No. 553
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 09, 2020

Shot for a Bear.

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December 9, 2020
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Tag: Moral Lesson

The Two Paths in Life.

"A noble life, to Truth and Virtue given, <br />Makes earth a Paradise scarce less than Heaven. <br />While one to Vice devoted and her ways, <br />Of earth makes hell and blackens all its days"

8/7/2012
JAMES BURNS
alias: , BAKER, BIG JIM, BOSTON J1M, etc, HAWKINS, JAMES BOYLE, JOHN BOWEN
SNEAK, BURGLAR

Weekend Link Dump

 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!And you're just in time for afternoon tea!A flying horse in Staffordshire.A mysterious murder-suicide.New York's war against banana peels.The houseplant that can count.Fun and games in medieval London.Hitler's dress rehearsal for war.A coded letter from Napoleon has finally been deciphered.A woman is cleared of being a witch.  Three hundred years after
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Strange Company - 10/9/2026

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

Laura and Alexander.

 Laura D. Fair and Alexander P. CrittendenA prominent California legislator was sitting with his wife and son on board the Oakland-San Francisco ferryboat El Capitain the evening of November 3, 1870. They did not notice the woman approaching them, dressed entirely in black, wearing a broad-brimmed black hat with a black veil covering her face. From the folds of her dress, the woman
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Murder By Gaslight - 10/10/2026
On the Russians.

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman&#8217;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
A Fiendish Schoolmarm. | A Masher Mashed

Shot for a Bear.

Shot-For-A-Bear

At Platte Lake. a few miles north of Frankfort. Mich., on Oct. 26, Mrs. Jane Briggs, of Platte Township, while picking cranberries in a swamp and walking along In a stooping position, with a black hood and shawl on, was mistaken for a bear by two hunters and shot through the neck. Death followed In a few hours. Mrs. Briggs was an old resident of this county and the mother of a large family.


National Police Gazette, November 14, 1885.

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