No. 269
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 24, 2015

She Liked Her Lager Beer.

A Murray Hill belle, with a fondness for the Teutonic beverage, sets up a keg in her boudoir.
August 24, 2015
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Tag: Fire

Burning of Steamers at Cincinnati.

Burning of Steamers on the Ohio River at Cincinnati May 17, 1869.

9/17/2018

A Train of Cars Rushing Through Fire.

Traveling through fire—Fearful peril of a railway train, at Cedar Swamp, on the Eastern Railroad, Maine, Sunday, Sept. 17

10/23/2017

What a New York Girl Did.

A vain girl makes a fireman wait until she fixes her hair preferring to risk her life rather than appear in public not “made up’; New York.

5/22/2017

Unmindful of their Attire.

A Fire in the Chicago Opera House creates a stampede among pretty actresses who rush to the street dishabille.

3/11/2014
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!And you're just in time for afternoon tea!A flying horse in Staffordshire.A mysterious murder-suicide.New York's war against banana peels.The houseplant that can count.Fun and games in medieval London.Hitler's dress rehearsal for war.A coded letter from Napoleon has finally been deciphered.A woman is cleared of being a witch.  Three hundred years after
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Strange Company - 10/9/2026
  [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
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
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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 →
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Getting Above his Business. | New Jersey’s Great Wash Day.

She Liked Her Lager Beer.

Liked her Lager Beer

A Murray Hill belle, with a fondness for the Teutonic beverage, sets up a keg in her boudoir.

A recent inquiry into the sanity of a young society lady of Murray Hill brought about by the application of some of her relatives to take the control of her fortune out of her hands on the grounds that she is a lunatic, developed some strange doings on the part of the eccentric heiress. One point made by the applicants for the appointment of a guardian was that the young lady turned her boudoir into a bar room. It appears that the lady in question has acquired a taste for lager beer from frequent visits to Koster & Bail’s, Theiss’ and other noted resorts, after coming from the opera or a play with a make escort. She liked it drawn from the wood, no bottled medicine for her. Therefore she had a veritable bear horse placed in her boudoir, and got her favorite beverage by the keg, not forgetting the proper accompaniments of glasses with handles and pretzels. When thus provided it was her custom to invites a choice set of her male friends to her room, and hold high revel in real beer saloon style. The committee to whom the case was referred failed to see that this evidence showed any case of insanity they rather thought it was a level headed idea.


National Police Gazette, December 22, 1883.