No. 650
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 4, 2024

Singular Specimen.

Singular Specimen of the prints taken by the police authorities.
May 15, 2018
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Tag: Blizzard

Song of the Great Blizzard.

Song of the Great Blizzard, Thirteen Were Saved

1/27/2015
 "The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan MandijnWelcome to the first Link Dump of May 2024!We're still wondering:  "What the hell was Oumuamua?"We're still wondering: "What the hell was the Dover Demon?"We're still wondering: "Where the hell is the Mongolian Death Worm?"Watch out for those blood-sucking Capelobos!The days when you could take a hippie bus from London to Calcutta.The grave
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Strange Company - 5/3/2024
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
It doesn’t look like much, just another semi-vacant commercial building—this one on the southeast corner of 106th Street and Third Avenue—now occupied by a Duane Reade. But give it a closer look, and Art Deco decorative touches come in to view, like the patterns in the light bricks and small geometric shapes above the first […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/29/2024
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
 In 1883, Edward Rowell of Batavia, New York, suspected his wife of cheating and set a trap to catch her. He told her he would be gone for severl days on business but did not leave. That night he caught his wife in bed with their former neighbor, Johnson Lynch. Rowell burst into the room brandishing a revolver and fired wildly wounding his wife and killing Lynch. The murder caused quite a
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Murder By Gaslight - 4/27/2024
CHIEF OF CONSThe Morning Times(Cripple Creek, Colorado)February 15, 1896Courtesy of Mitch Morrissey ig Ed Burns robs a dying man?      Mitch Morrissey, a Facebook friend and historian for the Denver District Attorney’s Office, found and published an interesting newspaper piece on "Big Ed" Burns, one of the most notorious characters in the West. Burns was a confidence man and
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 4/2/2024
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
| The Panel Woman and her Wiles.

Singular Specimen.

Singular Specimen of the prints taken by the police authorities.

Great is the mystery of iniquity! Verily man has sought out many inventions some blessed ones and some cursed. During the past week many hidden things of darkness have come to light, and some were full of mystery and wickedness. To show how seductive are the forms of vice, we have procured one of these prints which is a mystery.

You see nothing in it but a round-faced young woman, with a singular arrangement of her clothing, and below, an uncouth, plain piece of work, like a painting of some kind of architecture. Naw, who would think that that very print, innocent as it appears is when prepared by a simple process, full of evil. The lower part, being cut out as to form a curve, resembles a sort o tub, and when the white spaces are cut away and two fingers passed through, and into the piece below, the combination forms a sort of panoramic view of an exceeding improper character, and one which our modesty will not permit us to describe. We warn our readers not to try the experiment, unless, with the most virtuous intentions. As the picture stands, there is nothing indecent about it, but I our readers choose to make it so, after this warning, with them be the sin and the shame. We hope no one will be so wicked.


Reprinted from The Weekly Rake, August 20, 1842. (Readex, American Underworld: The Flash Press)