” the foreman said.

Hough’s attorney had already signaled his intention to appeal.

On this day

(From Associated Press)

1915: In what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political and cultural leaders in Constantinople.

1980: The United States launched an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.