No. 600
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 29, 2023

The Lady Flashes Dance.

Dizzy cigarette girls have a most hilarious time in the Lyceum Opera House, this city.
August 21, 2017
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The Scottish-born James Oliphant worked as a surgeon in Newcastle.  In 1755, he married one Margaret Erskine, and the pair went on to have two children.  From all appearances, the family was one of solid 18th century middle-class respectability.This seemingly ordinary household took a very dark turn in May of 1764.  One of Oliphant’s two maidservants unexpectedly became so ill she had to quit her
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Strange Company - 3/27/2023
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When Patrick  H. Doherty joined the Fall River Police Department in 1885, he might have been astounded to learn that he would be involved one day in two notorious murder cases- both involving hatchets and axes.  Patrick Doherty was born in Peoria, Illinois on August 10, 1859 to John and Mary Walsh Doherty.  Later the family moved east to Fall River, and we find Patrick Doherty living at 104 Columbia St. (off South Main) and working as a laborer for a time employed by Fall River Iron Works and the Fall River Line steamboat company.  He married Honora (Nora) E. Coughlin on April 25, 1887 at the age of 28, when he was employed at the Fall River Police Department as a patrolman.  The couple would have seven children:  Charles T., Frank., Grace, Robert, Helene, Margaret (called Marguerite), and John. Doherty, (as were several other patrolmen), was promoted to the rank of captain after their work in the case of the century, the Borden Murders of 1892.  Doherty had arrived at #92 after George Allen on the morning of the murders, and was very quickly in the thick of the action, questioning Lizzie upstairs, looking at the bodies with Dr. Dolan, running down to Smith’s pharmacy with Officer Harrington  to question Eli Bence, prowling the cellar for weapons with Medley, Fleet and Dr. Bowen, and making note of Lizzie’s dress.  Doherty stayed on the job on watch at the Borden house until he was relieved at 9 p.m.  When it came time for the inquest, it was Doherty who slipped down to 95 Division St. to collect Bridget, who had been staying with her cousin, Patrick Harrington after the murders.  He would testify at the Preliminary and the 1893 trial in New Bedford. In the midst of the excitement in New Bedford as Lizzie’s trial was about to get underway, yet another hatchet killing took over the front page, the murder of Bertha Manchester on May 30th.  It was a brutal attack to rival the Borden’s with the weapon being most likely a short-handled axe or possibly a hatchet. Doherty went out to the Manchester place with Marshal Hilliard, Captains Desmond, and Connors and Inspector Perron  on June 6th with the  suspect, Jose Correa de Mello, who revealed his hiding place for the stolen  watch taken from the victim and her purse at that time.  De Mello served time and then was sent back to the Azores, banned from stepping upon U.S. soil again. The Dohertys moved to 1007 Rock St. in 1897 and Patrick was pleased to walk his daughter Margaret (Marguerite) down the aisle in 1913. Patrick Doherty retired from the force in 1915 and succumbed to interstitial nephritis on June 28, 1915.. He, and some of his children are buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Fall River. Resources: Ancestry.com, Parallel Lives,: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and her Fall River, Find-a-Grave.com. and Yesterday in Old Fall River: A Lizzie Borden Companion Fall River Globe June 28, 1915
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/3/2023
Bernard Gussow was born in Russia in 1881. But by 1900 he’d made it to the Lower East Side, where he was described as an “East Side artist” in a New York Times article about paintings he displayed at an art show at the Educational Alliance settlement house on East Broadway. [“Subway Steps”] Gussow would […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/27/2023
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
 17-year-old James E. Nowlin murdered George Codman in a Massachusetts stable in January 1887. Then he took an axe and chopped Codman’s body into pieces. As he traveled home in a sleigh, he threw the pieces into the snow along the road.Read the full story here: Massachusetts Butchery.
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/25/2023
Roped-inOmaha Daily BeeJune 25, 1884(Click image to enlarge)  OSSIBLE VICTIM OF THE JEFFERSON R. SMITH GANG.  Omaha Daily Bee June 25, 1884 COLORADO. Col. Fletcher, a tourist from Boston, was roped-in by the bunko men of Denver and relieved of $1,000. NOTES: $1,000.00 in 1884 is the equivalent of $33,472.95 in 2023. According to the Rocky Mountain News there were at least two,
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 3/12/2023
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 engaged as a carrier of wine, because he and his brother, with the help of […]
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
The Latest Invention. | A Human Rat Eater.

The Lady Flashes Dance.

Lady Flashes Dane

Dizzy cigarette girls have a most hilarious time in the Lyceum Opera House, this city. [more]

The Lady Flashes, an organization of the New York cigarette girls, had their annual ball in Lyceum Opera House, this city, last week.

After the grand march there came the lanciers. Such a whirling and stamping and jumping is seldom seen. Buxom lassies were tossed high in the air, landing with a heavy indisposing thud. As the music rose and quickened a fat girl shot up five feet in the air and landed in a sitting posture.

“Oh, Roxy, are you hurt?” asked the girl next her.

“It’s the softest thing I ever struck.” said Roxiana, as she rose to her feet.

Just where the cigarette girls get the marvelous step they dance is a mystery. They would stride five feet, hop three feet, circle stretch their legs as if there were a pair of calipers, close them, half open them, twist them around each other, untangle, kick and wriggle and then sink into the arms of a young man and rest their head on his shoulder.

As the time flew, beer followed it. Cigarette girls like beer and are susceptible to its effects. It brings about a feeling of affectionate languor. It banishes the blue law, that forbids a young man to kiss a girl, and bids him kiss her as often as he can. It also directs him to make a mattress of himself if necessary, and permit a girl to recline at will. In the second chapter it bids a young man become lively and urges the girl not to suppress her hilarity. The second chapter was reached about 2 A. M. Costumes with troublesome trains were cast aside The heat caused heavy Mother Hubbards to be thrown off.

The ardor of the dancers increased. They hugged each other vehemently as they danced and executed wonderful movements. Beer-glasses were tossed aside as worthless for refilling.

Crowds gathered in corners and gazed tremulously at visions of limbs flashing in difficult dances like streaks of lightning. The Koota-Koota dance, adorned with east-side variations, was realistic.

The young men rushed about, and when the orchestra poured forth “Old Rocky Roads” bedlam broke loose. Knots of dancers vied with each other in their efforts to create confusion. Girls were lifted off their feet and carried laughing about the room.

In the cork-room even policemen, unable to resist the temptation, joined in the dance. Hats were kicked high in the air. Songs were sung that called forth choruses of “Ohs.”


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, December 16, 1893.