No. 269
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 24, 2015

She Liked Her Lager Beer.

A Murray Hill belle, with a fondness for the Teutonic beverage, sets up a keg in her boudoir.
August 24, 2015
...
...

Tag: Reform

Undercover Lunatic.

5/26/2013

Steam Powered Reformation.

8/14/2012

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

3/4/2012

Rum on Tap.

Kyana, Indiana, 1890 - The women of Kyana, Ind., go to the railroad depot and demolish a cargo of liquor.

8/29/2011
William Bell Scott, Woman Startled by the Ghost of a Girl by a MirrorSecond marriages can be awkward, especially when the ex-spouse has issues with their former partner entering into a new union.  If said ex-spouse happens to be dead, you know your domestic life has well and truly entered Strange Company territory.In her 1974 book “Haunted East Anglia,” Joan Forman described an unsettling
More...
Strange Company - 6/15/2026
"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
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
Getting around the western Bronx by foot means encountering hilly streets, lots of hilly streets. The pitched terrain comes from ridges of bedrock formed millions of years ago extending into Northern Manhattan. Back in the early 1900s when the Bronx was undergoing urbanization, all these hills posed a challenge to transit engineers, since some roads […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 6/15/2026
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
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
 Stephen Pettus gave Hannah Southworth a glass of drugged champagne and had his way with her while she was unconscious. Hannah became pregnant and for years after, she badgered Pettus to acknowledge that he had ruined her. When all legal means were exhausted, she avenged her honor by shooting him in the back on a Brooklyn street.Read the full story here: Avenging Her Honor.
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 6/13/2026
Be sure to stop by our Facebook page tomorrow for a Prosecution Marathon of witnesses. Here are the witnesses for Wednesday, June 14th, Day 9 Rufus Hilliard, City Marshal, Mayor John Coughlin, Mrs. Hannah Gifford (seamstress and dressmaker), Anna Borden ( wealthy socialite who was on Lizzie’s grand tour of Europe, distantly related to Lizzie), Lucy Collett (watching the office of Dr. Chagnon day of the murder), Thomas Bowles ( handyman who once rented a room from Addie Churchill and was wa
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/13/2026
  [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 […]
More...
Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
Getting Above his Business. | New Jersey’s Great Wash Day.

She Liked Her Lager Beer.

Liked her Lager Beer

A Murray Hill belle, with a fondness for the Teutonic beverage, sets up a keg in her boudoir.

A recent inquiry into the sanity of a young society lady of Murray Hill brought about by the application of some of her relatives to take the control of her fortune out of her hands on the grounds that she is a lunatic, developed some strange doings on the part of the eccentric heiress. One point made by the applicants for the appointment of a guardian was that the young lady turned her boudoir into a bar room. It appears that the lady in question has acquired a taste for lager beer from frequent visits to Koster & Bail’s, Theiss’ and other noted resorts, after coming from the opera or a play with a make escort. She liked it drawn from the wood, no bottled medicine for her. Therefore she had a veritable bear horse placed in her boudoir, and got her favorite beverage by the keg, not forgetting the proper accompaniments of glasses with handles and pretzels. When thus provided it was her custom to invites a choice set of her male friends to her room, and hold high revel in real beer saloon style. The committee to whom the case was referred failed to see that this evidence showed any case of insanity they rather thought it was a level headed idea.


National Police Gazette, December 22, 1883.