No. 551
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 24, 2020

A Newspaper Man’s Plight

Denver Col., October 1892 – Correspondent Jake Hirsh cowhided by indignant Lizzie Gonzales, an actress, in Denver.
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November 24, 2020
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JAMES BURNS
alias: , BAKER, BIG JIM, BOSTON J1M, etc, HAWKINS, JAMES BOYLE, JOHN BOWEN
SNEAK, BURGLAR

The Undeciphered Death of Paul Rubin

The Rubin ciphertextEighteen-year-old Paul Emanuel Rubin was a sophomore at New York University, where he studied chemistry.  We have contradictory reports about his scholastic success:  His father Samuel said that Paul was an excellent student, while a police detective later told reporters that the teenager was doing so poorly at the University that he was in danger of flunking out.&
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Strange Company - 10/12/2026

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

Laura and Alexander.

 Laura D. Fair and Alexander P. CrittendenA prominent California legislator was sitting with his wife and son on board the Oakland-San Francisco ferryboat El Capitain the evening of November 3, 1870. They did not notice the woman approaching them, dressed entirely in black, wearing a broad-brimmed black hat with a black veil covering her face. From the folds of her dress, the woman
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Murder By Gaslight - 10/10/2026
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
A Masher Mashed | Anxious For a Funeral

A Newspaper Man’s Plight

Newspaper Mans PlightDenver Col., October 1892 – Correspondent Jake Hirsh cowhided by indignant Lizzie Gonzales, an actress, in Denver. 

Jake Hirsh, a correspondent with Chicago and New York papers, was horsewhipped and badly punished in Denver, Col., the other night by a Philadelphia actress named Lizzie Gonzales, now filling an engagement in that city.

Miss Gonzales resented some scurrilous items Hirsh wrote in his papers. She procured a blacksnake, and when Hirsh made his appearance flew at him, bringing down the whip with the force of an old¬time ox driver and raising blisters at every blow. Then reversing the whip, she smashed his nose with the loaded butt. Hirsh then endeavored to clinch with her and was worsted.

National Police Gazette - October 8, 1892

Reprinted from The National Police Gazette - October 8, 1892

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