No. 795
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 04, 2025

Pick-pockets "Working the Crowd.''

Getting into the Cars at 4th Avenue and 27th Street, New York.
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February 4, 2025
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Tag: 1850s

Grand Panoramic View

Of The East Side of Washington Street, Boston.

4/4/2023

Dogographs.

By a Fast Young Puppy.

10/4/2022

June.

Allegorical Representation of the Month of June.

6/4/2018

Turkey Shooting.

About the beginning of October, turkeys, young and old, move from their breeding districts towards the rich bottom lands near the Ohio and the Mississippi.

11/20/2017

October.

Above we give a representation of a portion of the work which occupies the New England farmer at this season of the year.

10/2/2017

The Valentine.

The subjoined engraving, the design of which is from the graceful pencil of Rowse, is more eloquent than words.

2/12/2017

January.

Allegorical Representation of January

1/2/2017

September.

9/5/2016

May-Day.

May-Day

5/2/2016

Floating Circus.

Spaulding & Rogers’s Floating Circus Palace.

4/11/2016

Chang and Eng, The Siamese Twins.

A characteristic group, representing Chang and Eng, the Siamese Twins, with their wives and Children.

2/29/2016

A Winter Scene.

Winter Pastime – A Skating Scene.

1/25/2016

Kate Warne.

Kate Warne, America’s first female detective.

5/30/2012

Allan Pinkerton.

The Eye that Never Sleeps.

3/27/2012
FREDERICK BENNER
alias: DUTCH FRED, FRANK BELMONT, FRE~ERICK BENNETT
PICKPOCKET, BURGLAR

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comTreasure hunting and ghosts seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly.  As an example, peruse this story from the “Bartlesville Examiner,” February 13, 1927:OKMULGEE, Okla. - (AP) -Snake Creek, in Okmulgee county, still believes in her six lively ghosts and sets back to laugh at outsiders when they invade the playground of the spirits.  Investigation has failed
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Strange Company - 10/14/2026

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
Amen.

Artifact #93: Soapy's son, hires attorney to stop the slurring of his father's name.

"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

Laura and Alexander.

 Laura D. Fair and Alexander P. CrittendenA prominent California legislator was sitting with his wife and son on board the Oakland-San Francisco ferryboat El Capitain the evening of November 3, 1870. They did not notice the woman approaching them, dressed entirely in black, wearing a broad-brimmed black hat with a black veil covering her face. From the folds of her dress, the woman
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Murder By Gaslight - 10/10/2026
On the Russians.

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
This Soubrette Played Faro. | A Boy’s Wild Ride.

Pick-pockets "Working the Crowd.''

Working-the-crowd

What an ordeal to pass through is this; said a respectable party after having got to a seat in the cars at the depot at the corner of 4th avenue and 27th street, New York, a few nights ago. The party had fallen into a swell mob, such as is organised on the instant, by smart thieves who watch for their opportunities and snatch watches, or other portable valuables, from the person of unsuspecting travellers who happen to be in a hurry. These scenes are sometimes varied with noise from the victims and violence from the party who are working the crowd, so as to render it necessary for a policeman to step in and send the victim, after a reprimand, very much humbled, to his hotel or his railroad train.

Illustrated Police News, April 11, 1872.

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