No. 864
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 06, 2026

Pluck and Presence of Mind.

A Quick-witted and Strong-armed School Girl Saves her Young Lover from a Terrible Death at North Platte, Nebraska.
May 6, 2026
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Tag: Police

Circumstances Alter Cases.

The Gallant 'Cop' on the Crossing - Old and Ugly vs. Young and Pretty.

11/4/2024

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

A Way Out of the Sunday Difficulty.

Baffled Policeman, - Bedad, I can't arrest a machine!

10/22/2018

Renewed Activity of "The Finest."

The Police Succeed in Breaking Up Another Gambling Establishment.

5/14/2018

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

A Needed Addition to the Park Police of Every City.

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

3/27/2017

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

Shooting at the Elevated.

After-dinner pistol practice at the trains that rush by windows

5/7/2013

Blood on the Moon.

4/16/2013

Burglary Tools.

2/11/2013

"Four Aces."

9/25/2012

Copper.

8/20/2012

Killed By Cowardly Anarchists.

4/3/2012

Allan Pinkerton.

The Eye that Never Sleeps.

3/27/2012

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

3/4/2012
"Indian Citizen," November 12. 1914, via Newspapers.comA frightening and inexplicable tragedy hit the normally peaceful town of Durant, Oklahoma in 1914.  According to Jake and Celia Amsel, a well-to-do, respectable couple, at about one-thirty a.m. on the night of November 11, they were awakened by screams emanating from their home’s outdoor sleeping porch.  They were horrified to
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Strange Company - 6/8/2026
"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
You can see it peeking out from the Harlem River Drive or through the chain-link fence of the Third Avenue Bridge: a five-story red brick building almost buried behind glass and steel apartment towers. The towers are newish luxury rental residences built on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. Shiny and modern, they bring […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/8/2026
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
In 1830, Joseph Knapp conspired with his brother, John Francis Knapp, to hire a local criminal, Richard Crowninshield, to murder their great uncle, Captain Joseph White, in Salem, Massachusetts. They believed that if the captain died without a will, they stood to inherit a sizable fortune.Read the full story here: "A Most Extraordinary Case"
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/6/2026
As Mr. Moody for the Prosecution dramatically expounds on hatchets and grisly details, and a glimpse of two skulls in a leather case, Lizzie slumps over in her chair. Was it the heat or the ghastly descriptions?
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/7/2026
  [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
Sights and Sounds of Spring. | A Woman Rescued from the Jaws of a Catamount.

Pluck and Presence of Mind.

Plucky

A Quick-witted and Strong-armed School Girl Saves her Young Lover from a Terrible Death at North Platte, Nebraska.

A few days ago, an exciting incident occurred at one of the public schools in Platte. Nebraska, the particulars of which, as we learn them, are as follows: At the school in question, among the other pupils are a youth of seventeen and his lover a miss of "sweet sixteen," who are dead in love with each other. On the day alluded to the pair were alone in the third story of the building talking soft nonsense generally and leaning out of one of the windows, with arms around each other, when suddenly the youth projected his body a trifle too far, the centre of gravity overcame the base and he started—very much against his will—on his downward career to the bosom of mother earth. As he began to slip out, and his horror stricken lady-love felt him receding from her fond clasp around his waist, her presence of mind came to her, and like a flash she grasped him by one leg as he slid from the window.

Luckily for her, and still more so for him, she is a young lady of rare muscular development, and on this occasion her strong of arm and lung stood the pair in good need, for with the former she held on like grim death, and the latter was quickly called in play to summon assistance, which came speedily, and the young man was rescued from his perilous position. After being safely landed in the room again the pension on her nerves relaxed, the reaction was too powerful, and the beautiful preserver fainted away. She was conveyed to her home and soon entirely recovered, since which time the young heroine has received the hearty and well-merited congratulations of the entire community. It is safe to wager that she will make an excellent wife, and we advise that youth to guard well the priceless treasure of the love she has bestowed upon him.


Illustrated Police News, May 20, 1874.