No. 637
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 21, 2022

Knife and Chloroform Duel.

How a Doctor Kept a Morphine Fiend from Killing Him With a Long-Bladed Surgical Instrument.
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June 21, 2022
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JOHN LOVE
alias: JAMES D WELLS
SNEAK, BANK BURGLAR

Lizzie arrives at court, June 5, 1893

Lizzie’s carriage pulls up to the back door. She is helped out by Deputy Sheriff Kirby. In the background you can just see Mr. Perry’s stable where the telegraph crew has set up for the trial. Today will be jury selection.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/5/2026

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
Amen.

Weekend Link Dump

 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!I'm sure our host this week needs no further introduction.  The caption says it all.A medieval anti-war satire.Mysterious meat shower?  Or vulture vomit?The paranormal side of the Cold War.Ernest Hemingway, boxing, and, uh, salad dressing.The man who blew up a nuclear power station.Mystery in a medieval tomb.More proof that scientists have way too
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Strange Company - 6/5/2026

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

Jack the Strangler Post-Mortem.

Strangler Suspect, Jacob Tolker(New York Journal, May 14, 1897)Eight women were strangled—seven fatally— on Manhattan’s East Side, between May 1894 and August 1900. While the police closed three of the cases, their solutions were so weak that the New York City newspapers continued to list them all as unsolved and continued to speculate that one man committed all eight crimes. “It is not difficult
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Murder By Gaslight - 5/31/2026
On the Russians.

All the beaches open for swimming in Depression-era New York City, according to a subway poster

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

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
Independence Day in the Country. | Done Up by Dizzy Blondes.

Knife and Chloroform Duel.

Subduing-Crazy

A young man with the sallowness of complexion that betokens the excessive use of morphine called at the office of Dr. W.O. Wilcox in San Francisco, April 12, and commanded the physician to give him one "shot" of the drug. The fiend was armed with a surgeon's knife, the blade of which was six inches long, and he volunteered to cut the doctor's heart out.

Dr. Wilcox dashed part of the contents of a six-ounoe bottle of chloroform in the face of the fiend as he made a lunge with the knife. This stopped the wild man for an instant, and the doctor saturated a handkerchief. As the fiend sprang at him a second time the physician pressed the handkerchief to the fellow's nostrils. The fiend sank to the floor and the doctor gave him a "shot" of morphine.

When the fiend regained consciousness he informed the doctor that he had had a really charming visit, adding as he left the office that he would call again, would not forget the number, and would speak a good word for the house. Dr. Wilcox says the next "shot" he gives the fellow will be powder and ball.

Illustrated Police News, May 4, 1895.

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