No. 600
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 29, 2023

Rip Roaring Fun.

How the merchants and cowboys of Butte City, Montana run the local concert hall after their own fashion.
April 2, 2019
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Tag: 1890s

His Wife Danced the Coochee-Coochee.

She and her friends had been drinking wine, and they gave the sedate hubby an unexpected treat when he arrived at his home in St. Louis Mo.

2/14/2023

A Chicago Heiress and Her Wealth.

Her Scheme to Impress All Paris With Her Wealth.

12/20/2022

"Bet Anything You've Got."

Jim Tuttle startles a faro bank party, at Gold Hill, Neb.

12/13/2022

A Matter of Course.

(Scene: - Political Graveyard.)

11/22/2022

Caught a Cowboy.

A Manheim, N.Y., Maiden insert an advertisement in a matrimonial paper and is astonished at the result.

7/19/2022

Knife and Chloroform Duel.

How a Doctor Kept a Morphine Fiend from Killing Him With a Long-Bladed Surgical Instrument.

6/21/2022

Snares for the Unwary.

The "Sawed-Door Game" on a Gudgeon.

5/17/2022

A Bevy of Stage Beauties.

Five footlight fairies, whose faces and forms charm audiences in London, Paris and New York.

2/22/2022

So Far from Home

Her struggle was useless, the life-blood was pouring from a gaping wound in her throat.

12/21/2021

"Burglar Proof" is all Buncombe.

These implements, with nitro-glycerine and a little horse sense, can open any safe - How the up-to-date burglar keeps a little ahead of the safe builder.

8/17/2021

New Girls Wanted.

Runners Scouring for recruits for the "Worlds Fair" Girl Market.

6/1/2021

The Girls Biffed Each Other

1/19/2021

Fashion's Fillies.

A Fancy For Horse-Show Week.

2/25/2019

Another Fool with a Gun.

Mattie Salter killed by her brother, who didn’t know it was loaded, Sandersville, Ga.

2/18/2019

The Rejected Valentine.

2/11/2019

Suspicious.

1/28/2019

"Well?"

Merry Christmas!

12/17/2018

"Jack the Inkslinger."

Public Morality Must Suffer at the Hands of Our Newspaper Scandalmongers.

11/13/2018

Ringling Bros.' World's Greatest Shows!

First Time Here of the Amusement Colossus of the West.

10/29/2018

A Surmise.

Take your gun with you if you're going to play on that banjo.

10/15/2018

Another Big Thing.

The Married Mens' Lodge-Night Hook-and-Ladder Cab Co. - No More Latch-Keys Needed.

10/1/2018

Beat the Hypnotist.

Two girls, who had been ill-treated by a fake mesmerist, get revenge in Indianapolis, Ind.

7/2/2018

Spoiled the Chappies’ Fun.

Policemen of Aurora Ill. Break into a famous resort during an orgy and capture some well-known young men of the town.

6/18/2018

Caught Wifie Dead to Rights.

She was perched upon the knee of her gentleman friend at Saginaw, Mich., enjoying her delicious sweetness of mingled champagne and kisses.

6/11/2018

Slid Down the Firemen’s Pole.

How a plucky New Brunswick, N. J., girl won a wager from one of her doubting companions.

4/30/2018

Mabel Punched the Swell.

How Miss Livingston, the well-known singer, resented an insult at Macon, Ga.

4/16/2018

Her Wheel Was Her Ruin.

A father of Indianapolis, Ind., catches his daughter drinking wine with a jovial crowd at a notorious local roadhouse.

4/2/2018

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3/19/2018

An Awfully Unequal Race.

Tariff.

3/12/2018

March Winds.

3/5/2018

St. Valentine's Day.

St Valentine's Day.

2/12/2018

A Wife at Auction.

An unsympathetic husband, who was in desperate need of money, sells his pretty wife to the highest bidder, at Guthrie Okla.

1/29/2018

Won on the Midway.

A World’s Fair Tyrolese beauty captures the love and caresses of an alleged faithless husband and is discovered by his wife.

12/11/2017

The Wedding Postponed.

11/27/2017

Too Mild a Description.

It is more than simple, my dear. It is idiotic.

10/9/2017

Whipped for Alleged Slander.

Actress Dorothy Morton cowhided in Heucks’ Theatre, Cincinnati, by irate chorus girls.

9/4/2017

The Lady Flashes Dance.

Dizzy cigarette girls have a most hilarious time in the Lyceum Opera House, this city.

8/21/2017

Peeped at the Bride.

A little incident that marred actor Lawrence Hanley’s wedding night in Terre Haute, Ind.

4/3/2017

A Needed Addition to the Park Police of Every City.

A "Life-Saving-Mattress-and-Net-Brigade" for inexperienced Riders.

3/27/2017

Courtship from a Tree.

Young and Ardent Bob Toppin, a Newark, N. J., youth, does some tall climbing in order to meet his sweetheart, pretty Miss Hobbie, a parson’s daughter.

3/13/2017

The Craze of the Day.

The amateur camera fiend carries his deadly machine in all sorts of disguises, nowadays.

3/6/2017

Eloped on a Spotted Steer.

How a loving West Virginia couple escaped from an obdurate father and were married.

1/30/2017

The Demi Monde of Paris.

You will Miss the Treat of Your LIfe if You Fail to Read It.

1/16/2017

Left His Digits as Souvenirs.

The Misses Franklin, of Glenn Falls, Conn., armed with pistol and axe, put a burglar to flight minus two fingers.

12/12/2016

Mrs. Snyder Pays Her Bet.

She backed Harrison, and had to wheel Henry Singer in a barrow, at Atlantic City, N. J.

11/21/2016

Our Private Poet.

Beguileth his victim that he listeneth unto him.

10/24/2016

A Man under Her Bed.

Had Miss Baker looked under the bed before making her toilet she would have postponed it.

9/26/2016

Had a High Old Time.

9/12/2016

Pretty Mary Nelson’s Downfall.

Wine suppers, fine dresses and rolls of greenbacks cause a young and fascinating Cincinnati girl to cast aside the mantle of virtue.

8/29/2016

His Peep Ends Disastrously.

William Peters, a Cincinnati dude, tries to mash Maggie Bolton but gets mashed instead.

8/15/2016

The American Hat Guard.

Ha-Ha! No You Don't.

8/9/2016

A Madman in the Pulpit.

Charles Emmons takes possessions of a Springfield, Mass., church and turns it into a fort.

8/1/2016

Reward.

The Post Office Department will pay the sum of ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD, each, for the capture of Joseph Killoran, Harry Russell, and Charles Allen.

7/25/2016

The Minister Was Coltish.

The Rev. G. W. Kling, pastor of the Crawford M. E. Church at West Marietta, O., is in a peck of trouble.

6/8/2015

Chloroformed While She Slept.

The attempted abduction of Miss Hildreth, a Chesterfield, N.H., girl, by her lover, Fayette Haskins.

5/24/2015

Chorus Girls Fight.

Two of the charming girls who pose as "living pictures" in Rice's "1492" have a wordy war, which ends in a hand-to-hand conflict.

5/18/2015

Society Women Turn Burglars.

A Widow and Her Pretty Daughter Caught Thieving in Men’s Attire in Tecumseh, Mich.

4/13/2015

He May Be Lynched.

Miss Lily Dunkley, a Miles City, Mont., girl, refuses to marry Charles Snyder and he tries to kill her.

3/30/2015

He May Be Lynched.

Miss Lily Dunkley, a Miles City, Mont., girl, refuses to marry Charles Snyder and he tries to kill her.

3/10/2015

Comedian Punches Drummer.

Pete Baker thrashes H. J. Jenkins for trying to flirt with the actor’s daughter in Dayton, O.

3/10/2015

Was Her Story a Fake?

Miss Alice Jackman, a St. Louis heiress, claims to have been abducted a second time.

3/2/2015

A Monkey and Dog Time.

The novel bating match in Van Wert, Ohio, between a Marion gorilla and a Fort Wayne, Indiana Canine.

2/23/2015

In a Deadly Folding-Bed.

12/15/2014

Belle Gordon.

9/29/2014

The Girls Have a New Game.

8/18/2014

Photographed as he Died.

6/24/2014

Scenes from “In the Tenderloin.”

6/16/2014

A Pointer.

5/5/2014

A Human Vampire.

4/28/2014

Clubbed by a Wronged Wife.

4/22/2014

A Memphis Badger Game.

1/27/2014

Burglars on Bicycles.

12/31/2013

Bloody Duel over a Woman.

J. Williams and A. Jabes, two Salt Lake City, Utah, Men, carve each other in a frightful manner.

11/19/2013

Unpleasantly Like.

11/5/2013

Fall Styles.

10/1/2013

Her Last Ascent.

Gertie Carmo, a Female Aeronaut and Trapeze Performer, Hurled to the Ground and Instantly Killed in Detroit, Mich.

9/24/2013

First Automobile in Manhattan.

8/5/2013

Drove Nails in his Ear.

7/23/2013

Gold from Seawater!

In 1898, the Reverend Prescott F. Jernegan founded the Electrolytic Marine Salts Company to extract gold from seawater. When the gold ran out, so did Rev. Jernegan, taking the company’s capital.

7/16/2013

Dan Creedon in Training.

6/4/2013

Attacked by a Maddened Cat.

4/9/2013

Stabbed for not Buying Drinks.

Fresh Young Fellow Gets Six Inches of Cold Steel at a Sporting Resort, Seattle, Wash.

3/28/2013

George Dixon’s Victory over Australian Billy.

2/26/2013

Insane Criminal Escapes.

1/27/2013

An Underground Stale-Beer Dive.

12/18/2012

A Fiendish Husband’s Desperate Deed.

10/16/2012

"Four Aces."

9/25/2012

Love in a Railroad Car.

9/16/2012

A One Legged Baseball Club.

9/11/2012

The Advent of Spiritualism.

A simple schoolgirl prank spawned a new belief with millions of followers.

9/4/2012

Spectacular Scenes & Sights Down on the Jersey Coast

Poster for the 1898 Broadway show "Have You Seen Smith?"

7/17/2012

Saloons and Houses of Ill-Fame.

Buffalo, New York, May 1893.

5/8/2012

Killed By Cowardly Anarchists.

4/3/2012

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

3/4/2012

Their Name a Misnomer.

2/28/2012

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2/14/2012

A Plucky Elberon, N. J., Girl

1/31/2012

Whipped By Women

11/8/2011

Whipped By Women

11/8/2011

McGinty Survives!

10/30/2011

Anxious For a Funeral

10/23/2011

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10/17/2011

Trixie Got the Best of It.

Two Little Gem Theatre, Buffalo, N. Y., Soubrettes have a scrap on account of a man.

10/8/2011

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9/5/2011

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

Hid the Girls' Skirts

8/22/2011

Shot Down in His Office

Ruined and Despondent Ronald Kennedy, a Philadelphia speculator, kills broker Charles H. Page, and then commits suicide.

8/8/2011

“I’ve Taken Poison, Maudie!”

7/25/2011

The Swindling Beggar

7/11/2011

Duel of the Divas.

The question of who was more beautiful, Lillian Russel or Lola Montez was settled by two cowpokes in the Nevada desert in the 1890s.

5/30/2011

A Newspaper Man’s Plight

Denver Col., October 1892 – Correspondent Jake Hirsh cowhided by indignant Lizzie Gonzales, an actress, in Denver.

5/22/2011

The Girls Biffed Each Other

4/16/2011

Did the Naughty Midway Dance

Pretty Ida Lawrence gets arrested while entertaining some hackmen in Cincinnati, O.

3/28/2011

Chorus Girls in a Panic.

An unruly horse causes great excitement in the Metropolitan Opera House, this city.

3/14/2011

Crush Collision!

Crush, Texas, September 15, 1896

2/24/2011
The Scottish-born James Oliphant worked as a surgeon in Newcastle.  In 1755, he married one Margaret Erskine, and the pair went on to have two children.  From all appearances, the family was one of solid 18th century middle-class respectability.This seemingly ordinary household took a very dark turn in May of 1764.  One of Oliphant’s two maidservants unexpectedly became so ill she had to quit her
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Strange Company - 3/27/2023
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When Patrick  H. Doherty joined the Fall River Police Department in 1885, he might have been astounded to learn that he would be involved one day in two notorious murder cases- both involving hatchets and axes.  Patrick Doherty was born in Peoria, Illinois on August 10, 1859 to John and Mary Walsh Doherty.  Later the family moved east to Fall River, and we find Patrick Doherty living at 104 Columbia St. (off South Main) and working as a laborer for a time employed by Fall River Iron Works and the Fall River Line steamboat company.  He married Honora (Nora) E. Coughlin on April 25, 1887 at the age of 28, when he was employed at the Fall River Police Department as a patrolman.  The couple would have seven children:  Charles T., Frank., Grace, Robert, Helene, Margaret (called Marguerite), and John. Doherty, (as were several other patrolmen), was promoted to the rank of captain after their work in the case of the century, the Borden Murders of 1892.  Doherty had arrived at #92 after George Allen on the morning of the murders, and was very quickly in the thick of the action, questioning Lizzie upstairs, looking at the bodies with Dr. Dolan, running down to Smith’s pharmacy with Officer Harrington  to question Eli Bence, prowling the cellar for weapons with Medley, Fleet and Dr. Bowen, and making note of Lizzie’s dress.  Doherty stayed on the job on watch at the Borden house until he was relieved at 9 p.m.  When it came time for the inquest, it was Doherty who slipped down to 95 Division St. to collect Bridget, who had been staying with her cousin, Patrick Harrington after the murders.  He would testify at the Preliminary and the 1893 trial in New Bedford. In the midst of the excitement in New Bedford as Lizzie’s trial was about to get underway, yet another hatchet killing took over the front page, the murder of Bertha Manchester on May 30th.  It was a brutal attack to rival the Borden’s with the weapon being most likely a short-handled axe or possibly a hatchet. Doherty went out to the Manchester place with Marshal Hilliard, Captains Desmond, and Connors and Inspector Perron  on June 6th with the  suspect, Jose Correa de Mello, who revealed his hiding place for the stolen  watch taken from the victim and her purse at that time.  De Mello served time and then was sent back to the Azores, banned from stepping upon U.S. soil again. The Dohertys moved to 1007 Rock St. in 1897 and Patrick was pleased to walk his daughter Margaret (Marguerite) down the aisle in 1913. Patrick Doherty retired from the force in 1915 and succumbed to interstitial nephritis on June 28, 1915.. He, and some of his children are buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Fall River. Resources: Ancestry.com, Parallel Lives,: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and her Fall River, Find-a-Grave.com. and Yesterday in Old Fall River: A Lizzie Borden Companion Fall River Globe June 28, 1915
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/3/2023
Bernard Gussow was born in Russia in 1881. But by 1900 he’d made it to the Lower East Side, where he was described as an “East Side artist” in a New York Times article about paintings he displayed at an art show at the Educational Alliance settlement house on East Broadway. [“Subway Steps”] Gussow would […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/27/2023
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
 17-year-old James E. Nowlin murdered George Codman in a Massachusetts stable in January 1887. Then he took an axe and chopped Codman’s body into pieces. As he traveled home in a sleigh, he threw the pieces into the snow along the road.Read the full story here: Massachusetts Butchery.
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/25/2023
Roped-inOmaha Daily BeeJune 25, 1884(Click image to enlarge)  OSSIBLE VICTIM OF THE JEFFERSON R. SMITH GANG.  Omaha Daily Bee June 25, 1884 COLORADO. Col. Fletcher, a tourist from Boston, was roped-in by the bunko men of Denver and relieved of $1,000. NOTES: $1,000.00 in 1884 is the equivalent of $33,472.95 in 2023. According to the Rocky Mountain News there were at least two,
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 3/12/2023
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 engaged as a carrier of wine, because he and his brother, with the help of […]
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
"He Loves Me; He Loves Me Not." | "Daredevil" Steve Brodie

Rip Roaring Fun.

How the merchants and cowboys of Butte City, Montana run the local concert hall after their own fashion.

The Butte concert saloons are usually underground. The saloon is square, with a row of private boxes all around the top. The orchestra b occupied by cowboys and miners, who guzzle beer at twenty-five cents per glass with flabby barmaids The boxes are occupied by bank presidents, merchants and wealthy citizens, who sit behind lace curtains and drink Missouri cider champagne at $5 a bottle with girls in gauze dresses or tights. The gambling tables and broken-voiced singers make a pandemonium of the place. The weird electric lights make the room look like Hades, Illuminated. At 11 o'clock the singing is now and then disturbed by pistol shots from the cowboys, who shoot down into the ground unless they have a special dislike to the singer; then the ball whisps through the curtain. Sometimes the cowboys chaff the merchants behind the curtains in the boxes and make them order whiskey for the orchestra. Everybody calls everybody else by his first name, and there is perfect democracy throughout the saloon. There is no concealment of wickedness, but each on does all he can to make the concert hall the wickedest place in the wickedest city in the world. The next morning everything is forgotten, and the merchants are in their stores, the miners in their mines and the pistolled cowboy punching his cattle ten miles away.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, June 19, 1886.