No. 714
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 27, 2025

A Lunatics Ball.

Ball of lunatics at the Asylum, Blackwell's Island, East River, N. Y.
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October 10, 2023
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Tag: Voyeur

The Scandal Which Agitates St. Louis.

Astounding Revelations of a Low Cunning and Vile Curiosity in One of the Proprietors of the Grand Opera House.

7/23/2024

Peeped at the Bride.

A little incident that marred actor Lawrence Hanley’s wedding night in Terre Haute, Ind.

4/3/2017

A Man under Her Bed.

Had Miss Baker looked under the bed before making her toilet she would have postponed it.

9/26/2016

His Peep Ends Disastrously.

William Peters, a Cincinnati dude, tries to mash Maggie Bolton but gets mashed instead.

8/15/2016
JAMES ANDERSON
alias: EVANS, JIMMIE THE KID
PICKPOCKET

Soapy Smith's "STAR" notebook, 1883-84, St. Louis, San Francisco, Soapy arrested: Pages #22-23

Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 22 - Original copy 1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's "STAR" notebook, 1883-84, St. Louis, San Francisco, Soapy arrested: Pages #22-23      This post is on page 22 and 23 of the "STAR" notebook. I am combining these two pages as they only account for a total of seven lines. They are not appearing to be a continuation of
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 8/27/2025

It’s Almost August

Stop by this week as we explore what happened the week before the murders, Emma and Lizzie’s getaway to Fairhaven and New Bedford, and new imagery which will help to tell the story. The pears are almost ripe, August 4th is coming fast, and thoughts begin to turn to that house on Second Street once again. Follow us at https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts/ !
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/26/2025
Amen.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Haunting a house is bad form, but stealing electricity from the rightful residents seems to be going way too far.  The London "Independent," December 6, 1994 (via Newspapers.com):Heol Fanog House in St David's Without, near Brecon in Wales, has plagued its occupants since they moved in five years ago. Self-employed artist Bill Rich, his wife Liz and three young children, have endured smells
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Strange Company - 8/27/2025

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 Horrible Butchery.

Three teenage boys made a shocking discovery in Philadelphia’s East Fairmont Park on December 26, 1888. They were in a secluded area near the reservoir where the Water Department stored pipes. Sitting atop a large steel pipe, one of the boys noticed two coarse gunny sacks inside the three-foot mouth of a nearby pipe. He thought they contained the clothes of a tramp. Another boy took a pocketknife
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/23/2025
On the Russians.

An East Village restaurant’s ghost sign is a relic of the neighborhood’s Italian immigrant past

By the time Sicilian immigrant Michael Lanza founded his namesake restaurant in 1904, the location he chose on First Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets was shaping into a mini Little Italy. Across the Avenue on 11th Street was Veniero’s, the Italian bakery dating back to 1894. in 1908, specialty grocers Russo’s would open a […]
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Ephemeral New York - 8/25/2025

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
Burglars on Bicycles. | The Two Paths in Life.

A Lunatics Ball.

Ball of Lunatics

The 5th of this month was sagnalized on Blackwell’s Island by a ball, given to the patients of the Insane Asylum, in honor of the completion of the first of a series of four frame buildings, recently commence in consequence of the overcrowded state of the institution.

Their delusions forgotten, many of the patients whirled about in glee, which, though wild, did not exceed the bounds of common-sense propriety; others were merly roused from their apathetic state, and gazed with a slight smile upon the scene.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, December 8, 1865.

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