No. 712
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 16, 2025

Fashion's Fillies.

A Fancy For Horse-Show Week.
February 25, 2019
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 Welcome!It seems appropriate for this week's Link Dump to be hosted by an authentic 16th century witch's cat.Just be careful how you pet him.  You don't want to turn into a frog.What the hell is 31/Atlas?  And do we really want to know?One of the first celebrity dogs.A pitchfork murder.Paging Graham Hancock!A visit to Christ Church, Spitalfields.There's really nothing like morgue
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Strange Company - 8/15/2025
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
As anyone who has ever taken a walk through a city park knows, New York is rich with beautiful bronze statues. Typically they grace a public space, often on a decorative pedestal or base and in a setting that underscores their importance (or their importance at the time the statue was completed). Then there are […]
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Ephemeral New York - 8/11/2025
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
Helen (Ellen) Jewett was an upscale New York City prostitute. In 1836, her clients included politicians, lawyers, and wealthy merchants. One of them, a young clerk named Richard Robinson, wanted Helen all to himself. When she refused, he killed her with an axe and set fire to her bed. 
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/16/2025
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
  [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
A Brooklyn Romance. | Another Fool with a Gun.

Fashion's Fillies.

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.

Fashion's Fillies


Reprinted from Puck, November 11, 1891.