No. 233
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 15, 2014

In a Deadly Folding-Bed.

December 15, 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
Lizzie’s carriage pulls up to the back door. She is helped out by Deputy Sheriff Kirby. In the background you can just see Mr. Perry’s stable where the telegraph crew has set up for the trial. Today will be jury selection.
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"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
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!I'm sure our host this week needs no further introduction.  The caption says it all.A medieval anti-war satire.Mysterious meat shower?  Or vulture vomit?The paranormal side of the Cold War.Ernest Hemingway, boxing, and, uh, salad dressing.The man who blew up a nuclear power station.Mystery in a medieval tomb.More proof that scientists have way too
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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
Strangler Suspect, Jacob Tolker(New York Journal, May 14, 1897)Eight women were strangled—seven fatally— on Manhattan’s East Side, between May 1894 and August 1900. While the police closed three of the cases, their solutions were so weak that the New York City newspapers continued to list them all as unsolved and continued to speculate that one man committed all eight crimes. “It is not difficult
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Murder By Gaslight - 5/31/2026
Say what you want about Robert Moses. But as Parks Commissioner in the 1930s, he opened 11 new public municipal pools across the five boroughs—helping residents keep cool and resist the lure of swimming in the East or Hudson River, which amazingly people used to do. Moses, a swim fan himself, also championed and helped […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/1/2026
  [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
Merry Christmas! | She Went into the Scrimmage.

In a Deadly Folding-Bed.

Deadly Folding-Bed Two sleeping girls are imprisoned and one of them is nearly killed at Louisville, KY. 

Miss Lena Summers and Miss Nellie Mitchell were caught in a folding-bed recently in the fashionable boarding-house of Mrs. H.L. Mitchell, in Broadway, at Louisville, Ky. Miss Mitchell was not much hurt, but Miss Summers was unconscious when rescued, and has not yet regained her senses. No bones were broken, but her face is swelled, and the doctors believe she has sustained internal injuries that may prove dangerous. The accident happened about 2 o’clock in the morning. The house was aroused by the smothered shrieks of the girls. The bed was let down with difficulty, but in time to save them from suffocation. The girls had been asleep at the time, and the cause of the bed’s queer action cannot bue surmised. It is the second time it has acted in this way. Si months ago it flew up while occupied by a Miss Johnson, who was, however, rescored unhurt but badly scared. The bed is of the ordinary pattern.


Reprinted from the National Police Gazette, December 8, 1894