No. 852
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 17, 2026

Their Sex's Worst Foes.

How the gilded vice of the metropolis fishes for its victims in the public streets, and innocent con
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February 17, 2026
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Tag: Thomas Byrnes

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

3/4/2012

The Sawdust Game

The "sawdust game," was a confidence scam that only swindled those who deserved to be swindled.

1/10/2012

The Bunco Game

The term “bunco” has come to mean to any type of swindle, but in the 19th century it usually referred to a confidence game involving crooked gambling.

5/17/2011

Bank Heist

The Audacity of a Professional Thief.

4/3/2011
EDW'D FAIRBROTHER
alias: DOCTOR ST CLAIR, DR EDW'D S WEST
HOTEL, BOARDING-HOUSE THIEF

Weekend Link Dump

 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!The Strange Company HQ staffers wish you pleasant reading!A handy reminder that bees are weird.A look at medieval executioners.The world's oldest dated printed book.A stupid theory about the Salem Witch Trials that refuses to die.The 11th century abbot and the recycled sarcophagus.The duel between W.B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley.The man who made a living
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Strange Company - 10/23/2026

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

Carlyle and Helen.

 Carlyle Harris and Helen Potts.(The Trial of Carlyle W. Harris for Poisoning His Wife, Helen Potts, at New York.)Helen Potts, a nineteen-year-old student at Miss Comstock’s School in New York City, decided not to join her roommates when they went to hear a concert. Helen was feeling ill, but her boyfriend (secretly her husband), a medical student named Carlyle Harris, had prescribed a
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Murder By Gaslight - 10/17/2026
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
$20 Bills on a Cane. | Horses and Pavements.

Their Sex's Worst Foes.

Worst foes

How the gilded vice of the metropolis fishes for its victims in the public streets, and innocent confidence is trapped by the fine feathers which disguise foul birds.

The police have recently turned their attention to the breaking up of the newest and most dangerous method of bagnio recruiting. It seems that it has been the practice of certain brothel keepers to send a couple of their star boarders to the railroad depots or ferries there to watch for and cast their wiles about fresh arrivals from the rural districts. A number of innocent country girls have thus been brought to shame and the infamous traffic will be broken up none too soon.

National Police Gazette, December 22, 1883.

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