No. 51
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 30, 2011

McGinty Survives!

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October 30, 2011
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Tag: Photography

A New Child Abandonment Trick.

How a woman slipped out and left a kid on a photographer's hands.

11/4/2024

The Craze of the Day.

The amateur camera fiend carries his deadly machine in all sorts of disguises, nowadays.

3/6/2017

Amateur Photography.

The only way to prove that you have been clubbed by a policeman - photograph him in the act.

4/6/2015

Photographed as he Died.

6/24/2014

Society Unveiled.

2/3/2014
WILLIAM FALE
alias: BROOKS
HOTEL THIEF, SLEEPING-CAR WORKER

Weekend Link Dump

 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!However, I'm not sure I like what the Strange Company HQ staffers are planning for today's menu.What the hell was the Dover Demon?An archaeological mystery near Yellowstone.A fatal obsession with an actress.The "f word" goes a long way back.In 1900, these were women's favorite weapons.A look at the latest book about Poe.  It sounds a bit pretentious,
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Strange Company - 10/2/2026

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

James Dougherty's Obsession.

Mary Anderson was an acclaimed international stage actress in the late 1800s. Among her many fans was a young Brooklyn man named James M. Dougherty.  He worked as a telegraph lineman and studied science in his spare time. He dabbled in a little of everything until, after watching one of her plays, he became obsessed with Miss Anderson. His love for Mary Anderson became his sole
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/26/2026
On the Russians.

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 →
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Whipped By Women | Anxious For a Funeral

McGinty Survives!

McGinty

The popularity of the Cardiff Giant, an allegedly petrified giant man found buried in New York, was so great that spectators continued to pay to view him even after he proved to be a hoax. This prompted showmen throughout America to exhibit their own petrified men. Among the greatest was McGinty, exhibited by the notorious western conman, Soapy Smith, in Creede, Colorado, in 1892. Incredibly, 119 years later, McGinty is still on display at Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe in Seattle, Washington, where he is known as Sylvester. Read McGinty’s story at Soapy Smith’s Soap Box.

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