No. 428
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 11, 2018

Caught Wifie Dead to Rights.

She was perched upon the knee of her gentleman friend at Saginaw, Mich., enjoying her delicious swee
June 11, 2018
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Via Newspapers.comThis tale of strange goings-on in a seemingly unremarkable apartment was told in the “Western Mail,” March 10, 1927:An extraordinary story of queer happenings in an unoccupied Fulham (England) flat was told recently by a foreman and two workmen who have been decorating it (declares the "London Daily News").One of the men mentioned to the foreman some days ago that when working
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Strange Company - 6/10/2026
"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
You can see it peeking out from the Harlem River Drive or through the chain-link fence of the Third Avenue Bridge: a five-story red brick building almost buried behind glass and steel apartment towers. The towers are newish luxury rental residences built on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. Shiny and modern, they bring […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/8/2026
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
As Mr. Moody for the Prosecution dramatically expounds on hatchets and grisly details, and a glimpse of two skulls in a leather case, Lizzie slumps over in her chair. Was it the heat or the ghastly descriptions?
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/7/2026
  [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
What Kind of Bald Heads May be Sure of a Growth of Hair. | The Wedding Postponed.

Caught Wifie Dead to Rights.

Won on the Midway

 

A World’s Fair Tyrolese beauty captures the love and caresses of an alleged faithless husband and is discovered by his wife. 

The beauty show on the Midway at the World’s Fair, Chicago, now has another matrimonial scalp hanging on it bejeweled belt. Tied securely to the end of the aforesaid scalp is Arthur St. Clair Bailey. In her bill for separate maintenance filed in the Circuit Court, Arthur’s wife says she has often witnessed, in agonizing shame, the arm of her husband encircling the form of the fair Tyrolese beauty. “Alleged” Tyrolese beauty, the wife calls her, and she consumed the Midway beer under the name of Gisella Grossman. Bailey, it seems helps manage the beauty show and when he went there his wife, Alice, protested with scalding tears running down her cheeks. She knew that Albert could not withstand the shy glances of the “beauts.” For a time Alice stayed home and conducted their store at 533 West Madison Street.

But When Arthur didn’t come home nights any more she grew suspicious. By doing a little detective work herself, she discovered that Gisella’s room was next to her husband’s and the latter had so darkened the girl/s apartments that no eye could peep in.

Being persistent, however, she succeeded in obtaining a view of the defendant, when on his lap in loving embrace sat Gisella. And such kisses and caresses! It made the poor wife think of her honeymoon. Several times she had seen these awful things, and then like a sensible woman sought relief in the courts. Neither does Mrs. Baily propose to allow her spouse full freedom, for instead of suing for divorce she seeks one of those judgments where a man has to put up for his wife’s good times and can’t marry again. Further than this, the wife says her husband owns real estate and is about to sell it and go to California with Gisella. Accordingly, a writ of ne exeat is prayed to prevent him from leaving the State. The bill also states that the defendant has spent all the profit of the store in buying presents for his love and among them is an expensive diamond ring.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November 18, 1893.

Caught Wife

She was perched upon the knee of her gentleman friend at Saginaw, Mich., enjoying her delicious sweetness of mingled champagne and kisses. [more]

The usually quiet neighborhood in the vicinity of Union Park on Bond Street, Saginaw, Mich., is all torn up over the rumors which are being lisped about to the effect that an indulgent husband came home very unexpectedly one afternoon several days since and discovered his pretty wife entertaining a gentlemen friend of the family in her bedroom. The sight knocked the wind out of the poor man’s sails completely, for he never dreamed that his little wife was other that the personification of virtue. When he opened the door leading to his wife’s bed-chamber the guilty couple did not discover him at first. They sat with their backs to the wronged husband, the naughty wife perched closely upon the knee of the alleged friend of the family. Two bottles of champagne were on a table close by. There was no blood shed. The husband is not the man to fly to weapons, he prefers the divorce courts, and it is dollars to doughnuts that he will file a bill of separation. The “friend of the family” attempted all sorts of apologies, but the wronged husband turned him from the house in a rage and went straightway to his wife and informed her of her liege lord’s conduct. The news was a blow to the wife, who had always been complimented throughout the neighborhood for being blessed with such a model husband.

Since the unpleasant affair occurred all parties concerned have done all in their power to keep it a profound secret but like all other bits of rich scandal, the gossips have got hold of it and every woman in the neighborhood is eying the naught y wife with suspicion. She is such a ladylike little person that, even yet, her most intimate friends are prone to find her not guilty.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, September 1896.