No. 868
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 02, 2026

A Female Card Sharp.

A female gambler detects an opponent cheating and rakes in the pot.
June 2, 2026
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Tag: Indiana

Cool Break for Liberty.

Two Prisoners Handcuffed Together Jump from a Hotel Window in their Night Clothes and Escape.

4/7/2026

Knocked Dead by a Meteor.

A Remarkable Casualty which Overtook a Hoosier While Asleep in His Bed.

7/1/2024

Wanted to Sit by the Widow.

A ruffianly brawl at Haman's Hotel, Greensburg, Ind.

5/10/2022

So Far from Home

Her struggle was useless, the life-blood was pouring from a gaping wound in her throat.

12/21/2021

Beat the Hypnotist.

Two girls, who had been ill-treated by a fake mesmerist, get revenge in Indianapolis, Ind.

7/2/2018

Her Wheel Was Her Ruin.

A father of Indianapolis, Ind., catches his daughter drinking wine with a jovial crowd at a notorious local roadhouse.

4/2/2018

Peeped at the Bride.

A little incident that marred actor Lawrence Hanley’s wedding night in Terre Haute, Ind.

4/3/2017

The Women Screamed.

A gang of pickpockets go through an excursion train near Wabash, Ind.

11/15/2016

A Pair of Turtle Doves.

J. C. McLean, of Anderson, Ind., discovers that his wife is of a too-loving nature.

5/23/2016

Killed by a Baseball.

John Walters, of Richmond, Indiana becomes a victim of his love for the national game.

4/5/2016

A Woman’s Flat-Irony.

Miss Sallie Utterback, of Shoals, Near Vincennes, Indiana, knocks out a man with a waggin’ tongue.

2/2/2016

A Woman’s Flat-Irony.

Miss Sallie Utterback, of Shoals, Near Vincennes, Indiana, knocks out a man with a waggin' tongue.

2/17/2015

Giddy Young Girls.

12/1/2014

Drove Nails in his Ear.

7/23/2013

It Was a "She."

7/9/2013

Breaking Up a Bagnio.

11/18/2012
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"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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Strange Company - 6/5/2026
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
In 1830, Joseph Knapp conspired with his brother, John Francis Knapp, to hire a local criminal, Richard Crowninshield, to murder their great uncle, Captain Joseph White, in Salem, Massachusetts. They believed that if the captain died without a will, they stood to inherit a sizable fortune.Read the full story here: "A Most Extraordinary Case"
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/6/2026
Say what you want about Robert Moses. But as Parks Commissioner in the 1930s, he opened 11 new public municipal pools across the five boroughs—helping residents keep cool and resist the lure of swimming in the East or Hudson River, which amazingly people used to do. Moses, a swim fan himself, also championed and helped […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/1/2026
  [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
| Rip Roaring Fun.

A Female Card Sharp.

Female-gambler

A female gambler detects an opponent cheating and rakes in the pot.

She was the boss. She carried a revolver in her bustle and a pack of cards in her pocket, and she can beat any ordinary player out of a cool hundred in twenty minutes of draw poker. She is a scientific disciple of Schenck, and hails from Milwaukee. She appeared in Chicago a short time since and gave out that she had $25,000 pug on a game of draw. A couple of the knowing ones soon sought her out, and in a very short time, they were engaged over a green covered table in a lively game. She held an ace and four kings, but her opponent kept raising until she had planked her last dollar. Then laying her hand down on the table and placing a small sized bowie-knife over the same, she loosened a revolver in her girdle and then called her opponent’s hand. He hesitated a moment, and she seized his waist and turned his hand to view—it contained four aces and a king. The female relative of Schenck cast on the gambler a look of scorn as they gathered up the spoils, and revolver in hand, ordered him out of his chair where lay the card he had discarded for the extra ace. She departed from Chicago with her pile doubled, and in Jean Richter’s words, we might say “Honor women. They strew celestial roses on the pathway of our terrestrial life.


Illustrated Police News, July 6, 1876.