No. 236
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
January 06, 2015

Cheating the Liquor Laws.

The ingenious patent which has been got up for use in prohibition states.
January 6, 2015
...
...

Tag: Baseball

Threatening an Umpire.

President Byrne saves the bones of umpire Jimmy Clinton from a severe and undeserved pounding at Brooklyn, N. Y.

5/31/2022

Killed by a Baseball.

John Walters, of Richmond, Indiana becomes a victim of his love for the national game.

4/5/2016

Baseball Animals.

Cigarette cards, 1880s, 1890s

5/14/2013

A One Legged Baseball Club.

9/11/2012
Via Newspapers.comI guess you could say that this is one of those UFO stories that has everything, including satanic fungus.  The “Jacksonville Journal,” January 28, 1974:After sighting an Unidentified Flying Object and being felled by a ray apparently from an occupant of the craft, a strange "devil's head" was found growing in his yard, a Jacksonville man has reported to the UFO Research
More...
Strange Company - 10/21/2026
  [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 […]
More...
Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
"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
 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
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 10/17/2026
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 →
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Defying the Guards. | New Years in the Wings.

Cheating the Liquor Laws.

Cheating Liquor Laws

The ingenious patent which has been got up for use in prohibition states. 

Some curious patents are taken out at the Patent Office. One last week—“cover for liquor flask”—would never be fully appreciated by its title. It is a design of a book, about two and a half inches thick. At the bottom end of the book is an opening for the insertion of the flask, the opening being afterwards neatly closet with a sprint, the surface of which is marbleized lie a book end of leaves. At the top all seems correct and regular, but the pressure of the thumb throws open a circular hole at the same time raise the neck of the hitherto hidden vessel about two inches within easy range of the mouth.


National Police Gazette, January 9, 1886.