No. 733
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
January 30, 2024

Danced on a Billiard Table.

Danced on a Billiard Table to Banjo Music.
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January 30, 2024
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CHARLES WILLIAMSON
alias: PERRINE
BANK OF ENGLAND FORGER

One writer’s melancholy visit to the “island full of idiots” in the East River in 1888

If you were a New Yorker in the 19th century and found yourself to be poor, incurably sick, homeless, or convicted of a crime, you might have been herded into a ferry and confined to one of the “islands of the undesirables” in the East River. In the colonial era, these islands were privately owned […]
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Ephemeral New York - 7/13/2026

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, which is so action-packed, not one, but four hosts were required!Two ships from the "dawn of naval aviation."It turns out that wild chimpanzees are pretty good drummers.If you're planning to visit the Grand Canyon, maybe think twice about that.I was in a happier frame of mind before I learned that there is a spider that can outrun humans.A really confusing
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Strange Company - 7/10/2026

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

The Confession of Mary Cole.

The Confession of Mary Cole, 1813.Cornelius and Mary Cole lived in a farmhouse in Sussex County, New Jersey, with their two children and Mary’s widowed mother, Agnes Teaurs. Cornelius bought the property from Agnes in exchange for an annuity of $50 per year for the rest of her life. Mary and her husband did not live happily with Agnes. According to Mary, her mother was always very hard on her,
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Murder By Gaslight - 7/11/2026
On the Russians.

Countdown to the Crime

Join us on our Facebook page as we begin counting down the days to August 4th and all of the events leading up to the day. https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/7/2026

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
An Unequal Match. | Taking a Criminal's Measure.

Danced on a Billiard Table.

Danced-on-a-Billiard-Table

A swell society woman of Buffalo broke away from her fastenings the other night, and after she had imbibed several drinks, she dropped into a resort where really good women do not go. There, she kept her little racket up, and as she was a liberal spender, no objection was made to anything she did. She capped the climax, however, when she climbed on a billiard table and danced the “buck” to music furnished by a negro banjoist, who was playing for the drinks. She finally got too gay and took a pair of curtains out of the place. For that, she was arrested, and the next morning, her husband got her out of court by paying a fine.

National Police Gazette, January 9, 1897.

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