No. 809
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
April 15, 2025

She Was a Child of Nature.

Sensation created at Boonville, Ind., by the capture of an alleged wild woman.
April 15, 2025
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Tag: 1880

A Smuggler Queen.

The beautiful contrabandista lately arrested with five confederates near Deming, New Mexico.

3/8/2022

"He Loves Me; He Loves Me Not."

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

4/9/2019

To Arctic Enthusiasts!

1/21/2019

The Queen of The May.

A Vegetarian's Fancy.

5/7/2018

A Jealous Husband’s Mistake.

How a Reading, PA., merchant, broke open his wife’s charmer and discovered a supposed lover to be a harmless female cousin.

2/19/2018

Afloat on a Cake of Ice.

Perilous Situation of a Skating Party on the Ohio River Near Zanesville, Ohio.

1/1/2018

The Country Cureall.

Patients serenading the village doctor.

8/7/2017

July 4.

So this is your birthday again. Well, bless my soul! Columbia, you will be as tall as your father soon.

7/3/2017

Tennis.

"Who wants to pway me a couple of wattling stwong games?"

6/5/2017

Caught Helping Themselves.

Boston detectives arrest two stylishly-dressed women while in the act of the shoplifting game.

1/9/2017

Seeing in the New Year.

Jolly sport among the giddy Vassar girls, fun in the forecastle, and a lonely New Year’s Eve on the desolate prarie.

12/26/2016

Pretty Stars for the Southern Dives.

Fifteen charming chippies make Rome howl while voyaging to New Orleans, Louisiana.

12/19/2016

Another Steamboat Disaster.

New York City, -- The Steamboat Riverdale blown up, August 28th – Rescuing the passengers.

10/3/2016

Trying to Scare an Old Maid with a Wooden Dutchman.

A wooden Dutchman, rather than no man at all, was what a sensible spinster argued when some practical jokers under took to scare her in Oakland, Cal.

7/11/2016

A Successful Trip.

William Leland, of Buffalo, N. Y., takes a pleasurable dive over the Horseshoe Falls and still lives to be written up.

6/5/2016

A Woman’s Flat-Irony.

Miss Sallie Utterback, of Shoals, Near Vincennes, Indiana, knocks out a man with a waggin’ tongue.

2/2/2016

Absolutely Pure.

The only absolutely pure and full weight desiccated cocoanut manufactured in this country.

12/5/2015

Half-dime Novels and Story Papers.

Satan's sure-ruin traps - half-dime novels, five and ten cent story papers, and low-priced pamphlets for boys and girls.

11/14/2015

Fighting Marines.

Some of Uncle Sam’s land and water police have a genial shindy among themselves at the Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N. Y.

11/5/2015

A Rattling Main.

A desperate week-long challenge battle between Georgia and Arkansas cocks won by F. E. Grist's champion, Richard K Fox.

10/20/2015

Another Amorous Parson.

Westchester County is all agog over the case of the Rev. Mr. White, accused of violently assaulting the sister-in-law of a brother clergyman. We illustrate the scene.

10/6/2015

Collecting Beer Money.

A gang of female rogues, of the East Side, New York, work a little racket of their own.

9/15/2015

Life on a Mississippi Steamboat.

The Story-teller in the Wheel-house of the "Belle Memphis"

9/7/2015

Getting Above his Business.

How a too presumptuous shoe dealer’s attention to a female customer was resented by her male escort.

8/31/2015

Yachting.

Yachting.

8/3/2015

A Hot Day in New York.

While New York is by no means the hottest city in the country, there have been a few days during the present season when the temperature reached a height altogether incompatible with human comfort.

7/20/2015

A Bloody Ruction.

Bayonets and Knives—A Sister’s Influence and Prevention of Murder.

6/12/2015

Defying the Guards.

Downed by Kindness After defying a host of armed keepers, James Driscoll, in the Trenton, N. J. State prison succumbs to a gentle word.

1/12/2015

Merry Christmas!

12/22/2014

Aboriginal Footprints.

11/17/2014

A Substitute for a Wife.

10/27/2014

Killed and Eaten by Hogs.

9/15/2014

They Got Hilariously Full.

Alleged cancan dance indulged in by young male and female swells at Jamestown, New York.

8/12/2014

Independence Day in the Country.

6/28/2014

Progress of Naval Architecture.

6/2/2014

Fatal Soda Fountain Explosion.

5/13/2014

Thimble Rig A La Mode.

3/18/2014

Unmindful of their Attire.

A Fire in the Chicago Opera House creates a stampede among pretty actresses who rush to the street dishabille.

3/11/2014

Illicit Distilleries.

North Carolina - An Illicit Whiskey Still in the Mountains Surprised by Revenue Officers.

2/25/2014

Nature versus Art.

2/18/2014

Tobogganing.

1/7/2014
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?Why you wouldn't want to be punished by a pirate.Why you wouldn't want to see a supervolcano erupt.The mystery of the 115,000 year old human footprints.The mystery of the undersea "Bloop."  Related:  The ocean contains all sorts of creepy stuff.A chair that may have belonged to Anne Boleyn.How nuns helped create a fertility
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Strange Company - 5/1/2026
"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
There’s a curious pair of limestone row houses on the lower end of peaceful, park-facing Riverside Drive. Each looks similar from afar. They share the same color of stone, and both facades have bow fronts. But on closer look, you’ll notice that each sports different ornamental bells and whistles. One has a conical roof and […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/27/2026
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, August 5, 1896)Annie Bock and her husband, Jacob, were spending the summer at Rockaway Beach. On Sunday, August 1, 1896, Annie went back to their flat at 207 E. 21st Street in New York City’s Tenderloin district to pay their monthly rent. She had $300 in the Dry Dock Savings Bank, and on Monday morning, she withdrew $50 and paid $20 rent. The plan was to return to Rockaway that
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Murder By Gaslight - 4/25/2026
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
Dogographs. | A Terrible Axe Duel.

She Was a Child of Nature.

Child-of-Nature

Some young men, while hunting near Booneville, Ind., a few days ago, came upon a beautiful young woman, who had apparently been roaming for several days through the swamps and woods in an almost nude condition. When she discovered them she darted away like a frightened deer. They pursued her to a cave. catching her just as she was about entering the same. She is about thirty years of age. Her face and body have been terribly lacerated by brambles and bushes. In her temporary hiding place were found a quantity of nuts and herbs and a piece of an old broken earthenware pitcher. She was carried to a neighboring farmer's house, where she has become more docile. Her name has not been discovered, and she refuses to reveal it.


National Police Gazette, December 29, 1888.