Ball of lunatics at the Asylum, Blackwell's Island, East River, N. Y.
Such is Boston morality and such is woman's fidelity.
Burning of Steamers on the Ohio River at Cincinnati May 17, 1869.
Scene in a velocipede riding-school, New York City.
On the Beach at Newport, Rhode Island.
Great baseball match between the Atlantic and Boxford Clubs of Brooklyn.
In consequence of the new liquor law, this is the ingenious manner in which a worthy teuton friend of ours takes his family out for their Sunday rambles.
With open mouths and protruding tusks, they warn the intruder agents too near an approach.
One of the most thrilling disasters at sea that has happened for many years.
An extraordinary account of a mathematician, mechanician, and musician named Alix.
generic ivermectin - <a href="https://ivermecti.com/">stromectol 3mg cost</a> order stromectol online
Startling accident at the draw bridge of the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad, Federal Street, Troy, N. Y., Saturday, Sept 23.
Traveling through fire—Fearful peril of a railway train, at Cedar Swamp, on the Eastern Railroad, Maine, Sunday, Sept. 17
An employee of the Boston Gas Works boasted his ability to kill a rat with his teeth.
Styles for the Month.
The original and daring aerial representation by Thomas Hanlon, now performed by him every evening at Niblo's Garden.
Mdlle. Carlotta de Berg, at the New York Circus, Fourteenth Street.
Faahee, or surf-swimming, is a favorite pastime with the natives of the Sandwich Islands.
We give in our present number a correct sketch of one of the largest specimens of the Porpoise that has ever been seen.
A simple schoolgirl prank spawned a new belief with millions of followers.
Of the many forms of bank robbery, the bank sneak had the safest, easiest and most lucrative method of all.
Kate Warne, America’s first female detective.
The Eye that Never Sleeps.
Cardiff, New York, October 16, 1869.
The conmen of New York City were noted for their colorful nicknames: “Paper Collar Joe" Bond, “Grand Central Pete" Lake, Jimmy “the Kid” Fitzgerald, and the greatest of all, “Hungry Joe” Lewis.
Joseph Lewis was given the sobriquet "Hungry Joe" for the soulful countenance he usually bore. An 1885 biography of Hungry Joe described it this way:
"His general expression, however, is one of a far-away, yearning sort, not exactly poetic, but sad and thoughtful, as though his mind was occupied with things outside of the usual frivolities of life."
This expression can be seen in Hungry Joe’s iconic mug shot in Inspector Byrnes’s Professional Criminals of America.
Hungry Joe was a bunco steerer (called “banco steerer” in New York and New England). He would quickly ingratiate himself to some stranger traveling through New York, gain his trust then lure him to some game or situation where the traveler would lose everything he had. Hungry Joe preferred preying on countrymen—farmers and other wealthy gentlemen unfamiliar with big city ways, who had come to town to sell crops or buy equipment.
Sometimes Joe would entice his mark to play banco, a rigged game involving dice or cards, in which early gains by the player quickly turned to enormous losses. The player would invariably pay to avoid publicity. Another scam he used was called the “envelope game.” The player pays ten dollars to select from a box full of envelopes. The envelope contains currency in amounts ranging from one to fifty dollars. The player can only bet his own money, not his winnings. In this game, the play is extended as long as possible and the player ultimately wins, only to find out later that he has traded his cash for envelopes full of counterfeit bills.
Other times Joe would introduce the mark to a beautiful woman with an endless supply of champagne. The mark would wake up the next day in a strange room with nothing left but an excruciating hangover. In at least one instance, Hungry Joe used this method to steal not only a farmer’s money but the crops he had come to town to sell.
Regardless of the game, the method of roping in the mark was always the same. An accomplice, known as a “feeler,” would identify a wealthy traveler then, through chance meetings and overheard conversations, gather as much information as he could about the man. The information would be related to Hungry Joe who, armed with this knowledge, would pretend to recognize the mark from his hometown. He would pose as the son of the man’s banker or another prominent citizen of his town, and the mark, pleased to be recognized by someone so worthy, would be open to whatever Hungry Joe proposed.
Hungry Joe’s most audacious score was fleecing Oscar Wilde out of $5,000 at a game of banco. During the English poet’s 1883 visit to New York City, Hungry Joe finagled an introduction and palled around with Wilde for a week, dining at New York’s finest hotels, before suggesting that they try a game. As everyone does, Oscar Wilde lost at banco and wrote Joe a check to cover his losses. The next day, realizing that he had been swindled, Wilde stopped payment on the check, but he did not press charges. The incident so impressed New York Police Inspector Thomas Byrnes that on a subsequent arrest he said to Hungry Joe,
“You are able to make a fortune honestly, for any man who has the ability to fool Oscar Wilde and to bunko him has ability not only to make a living honestly, but to make a fortune, and when you get out of your present strait I would advise you to turn your attention to something that is honest.”
Hungry Joe managed to avoid any major prison time until May 1885 when he was arrested for stealing $250 from an English tourist. He had lured Joseph Ramsden of Manchester into a game of three card monte and when Ramsden pulled out a roll of ten pound notes, Hungry Joe, in an uncharacteristic fit of impatience, grabbed the roll and ran. He was caught, arrested, and sentenced to four years in Sing Sing.
After serving his sentence, Hungry Joe Lewis allegedly took Inspector Byrnes’s advice and went straight, opening a laundry business.
Sources: