No. 99
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 14, 2012

Steam Powered Reformation.

More...
August 14, 2012
...
...

Tag: Sex

Photography's Abuse by Blackmailers.

The Scheme of a Conscienceless Adventurer in New York - "Chippies" his Accomplices in Trapping Old Sinners into Hush-Money Situations.

9/28/2021

The Demi Monde of Paris.

You will Miss the Treat of Your LIfe if You Fail to Read It.

1/16/2017

Serpent and Dove.

10/2/2012

Love in a Railroad Car.

9/16/2012

A Terrible Punishment.

A father revenges an outrage on his daughter by pulling the wretch asunder; near Junction City, Kansas.

8/28/2012

Comstockery.

Anthony Comstock was on a personal mission to protect America from vice.

5/1/2012

It Was Another Kind of Cat.

2/21/2012

Another Voice for Cleveland.

12/13/2011

Hid the Girls' Skirts

8/22/2011

Recruiting For Sin's Army

7/5/2011

Sparking in Tompkins Square

Cupid in Tompkins Square

6/28/2011

Did the Naughty Midway Dance

Pretty Ida Lawrence gets arrested while entertaining some hackmen in Cincinnati, O.

3/28/2011
EDWARD DINKELMAN
alias: BOWMAN, EDDIE MILLER� HUNTER
PICKPOCKET, SHOPLIFTER, , HOTEL THIEF

The First Mrs. Bennett

William Bell Scott, Woman Startled by the Ghost of a Girl by a MirrorSecond marriages can be awkward, especially when the ex-spouse has issues with their former partner entering into a new union.  If said ex-spouse happens to be dead, you know your domestic life has well and truly entered Strange Company territory.In her 1974 book “Haunted East Anglia,” Joan Forman described an unsettling
More...
Strange Company - 6/15/2026

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
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
Amen.

New York’s longest “step street” is this dramatic three-block concrete staircase in the Bronx

Getting around the western Bronx by foot means encountering hilly streets, lots of hilly streets. The pitched terrain comes from ridges of bedrock formed millions of years ago extending into Northern Manhattan. Back in the early 1900s when the Bronx was undergoing urbanization, all these hills posed a challenge to transit engineers, since some roads […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 6/15/2026

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 →
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020

Hannah and Stephen.

 Stephen Pettus gave Hannah Southworth a glass of drugged champagne and had his way with her while she was unconscious. Hannah became pregnant and for years after, she badgered Pettus to acknowledge that he had ruined her. When all legal means were exhausted, she avenged her honor by shooting him in the back on a Brooklyn street.Read the full story here: Avenging Her Honor.
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 6/13/2026
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
More...
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 […]
More...
Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
| Athletics.

Steam Powered Reformation.

Steam Powered Reformation

How the indignant citizens of Brockwayville, PA., ridded themselves of a nuisance by calling in the assistance of a plucky engineer and his locomotive.

[more]

For some time Dominic Morillo, an Italian, has been keeping a house of bad repute and an illicit liquor shop on the property of the Ridgeway and Clearfield Railroad at Brockwayville, Penn. Every effort was made to close it up, but without success.

On the evening of Dec. 20 A. J. Cooper an engineer, ran his locomotive on the siding near the house, and a number of men fastened chains around the house and to the locomotive. Then the engine was started, and the whole building was torn form its foundation and completely wrecked. The ruins were afterward set on fire and burned. The inmates escaped unhurt.

 

From The National Police Gazette, January 12, 1884

Turn to Page 1