No. 53
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 08, 2011
alias: TOMMY MATTHEWS
PICKPOCKET
Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where the Strange Company HQ staffers wish you a lucky Friday the 13th!Watch out for the Beast of Bladenboro!J.R.R. Tolkien and Catholicism.A book for a 15th century prince.A tale of love and revenge in medieval Cyprus.The enigma of Saki, one of my favorite short-story writers.Some object is speeding towards our planet, and scientists have no idea what it
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Strange Company - 11/13/2026
[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 […]
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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
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
(The Falls Field Tragedy! Rochester, 1858.)In December 1857 the marriage of Charles and Sarah Littles was essentially over. Sarah had moved out because of Charles’s heavy drinking and multiple affairs. Charles was extremely jealous and in spite of his extramarital love life, he wanted Sarah back. He continued to harass her, angering her brother, Ira Stout.That December, the body of Charles
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Murder By Gaslight - 11/14/2026
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
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Waldo, Florida, September 1894 - Dan Wiggins, a notorious wife beater of Waldo, Fla., was dragged from his home by masked men recently. Wiggins was carried into the woods and lashed to a tree. Several women of the neighborhood, who sympathized with Mrs. Wiggins, were present, and as soon as Wiggins had been tied, they began to whip him. After he was beaten unmercifully, Wiggins was untied and left to make his way home. It is thought he will die from the beating.The Bloody Century 2
Takes the reader back to 19th-century America in all its gory glory.
