No. 838
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 28, 2025

Passion's Panderers.

She-Devils and How They Weave Their Webs.
October 28, 2025
...
...

Via Newspapers.comBring on the Mystery Fires!  The (Napoleon, Ohio) “Democratic Northwest,” January 6, 1890:In regard to the mysterious fires that have visited the home of W. F. Miller, and which have been noted in the Advertiser, a Bairdstown friend sends us the following, which we are sure our readers will peruse with interest:The first of the series of unaccountable fires that have
More...
Strange Company - 10/7/2026
  [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 […]
More...
Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
"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
William H. Devlin(Illustrated Police News, December 22, 1877)Shortly after noon on Monday, December 10, 1877, a man entered the Lowell, Massachusetts, Police Station in a highly excited state. He told Deputy Marshal Favor that he had heard a terrible fight between a husband and wife Saturday night in a tenement on Common Street. Since then, he had heard nothing from the house, and he feared the
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 10/3/2026
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
Revelry Rampant. | She Stole Her Lover’s Clothes.

Passion's Panderers.

Snares

She-Devils and How They Weave Their Webs

The Candy-Store Traps for School-Girls—The Fiendish Traffic in Children's Souls

These tenement blocks are little worlds in themselves, and so it is with the residents on our most popular streets. An old citizen, one would suppose, might easily familiarize himself with the calling and habits of his neighbors, but not even the most experienced have any suspicion of the crimes that are nightly committed within a stone's throw of their parlors, of the villainous snares set to entrap the pure yet thoughtless young girls, of the hellish traffic that is covertly carried on—all looking to the corruption of the young females, and the enrichment of the heartless hags who woo their victims to their nests.


Illustrated Police News, January 31, 1880.