No. 416
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 26, 2018

An Adventure with a Sea-Lion.

With open mouths and protruding tusks, they warn the intruder agents too near an approach.
March 26, 2018
...
...

Tag: New Jersey

The Crusade Against the Tramp Evil.

New Jersey - The crusade of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company - against the tramp evil Detectives surrounding a camp of the vagabonds near Rahway.

1/27/2026

The First of the Season.

The Earliest Bath of the Year, at Atlantic City

7/5/2022

The Girls Biffed Each Other

1/19/2021

Great Base Ball Match.

Great baseball match between the Atlantic and Boxford Clubs of Brooklyn.

4/23/2018

Courtship from a Tree.

Young and Ardent Bob Toppin, a Newark, N. J., youth, does some tall climbing in order to meet his sweetheart, pretty Miss Hobbie, a parson’s daughter.

3/13/2017

Mrs. Snyder Pays Her Bet.

She backed Harrison, and had to wheel Henry Singer in a barrow, at Atlantic City, N. J.

11/21/2016

They Ran a Snide Game.

A “friendly” poker scheme exposed at Bogota, N. J., by one of the players squealing.

6/13/2016

A Sleep-Walker’s Act.

Miss Belle Collis, of Newark, N. J., surprises the neighbors by her want of thought.

3/26/2016

Fierce Football.

The great game recently played between teams representing the colleges of Princeton and Yale, on the former's grounds, Thanksgiving Day.

11/23/2015

New Jersey’s Great Wash Day.

Farmers with their wives and buxom daughters enjoy their annual bath in old ocean, at Spring Lake Beach, N. J.

8/18/2015

Hard Knocks and Horsewhips.

Miss Mamie Gannon, of Jersey City, attacks reporter Lenhart with a horsewhip for traducing her character in his newspaper.

8/10/2015

They Are a Bad Lot.

The frightful picture of crime and debauchery which has given notoriety to Mary Jane Cawley’s backwoods dive at Cookstown, N. J.

7/27/2015

Defying the Guards.

Downed by Kindness After defying a host of armed keepers, James Driscoll, in the Trenton, N. J. State prison succumbs to a gentle word.

1/12/2015

Murderous Assault by a Wife on Her Husband.

10/6/2014

Set Fire to the Bed.

9/22/2014

A Minister’s Scrape.

7/21/2014

"Four Aces."

9/25/2012

Spectacular Scenes & Sights Down on the Jersey Coast

Poster for the 1898 Broadway show "Have You Seen Smith?"

7/17/2012

She Was Bug Crazy.

5/22/2012

A Plucky Elberon, N. J., Girl

1/31/2012
Via Newspapers.comOne for the “mini mysteries” file: This unresolved poisoning case was reported in the “South Wales Argus,” February 8, 1934.How did cyanide of potassium, used for electro-plating, find its way into a teacup from which a girl of 20 drank tea and died shortly afterwards? This was the mystery inquired into at Sheffield on Wednesday.An inquest was held on the girl, Lilian Charlotte
More...
Strange Company - 10/28/2026
  [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 […]
More...
Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
"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
This week, we feature a guest post by Don Everett Smith Jr., author of The Goffle Road Murders of Passaic County (History Press, 2011).   In a previous post on Murder by Gaslight, “Revisiting the Goffle Road Murders,” Don presented an excerpt from his book. This week’s post, “The Three Hangings, Lycoming County,” examines the 1880 murder of Andrew Miller in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 10/24/2026
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 →
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Her Wheel Was Her Ruin. | An Awfully Unequal Race.

An Adventure with a Sea-Lion.

Adventure with a Sea-Lion On the rocky islands off the coast of California, thousands of sea-lions may often be seen reposing in easy indifference, and forming an immense menagerie. At the approach of a stranger they generally take to the water, unless they are watching over their young, when with open mouths and protruding tusks, they warn the intruder agents too near an approach.

A recent visitor to the haunts of these animals thus relates his experience: “My companion and myself had spend some time watching the young seals at play with each other, and listening to the low moaning of the older ones, that sounded very like the braying of a mule. Occasionally, as we threw a stone among them, the majority hastened off to the water and disappeared beneath the surface. Desirous of bringing away a trophy, my friend caught a young calf, and was carrying it off in triumph, when an old warrior, evidently patriarch of the tribe, suddenly advanced upon him, seized the skirt of his coat, and with one angry shake and a loud and fearful roar, tore it from his body. This part of the programme had not been anticipated and we gladly relinquished our booty and made good our escape, not deeming a reputation of the experience in the least desirable.”


Reprinted from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, May 26, 1866.