No. 649
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
September 06, 2022

A Miners' Racket.

Cold lead for cocktails.
September 6, 2022
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Tag: New York City

Miss Eva G. Vallee

The Pretty Female Prisoner, Simulates a Fit and Attempts Suicide in the Central Police Station.

10/14/2025

"Large Days" of the Larkers.

Around the Clock with a Wall Street Youth.

10/7/2025

A Man in a Black Mask.

Disguised as the Devil.

7/1/2025

Night on the Docks.

How the rising of the moon transforms the river-side of the great metropolis from a busy mart of trade to a quiet retreat for the inhabitants of the crowded tenement houses.

3/4/2025

Pick-pockets "Working the Crowd.''

Getting into the Cars at 4th Avenue and 27th Street, New York.

2/4/2025

Wantons' Wiles.

The Bad Girls of Gotham and Their New Schemes for Man-Catching.

9/10/2024

Rogues' Gallery and Mementoes.

New York City Police, 1887.

5/14/2024

The Temptation of the New York St. Anthony.

A terrible struggle for member of "The Finest."

3/13/2024

Crowds Watch the Bicycle Race.

Wheelers break records in the six-day contest in Madison Square Garden, New York.

1/9/2024

A Lunatics Ball.

Ball of lunatics at the Asylum, Blackwell's Island, East River, N. Y.

10/10/2023

The Opium Dens.

New York City - The opium dens in Pell and Mott Streets - How the opium habit is developed.

7/11/2023

Skating in Central Park.

1/10/2023

Snares for the Unwary.

The "Sawed-Door Game" on a Gudgeon.

5/17/2022

Pandemonium in a Tumult.

Raid on the Broadway concert saloons, New York.

4/26/2022

Photography's Abuse by Blackmailers.

The Scheme of a Conscienceless Adventurer in New York - "Chippies" his Accomplices in Trapping Old Sinners into Hush-Money Situations.

9/28/2021

Pedal Advertising.

How two Dizzy Girls Advertised Their Charms and Political Faith.

11/5/2018

A Velocipede Riding-School.

Scene in a velocipede riding-school, New York City.

9/10/2018

Run on Max Greger's Hungarian Wines.

No. 232 Fifth Avenue, corner Twenty-Seventh Street, New York.

7/16/2018

Broadway Omnibus Racing Season.

Opening of the Broadway Omnibus Racing Season of 1884.

6/25/2018

The Lady Flashes Dance.

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

8/21/2017

Their Sex's Worst Foes.

How the gilded vice of the metropolis fishes for its victims in the public streets, and innocent confidence is trapped by the fine feathers which disguise foul birds.

6/26/2017

What a New York Girl Did.

A vain girl makes a fireman wait until she fixes her hair preferring to risk her life rather than appear in public not “made up’; New York.

5/22/2017

An Easy Winner.

Architect John M. Merrick of New York triumphantly finishes his thirtieth canvas-back duck on the thirtieth consecutive day

5/1/2017

Robbing a Corpse.

Mrs. Day is accused of stealing a ring from the finger of dead Sophie Ahrens as she lay in her coffin.

2/27/2017

Another Steamboat Disaster.

New York City, -- The Steamboat Riverdale blown up, August 28th – Rescuing the passengers.

10/3/2016

A Man under Her Bed.

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

9/26/2016

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

An Irishman and a Yankee Settle a Dispute.

An Irishman and a Yankee Settle a Dispute Across the Breakfast Table at their Boarding House in New York.

7/18/2016

The Kissing Quadrille.

A New Attraction to the Ball Room Invented by a New York Genius for the Benefit of Bashful Men and Ugly Women.

4/26/2016

The Terrific Leap at Niblo’s Garden, From an Aerial Apparatus.

The original and daring aerial representation by Thomas Hanlon, now performed by him every evening at Niblo's Garden.

1/11/2016

Raiding the Joints.

Superintendent Walling makes a raid on a Sixth Avenue opium den and gathers in a motley crowd of smokers.

9/15/2015

A Hot Day in New York.

While New York is by no means the hottest city in the country, there have been a few days during the present season when the temperature reached a height altogether incompatible with human comfort.

7/20/2015

Oscar Wilde Gets a Reception.

Too, too, utterly utter! Remarkable effect of the appearance of Oscar Wilde, the apostle of Aestheticism, on the streets of New York City.

6/24/2015

What it Has Come To.

A scene from feal life in a sixth avenue smoking car—giddy girls who believe in taking a “whiff of the weed” in public as well as in priv

6/22/2015

Concerning Sensational Methods.

There is a class of publications whose lives depend upon their successful appeal to vicious instincts.

6/1/2015

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

Mdlle. Carlotta de Berg.

Mdlle. Carlotta de Berg, at the New York Circus, Fourteenth Street.

5/5/2015

Skating in Central Park.

Winter sports in the metropolis—a skating scene in Central Park.

2/9/2015

A Substitute for a Wife.

10/27/2014

The Green-Eyed Monster.

10/14/2014

The Drama of Life,

9/1/2014

Beautiful Forever.

7/29/2014

Scenes from “In the Tenderloin.”

6/16/2014

Collegians at Football.

12/10/2013

Hungry Joe.

The conmen of New York City were noted for their colorful nicknames: "Paper Collar Joe", "Grand Central Pete" Jimmy "the Kid" and the greatest of all "Hungry Joe".

10/20/2013

Lessons in Opium-Smoking.

10/8/2013
Spaces are still available on tomorrow’s Gilded Age Mansion & Memorials RIverside Drive walking tour. We’ll explore the backstory of this winding, scenic drive and the houses and monuments that marked it as millionaire mile that rivaled Fifth Avenue. The forecast is for spring sunshine—join us at 1 pm for an insightful walk on the […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/25/2026
"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
Saloons and Houses of Ill-Fame. | Cowboys Lassoing the Ballet.

A Miners' Racket.

Cold-lead Pay-day at the mines in the vicinity of Robinson, Col., is always followed by a night of boisterous merriment. Last Saturday was no Exception to the rule, and a gang of the "boys," headed by Ed. Dolin, Jimmy Higgins, John Tye, Jerry Ryan and others got hold of a Jack mule or burro. Ed Dolan mounted the beast, and with his feet touching the ground, headed the procession. The others urged the animal along by pounding its buttocks with boards and cudgels. The gang made for a dance hall kept by two women named Jennie Stone and Nellie Williams alias "Buffalo Nell." Dolan rode astride the ass, made a charge on the bar, and presenting two cocked poppers, persuaded Buffalo Nell to set up San Juan cock tails for the crowd. About the time the gang were soaked, policeman Andy Purvin appeared on the scene, and a general stampede was made for the door. Boss Dolan and the ass went over a high side walk into a bank of snow, and it was only after a good deal of tumbling and much hard talk praying that they were placed on a solid footing again.


The National Police Gazette, December 3, 1881.