No. 838
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 28, 2025

Passion's Panderers.

She-Devils and How They Weave Their Webs.
October 28, 2025
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Tag: Blackmail

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
If you’re curious about New York’s Gilded Age, then you’re familiar with certain recurring family names—like Astor, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Rockefeller, and Roosevelt. But what made these elite families so influential? How did they reshape and rule the city’s business and social worlds while leaving a lasting impact on the city of today? Starting July 29 […]
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Ephemeral New York - 7/10/2026
"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 week's Link Dump, which is so action-packed, not one, but four hosts were required!Two ships from the "dawn of naval aviation."It turns out that wild chimpanzees are pretty good drummers.If you're planning to visit the Grand Canyon, maybe think twice about that.I was in a happier frame of mind before I learned that there is a spider that can outrun humans.A really confusing
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Strange Company - 7/10/2026
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
The Confession of Mary Cole, 1813.Cornelius and Mary Cole lived in a farmhouse in Sussex County, New Jersey, with their two children and Mary’s widowed mother, Agnes Teaurs. Cornelius bought the property from Agnes in exchange for an annuity of $50 per year for the rest of her life. Mary and her husband did not live happily with Agnes. According to Mary, her mother was always very hard on her,
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Murder By Gaslight - 7/11/2026
Join us on our Facebook page as we begin counting down the days to August 4th and all of the events leading up to the day. https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/7/2026
  [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
Revelry Rampant. | She Stole Her Lover’s Clothes.

Passion's Panderers.

Snares

She-Devils and How They Weave Their Webs

The Candy-Store Traps for School-Girls—The Fiendish Traffic in Children's Souls

These tenement blocks are little worlds in themselves, and so it is with the residents on our most popular streets. An old citizen, one would suppose, might easily familiarize himself with the calling and habits of his neighbors, but not even the most experienced have any suspicion of the crimes that are nightly committed within a stone's throw of their parlors, of the villainous snares set to entrap the pure yet thoughtless young girls, of the hellish traffic that is covertly carried on—all looking to the corruption of the young females, and the enrichment of the heartless hags who woo their victims to their nests.


Illustrated Police News, January 31, 1880.