No. 785
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 17, 2024

The Merry Wives of Boston.

Such is Boston morality and such is woman's fidelity.
December 17, 2024
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Tag: Gangs

Collecting Beer Money.

A gang of female rogues, of the East Side, New York, work a little racket of their own.

9/15/2015

Rogues & Brawlers.

11/13/2012

"Four Aces."

9/25/2012

The Astor Place Riot

8/15/2011
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where the Strange Company staff is off on an early summer road trip!Daniel Webster prosecutes an "extraordinary case."Is there a planet hidden behind Neptune?A woman's unsolved disappearance.A medieval domestic violence case."London characters" of the early 20th century.Exploring some fairy caves.The actor and the crisis apparition.A bride returns from the
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Strange Company - 6/12/2026
"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
You can see it peeking out from the Harlem River Drive or through the chain-link fence of the Third Avenue Bridge: a five-story red brick building almost buried behind glass and steel apartment towers. The towers are newish luxury rental residences built on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. Shiny and modern, they bring […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/8/2026
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
 Stephen Pettus gave Hannah Southworth a glass of drugged champagne and had his way with her while she was unconscious. Hannah became pregnant and for years after, she badgered Pettus to acknowledge that he had ruined her. When all legal means were exhausted, she avenged her honor by shooting him in the back on a Brooklyn street.Read the full story here: Avenging Her Honor.
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/13/2026
As Mr. Moody for the Prosecution dramatically expounds on hatchets and grisly details, and a glimpse of two skulls in a leather case, Lizzie slumps over in her chair. Was it the heat or the ghastly descriptions?
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/7/2026
  [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 […]
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
A Christmas Dream. | Gambling for a Child.

The Merry Wives of Boston.

Harry-Lee

One night the whole party were assembled in the room of Mrs. H. Sparkling champagne was before them, of which they partook freely. Mrs. H. proposed to decide by lot whose bed Harry should share, while Harry insisted that Mrs. H's bed was large enough for four and promised to do equal justice to all.

The mirth grew fast and furious, and each one was trying by the liberal display of her to personal charms to win the lucky Harry for herself alone, when the door opened and the landlady entered in nightcap and gown, horrified at their untimely revelry, and aghast at the sight which met her eyes.

Harry was cheated out of his night's enjoyment, for he was compelled to leave the house instantly, and the recreant wives packed up their trunks and left the next morning, like Alexander, to seek new worlds to conquer.—Such is Boston morality and such is woman's fidelity.


New England Police Gazette, October 5, 1861.