No. 846
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
January 20, 2026

Robbed of Her Tresses.

January 20, 2026
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Tag: California

Her Striped Stockings.

Bound to be in style - The expedient of a carriage painter's daughter at Vallejo, Cal., to obtain striped stockings.

11/30/2021

Vaccination from a Beauty.

Idiotic freak of some young men at Los Angeles.

3/9/2021

An Adventure with a Sea-Lion.

With open mouths and protruding tusks, they warn the intruder agents too near an approach.

3/26/2018

Thrown from a Balcony.

An Old Man in San Francisco Becomes Enraged at a Young Lady who Teased Him and Flings Her from a Fourth story Balcony.

1/23/2017

Trying to Scare an Old Maid with a Wooden Dutchman.

A wooden Dutchman, rather than no man at all, was what a sensible spinster argued when some practical jokers under took to scare her in Oakland, Cal.

7/11/2016

The Southern Pacific Railway Disaster.

2/11/2014

Hospital Horrors.

3/20/2012

Anxious For a Funeral

10/23/2011
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!  Our hosts for this Friday are Goldie and Brownie!Because why not.A plague outbreak from over 5,000 years ago.A case of explosive revenge.A medieval communication network.How angry fishermen saved the American Revolution.A remarkable amber pendant.The liver-eating cannibal of the Old West.Catherine Crowe's ghost hunt.That time when humans nearly became
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Strange Company - 6/26/2026
"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’re forgiven if you assumed 58 Joralemon Street was just another beautifully restored Greek Revival row house in Brooklyn Heights. Built in 1847, it resembles many of the elegant single-family houses on the block, with its red brick facade, long windows, and brownstone trim around the entryway. But take a closer look, and you’ll notice […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/22/2026
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
 Charles Kaiser conspired with Lizzie DeKalb to murder his wife for insurance. When the plot was uncovered and the murderers tried, both claimed that they acted under the hypnotic power of James Clemmer, the insurance agent who conceived the plan.Read the full story here: The Kaiser Conspiracy.
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/27/2026
Be sure to stop by our Facebook page tomorrow for a Prosecution Marathon of witnesses. Here are the witnesses for Wednesday, June 14th, Day 9 Rufus Hilliard, City Marshal, Mayor John Coughlin, Mrs. Hannah Gifford (seamstress and dressmaker), Anna Borden ( wealthy socialite who was on Lizzie’s grand tour of Europe, distantly related to Lizzie), Lucy Collett (watching the office of Dr. Chagnon day of the murder), Thomas Bowles ( handyman who once rented a room from Addie Churchill and was wa
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/13/2026
  [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
The Crusade Against the Tramp Evil. | The First "Swell" Arrival at Leadville.

Robbed of Her Tresses.

robbed

Robbed of Her Tresses. 

An unknown tramp the other morning entered the residence of Augustin Wentzel at Boyertown, Pa, and, seizing Mr. Wentzel’s daughter, Della aged sixteen years, who was alone in the house, he held a cloth saturated with chloroform to her face. She soon became unconscious and when she recovered, a half hour later, she found that the villain had cut off her luxuriant tresses, which had hung nearly to her hips. Miss Wentzel suffered no other violence. She at once gave the alarm an searching parties were immediately formed to hunt for the unknown criminal.


The National Police Gazette, January 1, 1887.