No. 787
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 30, 2024

Seeing in the New Year.

Jolly sport among the giddy Vassar girls, fun in the forecastle, and a lonely New Year’s Eve on the
More...
December 30, 2024
...
...

WILLIAM BURKE
alias: BILLY THE kID, etc, MURPHY, PETRIE
BANK SNEAK

Weekend Link Dump

 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!IS EVERYBODY HAPPY???What the hell was the Whitechapel Mount?Fair play for cannibals.The "wonderful year" 1759.The mysterious Great Serpent Mound.Why the number 17 was not popular in ancient Rome.BREAKING:  Scientists have just discovered dogs.  (Note: Cats can tell if you're sad, too.  They just usually don't care.)The lady who was eulogized
More...
Strange Company - 8/14/2026

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 […]
More...
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
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025

Ida and Sophia.

 Ida Quinlan and Sophia Grant.Mrs. Ida Quinlan went out to buy a pair of stockings at around 9:00 on the night of February 1, 1896, leaving her baby in the care of her sister, Mrs. Sophia Grant. She took a streetcar to the store several miles away and returned to the house at around 11:00. Entering the sitting room, she was surprised to find the drawers of the chiffoniers pulled out and
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 8/15/2026
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 →
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Life in Leadville. | A Christmas Dream.

Seeing in the New Year.

Seeing in the New Year

Jolly sport among the giddy Vassar girls, fun in the forecastle, and a lonely New Year’s Eve on the desolate prairie. 

“Seeing the New Year in,” is a time-honored custom and is invested with many pleasant ceremonies. Our artist has depicted the sailors telling yarns and drinking grog in the forecastle, and the emigrant on the plains wishing that he was home again by a warm fireside. But the giddy Vassar girls are having the best time of all. A genuine jollification is in progress and as the hands of the clock are on the point of midnight glasses are raised in air and the girls drink success in the New Year and wish a husband apiece to each other.

National Police Gazette, January 10, 1885.

Turn to Page 1