No. 222
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
September 29, 2014

Belle Gordon.

September 29, 2014
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Tag: 1890

Jack the Garter Stealer.

A bold and eccentric individual, who is alarming the girls and puzzling the authorities of Exeter, Mass.

6/12/2017

They Ran a Snide Game.

A “friendly” poker scheme exposed at Bogota, N. J., by one of the players squealing.

6/13/2016

A Pair of Turtle Doves.

J. C. McLean, of Anderson, Ind., discovers that his wife is of a too-loving nature.

5/23/2016

Gambler Vs. Cook.

James Toohey, a Covington, Neb., scullion, gets awfully mad and fatally stabs a man about town named Erwin.

4/18/2016

Concerning Sensational Methods.

There is a class of publications whose lives depend upon their successful appeal to vicious instincts.

6/1/2015

Willie Craig Was a Girl.

But what a lovely sensation she created among the Henderson, Tenn. sweet girls and susceptible boys before her sex was discovered.

5/11/2015

Said She Would and Did.

Mrs. Cary cures her husband of flirting by ascending in a balloon at Buffalo, N. Y.

4/27/2015

She Went into the Scrimmage.

Mrs. Miller Forcibly Removes Her Two Sons form a Football Game at Bridgeport, Conn.

12/8/2014

Giddy Young Girls.

12/1/2014
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where the Strange Company staff is off on an early summer road trip!Daniel Webster prosecutes an "extraordinary case."Is there a planet hidden behind Neptune?A woman's unsolved disappearance.A medieval domestic violence case."London characters" of the early 20th century.Exploring some fairy caves.The actor and the crisis apparition.A bride returns from the
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Strange Company - 6/12/2026
"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 can see it peeking out from the Harlem River Drive or through the chain-link fence of the Third Avenue Bridge: a five-story red brick building almost buried behind glass and steel apartment towers. The towers are newish luxury rental residences built on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. Shiny and modern, they bring […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/8/2026
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
In 1830, Joseph Knapp conspired with his brother, John Francis Knapp, to hire a local criminal, Richard Crowninshield, to murder their great uncle, Captain Joseph White, in Salem, Massachusetts. They believed that if the captain died without a will, they stood to inherit a sizable fortune.Read the full story here: "A Most Extraordinary Case"
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/6/2026
As Mr. Moody for the Prosecution dramatically expounds on hatchets and grisly details, and a glimpse of two skulls in a leather case, Lizzie slumps over in her chair. Was it the heat or the ghastly descriptions?
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/7/2026
  [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
Murderous Assault by a Wife on Her Husband. | Set Fire to the Bed.

Belle Gordon.

 
 
Source:
Austin, Sam C.. The Police Gazette sporting annual for 1898: complete chronology for 1897. London: Richard K. Fox, 1898.