No. 147
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 07, 2013

Shooting at the Elevated.

After-dinner pistol practice at the trains that rush by windows
May 7, 2013
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Tag: Rats

A Human Rat Eater.

An employee of the Boston Gas Works boasted his ability to kill a rat with his teeth.

8/14/2017

Hospital Horrors.

3/20/2012
Ever since the concept of the penthouse became fashionable in the 1920s, New York City rooftops have hosted lots of creative domicile styles. There’s a pink fairybook-like cottage on the top floor of a prewar building on East 52nd Street (once home to John Lennon in the mid-1970s), for example. And what would the East […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/26/2026
"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge) oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name. At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
 Welcome to this Friday's Link Dump!Our host for this week is the one-and-only Goody Two-Shoes!The power of pregnant medieval queens.A possible serial killer in 1890s New York.Decoding some political gossip from medieval Britain.The latest research on the Antikythera Mechanism.Is Shakespeare's grave missing his skull?Solving the mystery of Antarctica's ice.Possible evidence of Noah's
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Strange Company - 4/24/2026
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
(New York Journal, August 5, 1896)Annie Bock and her husband Jacob were spending the summer at Rockaway Beach. On Sunday, August 1, 1896, Annie went back to their flat at 207 E. 21st Street in New York City’s Tenderloin district to pay their monthly rent. She had $300 in the Dry Dock Savings Bank and on Monday morning, she withdrew $50 from the bank and paid the rent with $20. The plan was to
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Murder By Gaslight - 4/25/2026
Whatever you believe about the guilt or innocence of Lizzie Borden, I have always believed film makers do a great injustice to the story by not beginning at the beginning- the death on March 26, 1863 of the first Mrs. Borden. In the dying moments of Sarah Morse, Emma takes on the weight of the care of her little sister, not yet three years old. Emma herself was just 12 on March 1st. Emma has seen her mother suffer for a long time, seen her pain and loss of little Alice Esther. Emma is old enough
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
  [Editor’s note: Guest writer, Peter Dickson, lives in West Sussex, England and has been working with microfilm copies of The Duncan Campbell Papers from the State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia. The following are some of his analyses of what he has discovered from reading these papers. Dickson has contributed many transcriptions to the Jamaica […]
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
Baseball Animals. | Philanthropist or “Moral Leper?”

Shooting at the Elevated.

Shooting at the Elevated

A party of New York girls enjoy a little after-dinner pistol practice at the trains that rush by windows of their hotel. 

Popping at the Elevated.

How a Certain Reckless Party of Fast Young Men and Women Added to the Dangers of Travel.

The luxuries of metropolitan life are many and novel, but we think the rag has been taken off the bush completely by late developments of the methods of enjoyment that have become popular among a certain class of reckless young bloods and the equally reckless young women who are assisting them in running through their fortunes. The dear creatures have been in the habit, when full of wine after the little suppers given in a certain famous off color hostelry on the line of one of the elevated railroads, to get up shooting matches, the mark being the elevated trains as thy fly by the second-story windows of the hotel. This practice became so common a few weeks ago that the entire detective force was set to work to ferret out the marksmen. One of these companies of female sharpshooters was caught by the officers but the male friends of the women proved to be related to some high officials and they were let go with a reprimand, and the mystery of the shooting at the trains has never been revealed to the indignant public until now, when the Police Gazette takes the ditty on itself in its usually bold form of description and illustration.


National Police Gazette, Decmber 23, 1882.