No. 625
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
April 05, 2022

Dropping Their Disguise.

How a loving bridal couple were suddenly transformed into a brace of absconding counterfeiters.
April 5, 2022
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Tag: Poisoning

Our story began like a fairy tale:  At a New York City social gathering, a handsome, suave young Chinese lawyer meets the pretty, cultured daughter of a wealthy merchant prince from Macao, and the pair fall in love virtually at first sight.  Seven months later, in May 1928, the two are married, and go off on a romantic honeymoon trip, after which they live happily ever after…Well,
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Strange Company - 5/11/2026
"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
John Sloan was a Village resident and something of a voyeur in the early 1900s, discreetly watching from his window or walking nearby streets in search of scenes to commit to canvas. He never lacked material, finding inspiration in the ordinary: a woman hanging laundry, men drinking in McSorley’s saloon, the elevated train snaking through […]
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Ephemeral New York - 5/11/2026
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
"Diamond Flossie" Murphy.(New York Journal, March 18, 1898.)Flossie Murphy was a flamboyant character, notorious in the demi-monde of New York City’s Tenderloin. She had a fondness for diamond jewelry, which she wore conspicuously, earning her the nickname, “Diamond Flossie.” But when she was found on the floor of her room on April 22, 1897, with a rope tied around her neck and all her jewelry
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Murder By Gaslight - 5/9/2026
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
A Rattling Main. | A Woman Gambler in Nevada.

Dropping Their Disguise.

Dropping Their DisguiseHow a loving bridal couple were suddenly transformed into a brace of absconding counterfeiters after crossing the border between the United States and Canada, on the A. & G. W. R. R. 

“We’re in Canada now, Mike; I’m going to take of these togs."

This was the remark made by an apparently youthful bride to her companion, a well dressed young bridegroom on his wedding tour.

They were seated in one of the parlor cars on the Atlantic and Great Western railroad, and the train had just passed the boundary line that separates the land where the stars and stripes float supreme and the territory where flaps the crimson ensign of England.

The pair had attracted much attention all the way from Lockport, being very loving and billing and cooing like turtle doves. The rather peculiar expression alluded to above attracted still more attention, and the passengers were somewhat surprised to see the blushing bride disrobe herself, take off a jaunty hat and blonde wig and disclose an underdress of male clothing. Her companion also divested himself of a mustache and a wig. The metamorphosis showed up the travelers in their true light. . They were two counterfeiters escaping from the land of the brave and the home of the free, where things had got too hot for them.


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, November 19, 1883.