Wealthy twenty-four year old tobacco farm owner Billy Zantzinger arrives, somewhat drunk, at the Spinsters Ball in the Emerson Hotel, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. After causing various disturbances, including a fist fight with another guest, Zantzinger, demands a drink from black bartender Hattie Carroll. Carroll is busy serving another guest, so Zantzinger calls her racist names and
strikes her with his cane, from which she dies soon after. Zantzinger is arrested, but gets off with a minor sentence.
Bob Dylan, inspired by this story, will write his song The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll.