Los Angeles
John Richie, contractor of East Fourteenth Street, has an unsavory record. Richie used to, daily, beat his son with a rake handle, until such time as the boy became an idiot. This finally drove Richie’s wife insane, and she died in an asylum, whereafter Richie got drunk and danced about in the room where the casket had been placed.
But now he’s gone too far. He’s making rude phone calls.
Richie was hauled before Justice Rose to defend a complaint sworn by Mrs. Rose Mustactia, Richie’s grocer:
“He has been annoying me for some time. At first he just said spiteful things, but at last his actions became unbearable. Saturday afternoon he called up the store and told me his name and then he began to abuse me. He called me names and my husband names and said we were bums and that all our groceries were stale and that most of the stuff we had in the store was second hand. The next time he called up, my daughter answered the ‘phone. He told her the same thing, abusing us all and saying hard things about us. Twenty-five times during the afternoon and evening he called us up and used bad language until we refused to answer the ‘phone any more.”
Richie was convicted of a misdemeanor.