No. 645
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 19, 2024

An Underground Stale-Beer Dive.

December 18, 2012
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Tag: Entertainment

She Whipped the Dude.

Young man who guyed performers in a New Orleans theatre was severely corrected.

10/29/2023

Why Wouldn't a "Wild East" Show be Popular, Too?

Here are a few features for it.

10/24/2023

Mabel Punched the Swell.

How Miss Livingston, the well-known singer, resented an insult at Macon, Ga.

4/16/2018

Done Up by Dizzy Blondes.

A special from Canajoharie, Sept 26, says: Duncan Clark, manager of Clark’s Female Minstrels, will probably not visit the Mohawk valley again very soon.

6/20/2016

Chang and Eng, The Siamese Twins.

A characteristic group, representing Chang and Eng, the Siamese Twins, with their wives and Children.

2/29/2016

Mdlle. Carlotta de Berg.

Mdlle. Carlotta de Berg, at the New York Circus, Fourteenth Street.

5/5/2015

She Had a High Old Time.

8/13/2013

Shooting at the Elevated.

After-dinner pistol practice at the trains that rush by windows

5/7/2013

Serpent and Dove.

10/2/2012

Spectacular Scenes & Sights Down on the Jersey Coast

Poster for the 1898 Broadway show "Have You Seen Smith?"

7/17/2012

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Flxtxy Propecia Pve <a href=http://abuyplaquenilcv.com/>Plaquenil</a>

1/24/2012

McGinty Survives!

10/30/2011

Trixie Got the Best of It.

Two Little Gem Theatre, Buffalo, N. Y., Soubrettes have a scrap on account of a man.

10/8/2011

The Astor Place Riot

8/15/2011

Belles of the Bowling Alley.

The athletic diversions of an association of dashing damsels in their club rooms in Chicago. 

6/6/2011

Duel of the Divas.

The question of who was more beautiful, Lillian Russel or Lola Montez was settled by two cowpokes in the Nevada desert in the 1890s.

5/30/2011

A Newspaper Man’s Plight

Denver Col., October 1892 – Correspondent Jake Hirsh cowhided by indignant Lizzie Gonzales, an actress, in Denver.

5/22/2011

The Cardiff Giant

Cardiff, New York, October 16, 1869.

4/10/2011

Did the Naughty Midway Dance

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

3/28/2011

Chorus Girls in a Panic.

An unruly horse causes great excitement in the Metropolitan Opera House, this city.

3/14/2011

Crush Collision!

Crush, Texas, September 15, 1896

2/24/2011
Encountering a ghost may be a strange, possibly terrifying experience, but fortunately they are rarely harmful.  However, every now and then there is an account of a spirit that is not just malevolent, but physically dangerous.  One such story was told by folklorist Mary L. Lewes in the December 1912 issue of “Occult Review.”  It concerns a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Caxton. 
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Strange Company - 3/18/2024
`
HE DUEL IN ELLEN'S HONOR. Soapy Smith’s grandmotherOn Wednesday, August 9, 1820, an argument between 17-year-old, James Bowe Boisseau (1802-1820) and Robert C. Adams (unknown-1820) vying for the attention of 18-year-old Ellen Stimpson Peniston (1802-1860), took a terrible turn. The happy party in her honor took a tragic turn when the competition for Ellen’s affections ended in a deadly duel,
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 1/10/2024
Going to the theater has always been a beloved New York City pastime. But theater became even more thrilling with the advent of open-air rooftop gardens—which hit the scene in the late 1880s with the opening of the rooftop theater at the Casino on Broadway and 39th Street. It wasn’t just the cool breezes that […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/18/2024
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
Dr. John W. Hughes. Dr. John W. Hughes was a restless, intemperate man whose life never ran smoothly. When his home life turned sour, he found love with a woman half his age. Then, he lost her through an act of deception, and in a fit of drunken rage, Dr. Hughes killed his one true love.Date:  August 9, 1865Location:   Bedford, OhioVictim:  Tamzen ParsonsCause of Death:&
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/16/2024
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph.  The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
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
"Assisted Emigrant" | An Irishman and a Yankee Settle a Dispute.

An Underground Stale-Beer Dive.

Stale Beer Dive

An Underground Stale-Beer Dive Late at Night in Mulberry Bend.

The low concert halls and stale-beer dives offer the fullest field for night mission work. These vile places are most often in cellars. The rooms are small, the ceilings low, and the air is always full of the fumes of tobacco and stale beer. The men are thieves, loafers and “crooks” often of the most dangerous order. The women are of the most degraded type. Here beer and spirits are sold in buckets, pails and bottles, and the inmates spend what they have earned, begged, or stolen for these vile drinks. Children are often sent to these places for liquor.


Campbell, Helen, Thomas Wallace Knox, and Thomas Byrnes. Darkness and daylight, or, Lights and shadows of New York life: a woman's pictorial record of gospel, temperance, mission, and rescue work "in His Name" .... Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington, 1897.