No. 681
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 14, 2024

Concerning Sensational Methods.

There is a class of publications whose lives depend upon their successful appeal to vicious instinct
June 1, 2015
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In 1898, Mrs. Ida Deane, of Dover, Delaware received a box of chocolates by mail from an anonymous sender. When she served them at a dinner party four people died of arsenic poisoning. Was it sent by Cordelia Botkin, the mistress of Ida’s husband?Read the full story here: Murder by Mail.
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Murder By Gaslight - 12/14/2024
Soapy STAR notebookPage 14 - Original copy1882Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) OAPY SMITH IN CALIFORNIA♫ California's the place you outta to beSo he loaded up his grip and moved to Grass Valley ♪ This is page 14, dated 1882, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook can be seen on
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 11/26/2024
 "The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan MandijnThis week's Link Dump is so big, it had to be hosted by a septet!Yet another case of a spouse deciding to say it with arsenic.Mr. Morgan's magnificent library.The collapse of one of the world's first known governments.The Ghoul of Gettysburg.The healing power of music.What we are learning about Neolithic architecture.The pyramids at Giza are
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Strange Company - 12/13/2024
 "The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan MandijnThis week's Link Dump is so big, it had to be hosted by a septet!Yet another case of a spouse deciding to say it with arsenic.Mr. Morgan's magnificent library.The collapse of one of the world's first known governments.The Ghoul of Gettysburg.The healing power of music.What we are learning about Neolithic architecture.The pyramids at Giza are
More...
Strange Company - 12/13/2024
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph.  The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
I was born too late to experience a Horn & Hardart Automat firsthand. But if I was around during the automat era—which peaked Midcentury and ended with the closure of the last Manhattan automat in 1991—I think I could get the hang of how to purchase food. Still, maybe the Automat concept was a little […]
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Ephemeral New York - 12/9/2024
In 1898, Mrs. Ida Deane, of Dover, Delaware received a box of chocolates by mail from an anonymous sender. When she served them at a dinner party four people died of arsenic poisoning. Was it sent by Cordelia Botkin, the mistress of Ida’s husband?Read the full story here: Murder by Mail.
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 12/14/2024
I was born too late to experience a Horn & Hardart Automat firsthand. But if I was around during the automat era—which peaked Midcentury and ended with the closure of the last Manhattan automat in 1991—I think I could get the hang of how to purchase food. Still, maybe the Automat concept was a little […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 12/9/2024
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
The Minister Was Coltish. | Chloroformed While She Slept.

Concerning Sensational Methods.

worse and worse

There is a class of publications whose lives depend upon their successful appeal to vicious instincts. According to the later significance given to the phrase of M. Dumas, these publications are the demi-monde of newspaperdom. Journalistic prostitution furnishes real prostitution with a large part of its sustenance. There are several phases of it. The least harmful is the frankly vicious phase represented the papers of the Police Gazette brand. The most insidious phase is represented by those papers that cloak their sensationalism with moral pretensions. Such a paper largely concerns itself with police and divorce-court records. Its best head-line reads in effect: “Testimony Unfit for Publication; It Was as Follows:” It may attain distinction by selling a few of its columns to thieves and libertines for assignation purposes, or by the light-hearted realism which animates its description of the underwear of a prominent actress. “Sensational” is the mildest epithet applied to such a paper, because it occasionally dallies with politics, or heads a subscription to purchase piano-lamps for starving infants. Its spirit is so insecure and debased that, in comparison, the editorial spirit of the New York Sun is positively one of lofty morality.


Reprinted from Puck, March 22, 1893.