No. 647
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 28, 2024

Christmas in Bohemia.

December 24, 2013
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Tag: Con Game

Snares for the Unwary.

The "Sawed-Door Game" on a Gudgeon.

5/17/2022

A Memphis Badger Game.

1/27/2014

Hungry Joe.

The conmen of New York City were noted for their colorful nicknames: "Paper Collar Joe", "Grand Central Pete" Jimmy "the Kid" and the greatest of all "Hungry Joe".

10/20/2013

The Pawn-Ticket Game.

Pawn tickets make bad collateral.

3/5/2013

Rogues & Brawlers.

11/13/2012

A Slippery and Subtle Knave – The Bank Sneak.

7/31/2012

A Slippery and Subtle Knave – The Bank Sneak.

Of the many forms of bank robbery, the bank sneak had the safest, easiest and most lucrative method of all.

7/31/2012

The Sawdust Game

The "sawdust game," was a confidence scam that only swindled those who deserved to be swindled.

1/10/2012

New York Society Classified.

11/27/2011

McGinty Survives!

10/30/2011

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Kfarit It quoted Poul Nielson the European Unions EU development commissioner as asking What will this fund do better than what we are doing now. <a href=http://abuyplaquenilcv.com/>hydroxychloroquine for sale</a>

9/5/2011

The Old Shell Game

7/18/2011

The Bunco Game

The term “bunco” has come to mean to any type of swindle, but in the 19th century it usually referred to a confidence game involving crooked gambling.

5/17/2011
Via Newspapers.comThis account of diabolical doings down on the farm appeared in the “Great Bend Tribune,” September 28, 1908:Groton, Conn. This town is excited indeed over the amazing happenings at the fine old farm of William Hempstead, a mile east of New London.Visitors have been going out in automobiles and carriages to study the mystery. Small articles, such as beans, spools of thread,
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Strange Company - 3/27/2024
HE DUEL IN ELLEN'S HONOR. Soapy Smith’s grandmotherOn Wednesday, August 9, 1820, an argument between 17-year-old, James Bowe Boisseau (1802-1820) and Robert C. Adams (unknown-1820) vying for the attention of 18-year-old Ellen Stimpson Peniston (1802-1860), took a terrible turn. The happy party in her honor took a tragic turn when the competition for Ellen’s affections ended in a deadly duel,
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 1/10/2024
Is that the crenellated crown of a faux Medieval castle looming five stories above Riverside Drive and 83rd Street—flanked by European-inspired row houses with dormer windows and tiled roofs? The separate dwellings that compose this delightful design mashup are quite a sight among the Drive’s mostly uniform prewar apartment houses. Who built these eclectic residences […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/25/2024
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
Margaret Howard learned too late that the man she married was a violent, two-timing gambler. After they separated, he kidnapped their children to be raised by another woman posing as his wife. Margaret snapped and took her revenge on the false Mrs. Howard.  Read the full story here: Margaret Howard.
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/23/2024
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph.  The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately … Continue reading
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Burglars on Bicycles. | Puck's Dude Champions.

Christmas in Bohemia.

Christmas in Bohemia.

Celebrations of the annual festival in which comfort and fun replace fashion and ceremony, and those who enjoy to-day leave to-morrow to take care of itself.

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Christmas in Bohemia.

The Revels of Genius in its Gay World Within a World.

There are a good many ways of celebrating Christmas and the world makes use of all of them. But from first to last there is no jollier way than the one which Bohemia enjoys Christianity’s great holiday.

There are grander ways, to be sure. The stately pageant with which royalty commemorates it, for instance, with thunder of guns and blare of trumpets; with the flash of jewels, the shimmer of imperial purple and discussion of a banquets under the shadows of flapping banners to the music of a court band. The church, too, has its special celebration, perfumed with the incense of sacrifice, and society does the occasion honor after its on stately and ceremonious fashion. But these are the hollowest of mockeries after all; ghost of that real, healthful enjoyment of a holiday which all the wealth of the world can not buy without the spirit of content to back it.

That enjoyment is found in Bohemia if it is found anywhere. There the revel runs most merrily, the tongue grows lighter and the airy nonsense of the social board sparkles in gems of wit that outshine the diamonds of the most splendid drawing-rooms. What reck they if the fest to-day is followed by fast to-morrow? Is not to-morrow a new day and did they not wonder yesterday where to-day’s feast was to come from? No shadow of the future darkens the Bohemian holiday. If such ever does rise in some graver brain it is resolutely bounced. The wind wails without and misery is buffeted by the storm, but we are warm and gay within and with good store of inner comfort for the present. Time enough to face the tempest when we are forced to; time enough to regret the past when we have no longer a future.

Thus, in studio and green-room, over the beer table and at the garret feast, the men and women who amuse the world sit down to wassail, casting their gay defiance into the face of a staid society which may frown on them for spurning its hollow creeds but can not darken the enjoyment of their holiday. Does society’s frown lighten at the sight of that haggard figure under the lighted window? Doubtless, for in that figure and many like it it sees its vengeance embodied, it sees Bohemia’s wrecks drifting upon the dark sea to which the present revelers close their eyes.


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, December 31, 1881.