No. 714
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 26, 2025

The Girls Biffed Each Other

April 16, 2011
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Tag: Society

Heroism of a Society Belle.

The Bravery of charming Miss Jaffray, the daughter of a New York millionaire, saves many lives at Irvington, N. Y.

12/28/2015

A New Wrinkle.

How the fashionable women of “sawciety” get their complexions whit the assistance of a hypodermic injection.

12/14/2015

Society Unveiled.

2/3/2014

Puck's Dude Champions.

12/17/2013

Unpleasantly Like.

11/5/2013
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Strange Company - 8/25/2025
Stop by this week as we explore what happened the week before the murders, Emma and Lizzie’s getaway to Fairhaven and New Bedford, and new imagery which will help to tell the story. The pears are almost ripe, August 4th is coming fast, and thoughts begin to turn to that house on Second Street once again. Follow us at https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts/ !
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/26/2025
By the time Sicilian immigrant Michael Lanza founded his namesake restaurant in 1904, the location he chose on First Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets was shaping into a mini Little Italy. Across the Avenue on 11th Street was Veniero’s, the Italian bakery dating back to 1894. in 1908, specialty grocers Russo’s would open a […]
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Ephemeral New York - 8/25/2025
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
Three teenage boys made a shocking discovery in Philadelphia’s East Fairmont Park on December 26, 1888. They were in a secluded area near the reservoir where the Water Department stored pipes. Sitting atop a large steel pipe, one of the boys noticed two coarse gunny sacks inside the three-foot mouth of a nearby pipe. He thought they contained the clothes of a tramp. Another boy took a pocketknife
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/23/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 21 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's early trips in Texas, Arizona, California, and the men he met.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884. This is page 21, which appears to be a continuation of pages 19-20, which ends listing cities in Texas, and page 21 continues in Texas. If this is accurate then
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 8/22/2025
  [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
The Drunkard's Looking Glass | The Cardiff Giant

The Girls Biffed Each Other

Girls Biffed Each Other

Mabel Herbett and Mamie Brown fight for George Woodward in Pleasantville, N.J.

Two lovely daughters of two prominent Pleasantville, N.J., fami­lies have created a sensation in that town. Mabel Herbett and Mamie Brown nearly scratched each other's eyes out one day re­cently. It is true that they didn't bark and bite, but they came as near as they could without actually doing the dawgie act. From what we can learn, Mamie and Mabel were enamored of George Wood­ward and determined to settle their difficulties according to pugilistic rules.

The two girls consulted with their nearest friends, and decided that nothing but a personal en­counter could settle the question. A prize fight was arranged, the win­ner to have George.

The other girls went into it with a vim; that is, the lively girls did; and Pleasantville has a full quota of lively girls. They arranged to have the affair come off in an old barn on the edge of the village, and after studying up on the subject settled on a 16-foot ring. Three o’clock one Sunday morning recently was the hour set. Of course, only girls were admitted, and they had to sneak out of their bedrooms to attend in regular elopement style.

The bevy of beauties repaired to the barn and there had it out in grand style. The two combatants, when they got through with each other, had neither one won the prize, but both were considerably damaged.


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette - September 27, 1890