No. 711
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 5, 2025

Rum and Nitro-Glycerine.

A Drunken Man Slips Down Under a Load of the Explosive - Blown to Atoms.
November 26, 2024
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1930s Romania may not have been a paradise for most people, but for a young Bucharest actress named Tita Cristescu, life was pretty darned good.  She was well-connected (her father, Gheorghe Cristescu, was a prominent figure in Romanian politics,) she had a successful theatrical career, and was pretty enough to be named “Miss Romania” of 1933.  Tita was engaged to be married to Hotta
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Strange Company - 8/4/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 20 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's early empire growth in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884. This is page 20, the continuation of page 19, and dated May 6 - May 29, 1884, as well as the continuation of pages 18-19, the beginning of Soapy Smith's criminal empire building in Denver, Colorado.&
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 6/1/2025
There’s so much exquisite natural and structural beauty grabbing your attention in Central Park that you probably don’t give the transverse roads much thought. You know the transverse roads. Part of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s 1858 Greensward plan for the park, these four serpentine roads at 65th, 79th, 85th, and 97th Streets are […]
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Ephemeral New York - 8/4/2025
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
 Read the full story here: The Walworth Patricide.
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/2/2025
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
  [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
Photography as an Aid to Divorce. | The Bloody Century 2.

Rum and Nitro-Glycerine.

Rum-and-Nitro

At Red Rock, Penn., Saturday afternoon, March 16, a man, intoxicated, staggered through the streets, carrying on his shoulders a bag containing nitro-glycerine. Fifteen minutes later, the town was shaken, and the inhabitants were frightened by a terrific explosion. Investigation showed that the man slipped down, causing the explosion. Fragments of the body were scattered in every direction.

The man's name was Henry Seeley. He was carrying two cans of nitro-glycerine, each containing eight quarts. After the explosion a human foot and a hole in the ground was all that could be found. Seeley had been drinking very heavily all day, and at the time was in an intoxicated state. A number of people had tried to get the compound away from him, but he guarded it with a drawn revolver. It is supposed that he slipped on the ice and the cans, coming in contact with the earth, caused the nitro-glycerine to explode. The trees and bushes for rods around were strewn with pieces of flesh and shreds of clothing, making one of the most shocking sights imaginable.


Illustrated Police News, March 29, 1879.