No. 190
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 18, 2014

Nature versus Art.

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February 18, 2014
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Tag: Crime

Garrotting.

To Choke.

8/12/2025

What it is Coming to in Chicago.

3/24/2014

Mother Mandelbaum's Secrets.

4/23/2013

Beauty as a Shield.

Beauty Conquers avarice and outlawry "We won't rob this house to-night."

7/24/2012

Allan Pinkerton.

The Eye that Never Sleeps.

3/27/2012

Hospital Horrors.

3/20/2012

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

3/4/2012

Driven by Delusion

Henry Goodwin entered the office of his partner, Albert Swan, pulled out a revolver and shot him.

11/14/2011

Whipped By Women

11/8/2011

Anxious For a Funeral

10/23/2011

Trixie Got the Best of It.

Two Little Gem Theatre, Buffalo, N. Y., Soubrettes have a scrap on account of a man.

10/8/2011

The Astor Place Riot

8/15/2011

The Swindling Beggar

7/11/2011
LOUISE JOURDAN
alias: BIGLOW, DARRIGAN, LITTLE LOUISA
PICKPOCKET, SHOPLIFTER

The Ghost of Yorkshire Museum

Ghosts are usually associated with dank old castles, cemeteries, lonely moonlit roads, and the like.  It charms me that at least one had the good taste to haunt a museum instead.The site of our little tale is the Yorkshire Museum in York, England.  On Sunday, September 20, 1953, it was hosting an evangelical meeting.  The museum was rarely open on Sunday evenings, so it was unusual
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Strange Company - 11/9/2026

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

A Damnable Dastardly Deed.

(Illustrated Police News, Feb. 15. 1879)Molly McGlew (aka Mary McGlew) and her friend Ada McLaughlin stood on South Street in Indianapolis on the night of September 19, 1878, when Louis Guetig approached them. Molly had recently broken up with Louis, and she was not happy to see him. She worked as a dining room girl at the Spencer House hotel where Louis Guetig was the night clerk.  He was
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Murder By Gaslight - 11/7/2026
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
Illicit Distilleries. | The Southern Pacific Railway Disaster.

Nature versus Art.

nature vs art

How the deficiencies of one may be remedied by the other, as illustrated in many a boudoir in New York and elsewhere. 

There is a theory to the effect that beauty unadorned is adorned the most. But it won’t go down nowadays. Beauty has got to be adorned, you bet, or she’ll make things warm for the old man at home. We’ve been there, and we know whereof we speak. When she don’t pan out as well as she ought, art comes along and helps her out. If you don’t believe it—but no. It’s impossible. You must believe it, for from false teeth to a wooden leg, there isn’t a household on the continent that don’t know what man’s ingenuity can do to repair or make good for the deficiencies of nature.

 National Police Gazette, May 5, 1883.

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