No. 216
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 18, 2014

The Girls Have a New Game.

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August 18, 2014
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GEORGE N ELWOOD
alias: GENTLEMAN GEORGE
MASKED BURGLAR

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comOn this blog, we’ve met mysterious Women in Black.  Not to mention the occasional Women in White.  So, who’s up for making the acquaintance of a Welsh Woman in Yellow?  The “Bradford Weekly Telegraph,” February 18, 1905:A silent woman, shimmering in a bright yellow light, with gleaming eyes and up-lifted knife, is the latest ghostly form to be reported from South
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Strange Company - 6/24/2026

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
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025

June 14, 1893 Big Day In Court

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
Amen.

What’s inside these fake row houses that blend into the New York City streetscape?

You’re forgiven if you assumed 58 Joralemon Street was just another beautifully restored Greek Revival row house in Brooklyn Heights. Built in 1847, it resembles many of the elegant single-family houses on the block, with its red brick facade, long windows, and brownstone trim around the entryway. But take a closer look, and you’ll notice […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 6/22/2026

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comOn this blog, we’ve met mysterious Women in Black.  Not to mention the occasional Women in White.  So, who’s up for making the acquaintance of a Welsh Woman in Yellow?  The “Bradford Weekly Telegraph,” February 18, 1905:A silent woman, shimmering in a bright yellow light, with gleaming eyes and up-lifted knife, is the latest ghostly form to be reported from South
More...
Strange Company - 6/24/2026

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

A Delilah's Revenge.

 In 1863, Theodore B. Weber, then a businessman in Burlington, Iowa, was attracted to Mrs. Adelaide (Ada) Bennert, a woman sixteen years his junior. His passion “soon ripened into criminal intimacy,” and although both were married, they began a romantic affair. When Mr. Bennert learned of his wife’s infidelity, he left her in disgust. Weber moved to Chicago to join his brother’s
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/20/2026
On the Russians.

June 14, 1893 Big Day In Court

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
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/13/2026

What’s inside these fake row houses that blend into the New York City streetscape?

You’re forgiven if you assumed 58 Joralemon Street was just another beautifully restored Greek Revival row house in Brooklyn Heights. Built in 1847, it resembles many of the elegant single-family houses on the block, with its red brick facade, long windows, and brownstone trim around the entryway. But take a closer look, and you’ll notice […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 6/22/2026
An Undertaker’s Assistant’s Mistake. | They Got Hilariously Full.

The Girls Have a New Game.

The Girls have a new game

They wile away the hours in the beach at Narragansett Pier in bewitching bathing costumes pitching clam shells at a mark. [more]

They wile away the hours in the beach at Narragansett Pier in bewitching bathing costumes pitching clam shells at a mark.
The girls at Narragansett Pier have a new game now played on the beach in bathing suit costume. They mark a ring in the sand and stand about twenty feet off and try to throw shells and stones inside the line. Once in a long while a girl gets inside the line and is allowed to rest and watch the others as a reward for her prowess. A poet who observed the game in progress the other morning said it reminded him of that beautiful poem beginning:

She threw a stone into the air,
It fell to earth, I know not where.
But there was a mile, I know full well,
Between where she aimed and where it fell!

Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, 9 Sep 1893.

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