No. 843
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 17, 2025

Arrest of Female Prowlers.

Arrest of Female Prowlers Upon Bleecker Street, New York.
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December 17, 2025
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Tag: Marriage

Caught a Cowboy.

A Manheim, N.Y., Maiden insert an advertisement in a matrimonial paper and is astonished at the result.

7/19/2022

The Wedding Postponed.

11/27/2017

Eloped on a Spotted Steer.

How a loving West Virginia couple escaped from an obdurate father and were married.

1/30/2017

Abducted by a Woman.

3/31/2014

Thimble Rig A La Mode.

3/18/2014

Torturing a Lover.

6/26/2012

Their Name a Misnomer.

2/28/2012
JOSEPH COOK
alias: GEO HAVILL, HARRY THORN
SNEAK, FORGER

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comSit back and enjoy what is probably the weirdest "letter to the editor" in history.  “The Guardian,” November 30, 1976:Recent reports of peculiar events have reminded me of a mysterious experience I had in East Anglia a few years ago. I was teaching in a small village school and the caretaker's husband declared that he had seen strange orange lights in the school field as
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Strange Company - 9/30/2026

Convicts to Maryland, 1773 by Peter Dickson

  [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
Amen.

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

James Dougherty's Obsession.

Mary Anderson was an acclaimed international stage actress in the late 1800s. Among her many fans was a young Brooklyn man named James M. Dougherty.  He worked as a telegraph lineman and studied science in his spare time. He dabbled in a little of everything until, after watching one of her plays, he became obsessed with Miss Anderson. His love for Mary Anderson became his sole
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/26/2026
On the Russians.

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman’s last

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
"Well?" | Feminine Feet and Ankles.

Arrest of Female Prowlers.

Prowlers

The portion of Bleecker Street, New York, in the vicinity of Broadway, is rapidly rivaling Greene and Mercer streets, in the number and quality of the female harpies who make it their cruising ground. Not a night passes without the arrest of one or more drunken prostitutes in this locality. They are of the lowest grade, and almost always noisy and disorderly. If Sodom surpassed New York in wickedness, no wonder it was destroyed.

Illustrated Police News, December 7, 1871.

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