“The scene depicted above is not so tragic as one might suppose. It merely represents the best of husbands, Jones, helping the lovely Mrs. J. to divest herself of her jersey.”

Frank Leslie’s Pleasant Hours, August 1882.

Butte, Montana, October 1889 - P. M. Mathews, A Minneapolis millionaire, visits an opium joint and is carried out feet first. 

P. W. Matthews, a millionaire contractor of Minneapolis. Minn., went to Butte. Mont., last June to direct the building of a railroad. Since he has lived there he has spent lots of money and lived a high life. One day recently he and his chief bookkeeper, L. C. Kreck, went to an opium joint kept by a Chinaman named Ah Chung, to "hit the pipe." It was their first venture of this kind, and twelve pipes were prepared for them, but at this point Kreck weakened, and concluded not to indulge his curiosity. Matthews, who had been drinking, swore he would smoke the twelve pipes himself. This he did, and then sank into a stupor, from which he never recovered, having died from opium poisoning. Ah Chung and his wife have been arrested for murder.

Reprinted from The Natoinal Police Gazette, October 12, 1889

Lendall Pratt, and aged Long Islander, kills himself while in a political frenzy.

Col. Lendall Pratt, of Hyde Park, Queens county, worked hard to secure the election of Mr. Blaine throughout the last campaign. Although seventy-three years old, he did not spare himself, and day and night his sturdy figure could be seen all over the county. As election day drew near, he became somewhat erratic and his friends came to the conclusion that his reason had become impaired. The conflicting stories the following day about which candidate was elected seemed to unsettle his mind altogether, and he became violent. He threatened to kill his wife to hoe he had hitherto displayed the greatest affection, and it was considered dangerous for her to allow herself to remain alone with him. On Thursday, Nov. 6, he grew worse, and on Friday his violent manner hot having subsided, it was decided to put him in the county insane asylum at Mineola, from which his house is not a half a mile.

At 1 o’clock on the morning of Nov. 7 he quietly arose and dressed himself. His movements were so stealthy that they did not arouse the other lunatics. H went to the window, raised it, and seizing hold of the iron bars, began to tug at them. This noise aroused the other lunatics, and they sat up and looked at him. One of them, a lad of eighteen, jumped out of bed, and, shouting for an attendant, ran toward the door. Col Pratt caught hold of him and threw him back, then he glared the other lunatics, and threatened to kill them if they made any outcry. Thoroughly cowed, the crouched down in their cots, and watched him with frightened eyes.

The madman went back to the window, and seizing the bars again, he tore them out of their sockets. He took several blankets and threw them out of the window upon the slanting roof of the plaza, ten feet below. At this moment, an attendant who had heard the cry for assistance appeared at the door. Col Pratt turned and looked at him. The next instant he plunged head first through the window carrying with him the sash. He struck on the slanting roof, and rebounding, landed heavily on the ground, a distance in all of twenty feet. When Mr. Cement reached him he was dead. The fall had broken his neck.

Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November 29, 1884.

North Carolina—An Illicit Whiskey Still in the Mountains Surprised by Revenue Officers.

The most serious opposition to the enforcement of the internal revenue laws has always come from the illicit distillers in the mountain region of the South. These hardy people live so far from any market, that it would not pay to attempt to sell their surplus corn, and they have always been accustomed, like their fathers and grandfathers before them, to distill their little store of home-made liquor every year in the rudest sort of stills. Generations of uninterrupted enjoyment of this privilege had led them to consider it as an inalienable right, and they were thunderstruck when they learned the Federal Government had outlawed their homely industry. They could not be made to believe that the Government possessed any such right to interfere with them, and they regarded the officers who attempted to enforce the law as tyrants, whom it was right to kill, if necessary, to stop their operations. Rude and ignorant people, it was difficult to reason with them, and for years a bitter warfare raged between the mountaineers and the revenue officers. Ambuscades were laid, pitched battles were fought, and the list of killed and wounded grew shockingly long. By degrees, the Government gained some advantage, and of late there has been great improvement. A large proportion of the illicit distilling has been suppressed, but the blockaded whiskey-still is yet to be found in many a retired spot of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee. The illustration…gives an excellent idea of one of these improvised distilleries in active operation, with the revenue officers executing a surprise.

"Illicit Distilleries." Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper 1 Sep 1883: 21.