York Mayor Tells Wife She Should Have Hit Husband Harder
Ninety years ago York Mayor Hugentugler presided over a frequently lively police court: One case involved a “near murder” with a hatchet on the 500 block of Vander Avenue. The York Gazette reported the husband
“…went after his wife with a hatchet, but she managed to get possession of the weapon and laid open his head with it. Mayor Hugentugler assured the woman that she did not hit [her husband] hard enough and discharged her.”
[The husband] “was committed to jail for thirty days in default of a payment of a fine of $25.
The couple “had had a quarrel uptown.” He came home later, broke down the locked door, and found his wife in bed. “…with the hatchet in hand, [he] pounced on the bed and got astride the woman, pinning her arms fast with his knees, and with his hands he grabbed her by the neck as if to try to choke the life out of her. He struck her on the head with his fist, and then [she] managed to wiggle loose and get possession of the hatchet. Bringing it down on [his] head, she laid it open above the eye. House Officer Axe and Patrolman Perago took the pair to police headquarters.”
