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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JOSEPH GORMAN
alias: BROWN, CLIFFORD
PICKPOCKET

In Which Senator Sharon Makes Some Poor Romantic Decisions

Sarah Althea HillThat old, old story:  “Boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy dumps girl.”  Whenever I encounter it, I usually shrug and move on.  However, present me with a sequel that says, “Girl takes boy to court, practices voodoo curses, with everything ending in a shootout,” and I start to take an interest in the situation.During the 1860s, William Sharon was lucky enough to
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Strange Company - 8/31/2026

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
Amen.

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

John and Eva.

 When John Keys and Eva Dickenson were married in Cincinnati on August 21, 1890, they told their relatives that they planned to honeymoon on the Atlantic coast, but John had another plan. He purchased an Ohio River shanty-boat and planned a slow trip downriver to St. Louis. It would not be their last deception; in fact, what transpired on that fateful journey would remain forever shrouded in
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/29/2026
On the Russians.

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
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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