No. 621
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 08, 2022

A Smuggler Queen.

The beautiful contrabandista lately arrested with five confederates near Deming, New Mexico.
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March 8, 2022
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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
FREDERICK LAUTHER
alias: , F R WILSON, FREDDIE LOUTHER
SNEAK, PICKPOCKET

How the anchorages under the Brooklyn Bridge became hidden 19th century wine vaults

The Brooklyn Bridge most New Yorkers know is a slender wonder of steel wires, stone towers, and sweeping views. But there’s a less visible part of the bridge at ground level. These are the anchorages—the masonry structures on both the Manhattan and Brooklyn sides that secure the cables supporting the bridge while also carrying approach […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/22/2026

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
Amen.

Weekend Link Dump

 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!Oh, God, the Strange Company staffers are bar-hopping again.A case of avenged honor.The most famous dog of the Middle Ages.The legend of King Arthur in Greenland.A Welsh village that became a casualty of WWII.The rise and fall of masquerade balls.In which science proves that stolen french fries taste better.Two newly-discovered sermons by St.
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Strange Company - 6/19/2026

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

A Delilah's Revenge.

 In 1863, Theodore B. Weber, then a businessman in Burlington, Iowa, was attracted to Mrs. Adelaide (Ada) Bennert, a woman sixteen years his junior. His passion “soon ripened into criminal intimacy,” and although both were married, they began a romantic affair. When Mr. Bennert learned of his wife’s infidelity, he left her in disgust. Weber moved to Chicago to join his brother’s
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/20/2026
On the Russians.

June 14, 1893 Big Day In Court

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

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
A Society Escapade. | Bloody Duel over a Woman.

A Smuggler Queen.

Smuggler-Queen

The Collector of Customs at El Paso, Texas, has received information of an important capture in Deming, N. M. A band of Mexican smugglers were overhauled and surrounded. They had a dozen pack mules loaded with goods, and were driving 64 head of cattle and 20 horses, all of which has been known by Mexicans for many years. Five Mexicans, including a woman, said to be the chief of the band, were arrested and lodged in jail at Deming. They are under the lead of Capt. Ignacio Isternano, formerly an officer in the Mexican army. Thousands of cattle and horses have been smuggled over by this mountain path.

 

National Police Gazette, December 4, 1886.

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