No. 716
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 10, 2023
A Lunatics Ball.
Ball of lunatics at the Asylum, Blackwell's Island, East River, N. Y.
October 10, 2023
alias: JOSEPH WHARRIS
PICKPOCKET, BOARDING-HOUSE THIEF
Some of the best street photographers are outsiders who stalk the city anonymously, blending into the concrete and crowds as they filter tender fleeting moments through their own emotional lens. Angelo Antonio Rizzuto, an unlikely street photographer who went unnoticed as he captured more than 60,000 images of the postwar city, fits this description perfectly. […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/16/2026
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
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
Welcome to this week's Link Dump!Happy Friday the 13th!The languages of ancient humans.Dodo birds actually tasted pretty good. Unfortunately for them.An ancient coin that tells of a massive slave rebellion.The long war against the Barbary pirates.Traces of a mysterious ancient religion.An extinct marsupial turns up alive and well.The miniatures that served as Tudor love tokens.In
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Strange Company - 3/13/2026
Welcome to this week's Link Dump!Happy Friday the 13th!The languages of ancient humans.Dodo birds actually tasted pretty good. Unfortunately for them.An ancient coin that tells of a massive slave rebellion.The long war against the Barbary pirates.Traces of a mysterious ancient religion.An extinct marsupial turns up alive and well.The miniatures that served as Tudor love tokens.In
More...
Strange Company - 3/13/2026
"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
About half past three, the morning of July 2, 1863, a young man on his way to work in Medina, Ohio, saw the home of Shubal Coy in flames. He alerted the neighbors, who came out to douse the flames with water. When the fire was under control, they went inside to look for the Coy family. They found Shubal lying in bed with nine stab wounds in his throat and breast, any one of them capable of
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/14/2026
Some of the best street photographers are outsiders who stalk the city anonymously, blending into the concrete and crowds as they filter tender fleeting moments through their own emotional lens. Angelo Antonio Rizzuto, an unlikely street photographer who went unnoticed as he captured more than 60,000 images of the postwar city, fits this description perfectly. […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 3/16/2026
"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
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
The Bloody Century 2
Takes the reader back to 19th-century America in all its gory glory.
