No. 665
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 06, 2022

Her Last Quadrille.

The bursting of an artery due to tight lacing causes the death of Miss Mary Crawford of Detroit, Mic
December 6, 2022
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Via Newspapers.comIt’s time for some Mystery Blood!  The “Sacramento Bee,” August 16, 1870:At the Juapa, at the residence of Mr. John Baldwin, one of those phenomena occurred for which it is so difficult to account. On the 15th instant, a shower of blood fell at the dwelling of Mr. B., spattering the doorstep and the surrounding grounds. There had been only an instant before a perfect calm,
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"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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Getting around the western Bronx by foot means encountering hilly streets, lots of hilly streets. The pitched terrain comes from ridges of bedrock formed millions of years ago extending into Northern Manhattan. Back in the early 1900s when the Bronx was undergoing urbanization, all these hills posed a challenge to transit engineers, since some roads […]
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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
 Stephen Pettus gave Hannah Southworth a glass of drugged champagne and had his way with her while she was unconscious. Hannah became pregnant and for years after, she badgered Pettus to acknowledge that he had ruined her. When all legal means were exhausted, she avenged her honor by shooting him in the back on a Brooklyn street.Read the full story here: Avenging Her Honor.
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/13/2026
Be sure to stop by our Facebook page tomorrow for a Prosecution Marathon of witnesses. Here are the witnesses for Wednesday, June 14th, Day 9 Rufus Hilliard, City Marshal, Mayor John Coughlin, Mrs. Hannah Gifford (seamstress and dressmaker), Anna Borden ( wealthy socialite who was on Lizzie’s grand tour of Europe, distantly related to Lizzie), Lucy Collett (watching the office of Dr. Chagnon day of the murder), Thomas Bowles ( handyman who once rented a room from Addie Churchill and was wa
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/13/2026
  [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
"Bet Anything You've Got." | Unmindful of their Attire.

Her Last Quadrille.

Her Last Quadrille

The bursting of an artery due to tight lacing causes the death of Miss Mary Crawford of Detroit, Mich. 

The craze for slender waists found a victim Saturday night at Detroit, Mich., in Miss Mary Crawford, who was attending a dance. In the midst of the quadrille she suddenly cried and fell, but was caught by her partner, who carried her to a lounge, where she seemingly fainted. It was found impossible to resuscitate her, and a physician was summoned who pronounced the young lady dead. An examination revealed the fact that she had died from tight lacing, the stays in her corsets having been drawn so tightly that her flesh lay in folds beneath, so that the exertion of dancing caused the bursting of a blood vessel. Miss Crawford was to have been married today, and her betrothed is completely prostrated.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, October 6, 1888.