No. 855
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 10, 2026

A Private Hospital for Cats.

New York City -- Mrs. Goodman's Hospital for Cats.
March 10, 2026
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Tag: Thomas Byrnes

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

3/4/2012

The Sawdust Game

The "sawdust game," was a confidence scam that only swindled those who deserved to be swindled.

1/10/2012

The Bunco Game

The term “bunco” has come to mean to any type of swindle, but in the 19th century it usually referred to a confidence game involving crooked gambling.

5/17/2011

Bank Heist

The Audacity of a Professional Thief.

4/3/2011
Via Newspapers.comI've shared stories about ghosts.  I've shared stories about witches.  It's not often that you see the two combined.   The "Glasgow Daily Record," September 10, 1928:The "ghost" of an old woman, reputed to be a witch, who died two years ago, is said to have been seen by many people in the Cambridgeshire village of Horseheath, and, in consequence, women and
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Strange Company - 3/25/2026
"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
Stores come and go; office buildings gain and lose tenants. But the grief really hits when a shuttered movie theater remains empty, stripped of posters, concession signs, even the theater’s name. This is what remains of the Beekman Theater at 1271 Second Avenue, between 65th and 66th Streets. It showed its last film before abruptly […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/23/2026
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
Maggie Crowley(New York American, March 16, 1898)Robert Hoey, coming home from work in the early hours of March 15, 1898, literally tripped over the body of a dead woman in the courtyard of his New York City tenement. The woman had been strangled to death and dragged to the courtyard known in the neighborhood as “Hogan’s Alley.” Four days later, she was identified as Maggie Crowley, a young woman
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/21/2026
The good-looking thirty-seven year old gentleman handling the reins behind the glossy matched pair pulling the spanking-new carriage drew the attention of more than one feminine eye.  Pacing down French St. at a sharp clip, the lady next to him, dressed neatly in a tailor-made suit with the latest in millinery fashion, smiled up at her coachman. Behind the lace curtains on the Hill section of Fall River, tongues were wagging about the unseemly pair. Lizzie Borden, acquitted of double homici
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 10/16/2025
  [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
An Irishman and a Yankee Settle a Dispute. | Principles of Finance.

A Private Hospital for Cats.

Cat-Hospital

At 170 Division Street, in this city, lives a philanthropic German lady, Mrs. Rosalia Goodman. The tendencies of her kindly heart have prompted her to devote much of her time to the comfort and relief of persecuted and neglected felines. The house she occupies is a three-story wooden building, and dates back to the Dutch period of the city. She has lived there for several years, and makes a comfortable living by renting rooms, retaining two for herself and her cats. Here she dispenses a liberal charity to a large family of cats. Besides many pets who for years have been kindly cared for, the family is constantly being increased by the addition of unfortunate tabbies whose wants are brought to the notice of the worthy woman. Lean and hungry cats prowling around in search of food, cats who bear the scars received by having boot-jacks, crockery-ware, etc., thrown at them by unappreciative hearers while they were performing a midnight concert; cats who come out with broken limbs and disordered fur from the ordeal of an interview with naughty little boys, and alI cats hungry and in distress, when brought to this asylum, receive the tenderest care. So well known in the neighborhood is the idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Goodman that whenever one of the cases above-mentioned comes to the notice of any of her sympathizing neighbors, the unfortunate sufferer is placed in her charge. When our artist visited her rooms, to make the sketch published on this page, he found the benevolent lady administering to the wants of some fifty cats, of all ages, sizes and conditions.


Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, July 7, 1875.