No. 84
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 22, 2012

She Was Bug Crazy.

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May 22, 2012
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Tag: Sport

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

Surf Swimming at Hawaii, Sandwich Islands.

Faahee, or surf-swimming, is a favorite pastime with the natives of the Sandwich Islands.

4/21/2015

A Monkey and Dog Time.

The novel bating match in Van Wert, Ohio, between a Marion gorilla and a Fort Wayne, Indiana Canine.

2/23/2015

Vive Le Sport!

1/15/2013

Hid the Girls' Skirts

8/22/2011

Belles of the Bowling Alley.

The athletic diversions of an association of dashing damsels in their club rooms in Chicago. 

6/6/2011
FREDERICK LAUTHER
alias: , F R WILSON, FREDDIE LOUTHER
SNEAK, PICKPOCKET

Weekend Link Dump

 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!Oh, God, the Strange Company staffers are bar-hopping again.A case of avenged honor.The most famous dog of the Middle Ages.The legend of King Arthur in Greenland.A Welsh village that became a casualty of WWII.The rise and fall of masquerade balls.In which science proves that stolen french fries taste better.Two newly-discovered sermons by St.
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Strange Company - 6/19/2026

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
Amen.

New York’s longest “step street” is this dramatic three-block concrete staircase in the Bronx

Getting around the western Bronx by foot means encountering hilly streets, lots of hilly streets. The pitched terrain comes from ridges of bedrock formed millions of years ago extending into Northern Manhattan. Back in the early 1900s when the Bronx was undergoing urbanization, all these hills posed a challenge to transit engineers, since some roads […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/15/2026

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

A Delilah's Revenge.

 In 1863, Theodore B. Weber, then a businessman in Burlington, Iowa, was attracted to Mrs. Adelaide (Ada) Bennert, a woman sixteen years his junior. His passion “soon ripened into criminal intimacy,” and although both were married, they began a romantic affair. When Mr. Bennert learned of his wife’s infidelity, he left her in disgust. Weber moved to Chicago to join his brother’s
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/20/2026
On the Russians.

June 14, 1893 Big Day In Court

Be sure to stop by our Facebook page tomorrow for a Prosecution Marathon of witnesses. Here are the witnesses for Wednesday, June 14th, Day 9 Rufus Hilliard, City Marshal, Mayor John Coughlin, Mrs. Hannah Gifford (seamstress and dressmaker), Anna Borden ( wealthy socialite who was on Lizzie’s grand tour of Europe, distantly related to Lizzie), Lucy Collett (watching the office of Dr. Chagnon day of the murder), Thomas Bowles ( handyman who once rented a room from Addie Churchill and was wa
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/13/2026

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
Kate Warne. | Saloons and Houses of Ill-Fame.

She Was Bug Crazy.

Bug Crazy Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1886 - The mysterious female from New Orleans whose captive Brazilian beetle astonished and disgusted the hotel boarders. [more]

Wealthy and Mysterious

One of the most notable guests who spent the summer here and who has just departed, writes Atlantic City correspondent of the Philadelphia News, was a lady from New Orleans, who was conspicuous at the hops for her diamonds, her Skye terrier with a gold collar, and a black Machette beetle with a gold harness and chain. She was originally a guest at one of the fashionable down-town hotels, but she persisted in having the ugly beetle crawling around her at the table, and the more fastidious of the gusts broke out in open revolt and threatened to the management with abdication. She retired to a cottage, and spent her evenings as a lonely spectator at the hops of the uptown hotels. Her she would gather around her a crowd of curious folks, who would gaze with admiration at her wonderful Brazilian beetle chained to her bosom. The terrier was her only companion. Her purse was always filled, her diamonds always measured a peek, but she suggested mystery with all her wealth and appearance of wealth.

The National Police Gazette, October 9, 1886

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