No. 805
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 18, 2025

Birds with False Plumage.

Bogus "Christian Endeavor" Delegates at Washington.
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March 18, 2025
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Tag: Robbery

Disguised as the Devil.

A Man in a Black Mask, Disguised as the Devil.

10/19/2021

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

Robbed of Her Tresses.

1/14/2014

Mother Mandelbaum's Secrets.

4/23/2013

Insane Criminal Escapes.

1/27/2013

Beauty as a Shield.

Beauty Conquers avarice and outlawry "We won't rob this house to-night."

7/24/2012

Hospital Horrors.

3/20/2012

Bank Heist

The Audacity of a Professional Thief.

4/3/2011
JOSEPH COOK
alias: GEO HAVILL, HARRY THORN
SNEAK, FORGER

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comThis account of your basic friendly neighborhood monster appeared in the “Mexico Weekly Ledger,” December 13, 1883:MEXICO, Mo., December 8.--The neighborhood of Hopewell Church, near this city, is much excited over the appearance in the locality of a strange creature, which is thought by the credulous to be a ghost, and which is a puzzle at least to the most skeptical. The
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Strange Company - 9/23/2026

Convicts to Maryland, 1773 by Peter Dickson

  [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
Amen.

Artifact #93: Soapy's son, hires attorney to stop the slurring of his father's name.

"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

Song of the St. George Murder.

 A Song Written in Memory ofThe St. George Murder.(excerpt) In St. George, Me., as you shall hear,It proves to be the fatal year -That Mrs. Meservey, in the prime of life.By a murderer's hand has lost her life....Nathan Hart is the murderer's name,Father and husband think of the shame,Did he forget all woman kind,Seek like a beast some prey to find?...God in His written book doth say, 
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/19/2026
On the Russians.

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman’s last

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
An Actress Used a Pistol. | An Irishman and a Yankee Settle a Dispute.

Birds with False Plumage.

False-Plumage

During the great Christian Endeavor convention in Washington, D. C., last week, some women of the place, women with painted faces and strident voices, women who plainly never dwelt in the odor of sanctity but preferred the scent of musk, flaunted in Christian Endeavor badges, and did skirt dances in bar rooms along the boulevards. They were loaded to the guards with liquor, and evidently had been making use of false plumage to ply their trade among the religious brethren and pious strangers.

Illustrated Police News, July 18, 1896.

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