No. 712
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 5, 2025

Two Giddy Girls.

Sent up Eight Years for Smoking Cigars in Public.
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May 27, 2014
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AUGUSTUS GREGORY
alias: GEO SCHWENECKE
HOTEL THIEF

Murder by Toothbrush: The Strange Case of Tita Critescu

1930s Romania may not have been a paradise for most people, but for a young Bucharest actress named Tita Cristescu, life was pretty darned good.  She was well-connected (her father, Gheorghe Cristescu, was a prominent figure in Romanian politics,) she had a successful theatrical career, and was pretty enough to be named “Miss Romania” of 1933.  Tita was engaged to be married to Hotta
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Strange Company - 8/4/2025

Soapy Smith's "STAR" notebook, 1884, Denver: Page #20

Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 20 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's early empire growth in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884. This is page 20, the continuation of page 19, and dated May 6 - May 29, 1884, as well as the continuation of pages 18-19, the beginning of Soapy Smith's criminal empire building in Denver, Colorado.&
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 6/1/2025
Amen.

The mysterious blocked-off entryways built into a Central Park transverse road

There’s so much exquisite natural and structural beauty grabbing your attention in Central Park that you probably don’t give the transverse roads much thought. You know the transverse roads. Part of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s 1858 Greensward plan for the park, these four serpentine roads at 65th, 79th, 85th, and 97th Streets are […]
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Ephemeral New York - 8/4/2025

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

The Walworth Parricide, in New York.

 Read the full story here: The Walworth Patricide.
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/2/2025
On the Russians.

It’s Almost August

Stop by this week as we explore what happened the week before the murders, Emma and Lizzie’s getaway to Fairhaven and New Bedford, and new imagery which will help to tell the story. The pears are almost ripe, August 4th is coming fast, and thoughts begin to turn to that house on Second Street once again. Follow us at https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts/ !
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/26/2025

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
Progress of Naval Architecture. | Decoration Day and its Memories.

Two Giddy Girls.

2 Giddy Girls

Sent up Eight Years for Smoking Cigars in Public. 

A couple of dashing Providence, (R. I.) females imitate the Lords of Creation, are arrested, and sentenced to a reformatory for eight years.

A case at Providence, R. I., has excited considerable attention. Two girls were taken up for smoking cigars on the street and carrying canes, and were sentenced to the Reformatory for eight years. The sentence is pronounced cruel and unjust, particularly as men who have been guilty of great embezzlements, and even of manslaughter and other crimes, have been let off with from two to four years. It is well said that when these poor girls come out from their long term they will in all probability be hopelessly ruined. Reformatories seldom reform girls who are put there for eight years for smoking cigars.

The National Police Gazette, 23 Oct 1880

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