No. 170
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
September 24, 2013

A Fiendish Husband’s Desperate Deed.

September 24, 2013
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Tag: Hotel

Booze Through a Key-Hole.

5/15/2017

The Pawn-Ticket Game.

Pawn tickets make bad collateral.

3/5/2013

It Was Another Kind of Cat.

2/21/2012
 Welcome to the Link Dump!And we tip our hats to our hosts for this week!Who the hell was Christopher Columbus?Henry I's most "notorious" daughter.The world's second-tallest man.The loneliness of being a French POW in Britain.Heads up, Egypt's prehistory is getting rewritten again.Aboriginals and a dingo's well-tended grave.A man's rant against floral funerals.The woman who saved 13th
More...
Strange Company - 5/22/2026
The Brooklyn Bridge is celebrating its 143rd birthday on May 24, the day Gilded Age New Yorkers could finally walk across this wondrous span and celebrate the uniting of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Over close to a century and a half, the Brooklyn Bridge has taken the honor of the city’s most painted and photographed structure. […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 5/18/2026
"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
 Welcome to the Link Dump!And we tip our hats to our hosts for this week!Who the hell was Christopher Columbus?Henry I's most "notorious" daughter.The world's second-tallest man.The loneliness of being a French POW in Britain.Heads up, Egypt's prehistory is getting rewritten again.Aboriginals and a dingo's well-tended grave.A man's rant against floral funerals.The woman who saved 13th
More...
Strange Company - 5/22/2026
Whatever you believe about the guilt or innocence of Lizzie Borden, I have always believed film makers do a great injustice to the story by not beginning at the beginning- the death on March 26, 1863 of the first Mrs. Borden. In the dying moments of Sarah Morse, Emma takes on the weight of the care of her little sister, not yet three years old. Emma herself was just 12 on March 1st. Emma has seen her mother suffer for a long time, seen her pain and loss of little Alice Esther. Emma is old enough
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
"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
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
Kate Scharn.(New York American, August 20, 1900.)It had been more than two years since a murder was reported in New York City’s Tenderloin district, but on August 20, 1900, the pattern was all too familiar. A young woman was found murdered in her room after 1:00 a.m. No one heard a sound. Her jewelry was stolen. A variety of men were suspected, but with very little evidence against any of them.
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 5/23/2026
The Brooklyn Bridge is celebrating its 143rd birthday on May 24, the day Gilded Age New Yorkers could finally walk across this wondrous span and celebrate the uniting of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Over close to a century and a half, the Brooklyn Bridge has taken the honor of the city’s most painted and photographed structure. […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 5/18/2026
Whatever you believe about the guilt or innocence of Lizzie Borden, I have always believed film makers do a great injustice to the story by not beginning at the beginning- the death on March 26, 1863 of the first Mrs. Borden. In the dying moments of Sarah Morse, Emma takes on the weight of the care of her little sister, not yet three years old. Emma herself was just 12 on March 1st. Emma has seen her mother suffer for a long time, seen her pain and loss of little Alice Esther. Emma is old enough
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
| Dreams a Likeness of her Future Husband.

A Fiendish Husband’s Desperate Deed.

Fiendish Husband

Jealous Jack Scanlin murderously assaults his wife and badly injurers her in Oneonta, N. Y. [more]

Jealousy led to a dastardly attempt at murder in Oneonta, N. Y., recently. Jack Scanlin, who for some days past has been stopping at the house of Mrs. Detta Hough, where, also, his wife is, whom he has not been living with recently, arose from his bed and going to the room occupied by his wife and Mrs. Hough attacked the two women. Mrs. Hough he struck upon the head with a heavy stone. He then grabbed his wife, and with some sharp instrument with which he was armed, cut and slashed her about the face and neck in a horrible manner. Mrs. Hough, who had escaped from the fiend, rushed from the house and gave the alarm. Scanlin was arrested and lodged in jail. He says that William R. Jamison, a young man who lived in the Hough house, was the cause of the deed. Jamison denies that anything improper existed between he and Mrs. Scanlin. The doctors state the woman cannot live.


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, October 15, 1892.