DASTARDLY DADS FROM THE ARCHIVES (New York, New York - 1905)

JAMES RADILL was yet another father who couldn't hold his liquor (a nice way of saying he was a brutal alcoholic who terrorized his family).

From the New York Times, March 22, 1905

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E03E2D6173DE433A25751C2A9659C946497D6CF

SON THROWN FROM WINDOW.

Father Accused of Causing Injuries to Six-Year-Old Lad.

James Radill, thirty-two years old, was locked up in the East Thirty-fifth Street Police Station last evening, charged with having thrown his only child, a six-year-old boy, who bore his name, out of the front window of their home, on the fourth floor of the 477 Third Avenue. The boy is in Bellevue and the doctors say he will die. He accuses his father of having thrown him from the window, and his mother emphatically makes the same charge.

Mrs. Radill said her husband had been on a spree since Saturday.

"He came home at 2 o'clock this afternoon," she said, "and started to smash the furniture. I sent Jimmie out for a policeman. His father heard and ran out of the house. He came back at 7 o'clock. Jimmie opened the door for him, and when he saw his father was drunk ran to the window. His father asked him if he had gone for a policeman, and when Jimmie did not answer he grabbed him up and threw him from the window. "

Policeman Gnotsky, standing at Thirty-second street, saw the boy fall, strike a store awning, and rebound, to land in the street. He carried him to the nearest drug store.

Mrs. Radill said that her husband had hated their boy from his babyhood and had often threatened him.

Radill, who is a metallic lather, said he didn't know how the boy came to fall. The family came from Philadelphia a month ago.