No. 569
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 CURTIN
alias: REYNOLDS
SNEAK, BURGLAR

Soapy Smith's "STAR" notebook, Page #24: 1882 and 1884, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland.

Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 24 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's "STAR" notebook page 24, 1882 and 1884, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland. Steamer Ancon. This post is on page 24, the last of the "STAR" notebook pages I have been deciphering and publishing for the last two years, since July 24, 2023. The page is two separate notes dated 1882
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 9/17/2025

It’s Almost August

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
Amen.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comSome author--I can’t recall who he or she was--once wrote that it made no sense that ghosts were always seen fully clothed.  Shouldn’t they all be naked?  That writer would be pleased with the following news item from the “Springfield News Sun,” August 22, 1999:BAGHDAD, Iraq - Ghost stories are pretty common around the old Iraqi city of Haditha. Still, when the ghosts
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Strange Company - 9/17/2025

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

One Week Only!

One Week Only! The Bloody Century Half Price!
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/16/2025
On the Russians.

The enchanting stained glass luring drinkers into one of Midtown’s dwindling workingman’s taverns

Deep roots anchor P.J. Clarke’s, the restaurant and bar occupying a Civil War–era brick building with its top two floors sheered off at Third Avenue and 55th Street. Converted into a tavern in 1884 when Irish laborers held a large presence in the developing neighborhood, the building was bought by Irish immigrant Patrick “Paddy” J. […]
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Ephemeral New York - 9/15/2025

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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