No. 613
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 04, 2022

They Were "Soaked" in Every Sense.

A New York high roller "on a bat" with a high grade dazzler—they win up in the bath tub of his hotel apartment.
February 4, 2022
...
...

Tag: Hoax

Willie Craig Was a Girl.

But what a lovely sensation she created among the Henderson, Tenn. sweet girls and susceptible boys before her sex was discovered.

5/11/2015

Was Her Story a Fake?

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

3/2/2015

Aboriginal Footprints.

11/17/2014

Undercover Lunatic.

5/26/2013

The Advent of Spiritualism.

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

9/4/2012

McGinty Survives!

10/30/2011

The Cardiff Giant

Cardiff, New York, October 16, 1869.

4/10/2011

“Daredevil” Steve Brodie

2/17/2011
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!And greetings from the Strange Company mail room!A teenager who died in the American Revolution has finally been identified.An ancient Roman fossil collector.The strange case of the "Leavenworth Look-Alikes."The legend of what may have been the first underwater tunnel.Casual snapshots of the Romanovs.The strange case of the Beale Ciphers.A diplomat's widow
More...
Strange Company - 7/17/2026
"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
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
The first things I noticed about 2029 First Avenue were the decorative lintels above the second floor windows. Attractively styled for window lintels on upper First Avenue, I figured this stubby holdout wedged beside two brick buildings between East 104th and 105th Streets must have been a former stable. I imagined that those roll-down window […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 7/13/2026
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
More...
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,
More...
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
More...
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 […]
More...
Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
Tar and Feathers. | Western Train Robbers' Ways in New York State.

They Were "Soaked" in Every Sense.

They-were-soaked Life in the Tenderloin district in New York is regarded with considerable awe by those that have heard of its naughty and glittering peculiarities, and the befuddled "sports" that take part in it probably assure themselves that it is vicious enough to be imposing. You will find that the citizens of every community take especial pride in the extent and variety of their immorality and the people of New York have always pointed to the Tenderloin as a magnificent feature of metropolitan life. You can get as stirring exhibitions of dissipation and wickedness in New York as are to be found anywhere. The wild dazzling vice of the frontier may be noisier, but for lively episodes among "racketers" and golden youth who are "blowing their stuff," New York is not to be surpassed. You watch the panorama of vice there and you will find that it is never dull.

Two fine figures which illuminated the shifting scene last week with a brilliant escapade to stir the pulses were fished out of a bath tub in the -------- Hotel on Fifth avenue. They had wound up a routine of wild debauchery by proposing to cool their heads under "the shower" of the bath tub in their hotel suite. The plug was in the bath tub, the tub filled with water, and the chambermaid found the occupant of the apartment and his girl companion asleep side by side in the water-filled tub, with "the shower" turned on. This was bathing relieved by poetic charm and individuality. A comical feature of the damp situation was that the male roysterer had an umbrella raised over himself. His girl companion is a well-known brilliantly wicked demi-virgin of Gotham, very handsome and representing very high grade and high cost immorality. One of her peculiarities is a permanent thirst for wine, but men who are of her set look upon her as very delightful and desirable. She has had before some dazzling orgies. and her past life has been followed by beautiful success in money getting. She is not an oyster-house woman; she is a high flyer. The best Gotham affords is none too good for her. She "bathes every day," she says, laughingly, "but not every day with a $300 dress and $200 worth of lace underwear on."

Illustrated Police News, May 4, 1895.