Beware the Masher by Kerry Segrave

Author:Kerry Segrave
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2014-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

Walter Devoe was convicted of being a masher in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1898. He was fined $25 but apparently could not pay the fine and so was sent to the workhouse for 50 days.

Mrs. Charles C. Lane knocked down Henry James on a day in December 1898 in New York City. James, who was a stranger to her, had harassed her by following her through the streets of the city. He had also further insulted her by speaking to her. After she knocked him down she went about her business (she was an entertainer—known as Mademoiselle Suzinetta—who juggled cannon balls and broke iron chains with her hands). James caused her to be summoned to the Yorkville Police Court to answer for assaulting him. Magistrate Meade not only let Mrs. Lane go free, but he congratulated her for having punched the head of James. In court James declared she lured him into her reach and then brutally assaulted him. Lane told the court he had been annoying her and speaking to her for two days. James had first seen her in the dime museum, where she performed on stage as Suzinetta with her husband. When James spoke to her and asked her if he could walk with her, Lane ran out of patience. She told the court, “I hit him.” Meade declared, “I congratulate you. You are the woman this town has been looking for for a long time.” He then dismissed the charge against her.21

Warren Shelton was fined $5 in police court in Kansas City, Missouri, on August 2, 1899, for his activities as a masher. Shelton followed two women down Walnut Street in Kansas City and tried to engage in a flirtation with them. They became angry and summoned Officer Halloran, who arrested him. In court Justice Spitz gave the prisoner what was described as a “deserved lecture” before he fined him. Shelton paid immediately.22

As she walked along Sixth Avenue in New York City on the evening of January 5, 1900, 20-year-old Clara Reilly (a recent convert to the Salvation Army) was accosted by a masher. Horace Butterworth followed her, accosted her, and addressed her. Frightened, she stopped a passing policeman, who arrested him. At the police station the masher refused to give his name, but a search revealed a transit pass in the name of Horace Butterworth. In Jefferson Market Police Court on January 6, Magistrate Pool asked Reilly, “Did you encourage him?” “I don’t know what you mean sir,” she answered, trembling. “I was on my way from the barracks, thinking what I could do to better mankind, when he took me by the arm and called me ‘baby.’” Butterworth said he was married with several children and that he had been drinking. Magistrate Pool said to Butterworth, “You are entitled to no leniency. The severest punishment I can inflict is to put you under bonds of $500 for your good behavior for six months.” The masher furnished the bond.23

Police Judge McAuley fined a married masher

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