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
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Tag: Romance

"He Loves Me; He Loves Me Not."

How Marie Played a Romantic Trick on Her Lover and Brought Him to Time

4/9/2019

Courtship from a Tree.

Young and Ardent Bob Toppin, a Newark, N. J., youth, does some tall climbing in order to meet his sweetheart, pretty Miss Hobbie, a parson’s daughter.

3/13/2017

Trixie Got the Best of It.

Two Little Gem Theatre, Buffalo, N. Y., Soubrettes have a scrap on account of a man.

10/8/2011

Sparking in Tompkins Square

Cupid in Tompkins Square

6/28/2011

The Girls Biffed Each Other

4/16/2011
 It's time for this week's Link Dump!Let's dance!That time when an English village was terrorized by a giant rabbit.How the Declaration of Independence made the news.The socialite and the "Titanic orphans."The last victim of the Berlin Wall.Remembering the American Soapbox.Life on one of Lord Nelson's 32-pounders.The hidden communication of animals.British fairies, meet Indian changelings.3I
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Strange Company - 4/17/2026
"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
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
Riverside Drive is one of Manhattan’s most beautiful and dramatic avenues. It’s also a place of legend and mystery, especially during the Drive’s early decades as a Gilded Age “millionaire colony” rival to Fifth Avenue. Which mansion built in the early 1900s has a basement tunnel leading to the Hudson River? Where can you find […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/16/2026
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
(New York Journal, May 31, 1896.)On the morning of Memorial Day, May 30, 1896, Mrs. Annie Cunningham had to go to work, while her 13-year-old daughter, Mary (known as Mamie), was home from school for the holiday. Mrs. Cunningham asked Mamie if she planned to go to the parade. Mamie said no, she wasn’t interested, and she planned to do housework and study. At 8:30, she said goodbye to her daughter
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Murder By Gaslight - 4/18/2026
Whatever you believe about the guilt or innocence of Lizzie Borden, I have always believed film makers do a great injustice to the story by not beginning at the beginning- the death on March 26, 1863 of the first Mrs. Borden. In the dying moments of Sarah Morse, Emma takes on the weight of the care of her little sister, not yet three years old. Emma herself was just 12 on March 1st. Emma has seen her mother suffer for a long time, seen her pain and loss of little Alice Esther. Emma is old enough
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
  [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
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.