No. 126
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 09, 2013

It Was a "She."

July 9, 2013
...
...

Emma Malloy and George E. GrahamIllustrated Police News, April 17, 1886 & May 15, 1886.Famous Evangelist, temperance leader, author, and publisher Emma Molloy opened her home to the lost and lonely, much as others would take in stray cats. She had an adopted daughter, two foster daughters, and she found a job at her newspaper for George Graham, an ex-convict she had met while preaching at a
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 10/11/2025
 It's time for this week's Link Dump!Please make yourselves at home.A Maine ghost ship.The once-famed Lyon Quintuplets.Ermengarde de Beaumont, Queen of Scots.A brief history of the word "yclept."The man they just couldn't imprison.It sounds like Shackleton's "Endurance" was a bit of a lemon."The idea that many panhandlers are secretly wealthy is, I'm sure, just an urban myth."  Fun fact
More...
Strange Company - 10/10/2025
There’s no mistaking the message of this darkly graphic illustration, which appeared in the satirical periodical Puck in March 1901. “The tenement—a menace to all,” the tagline says. Death hovers over the triumphant spirits of alcoholism, prostitution, gambling, opium dens, and other social evils, which escape like noxious vapors through the unlit tenement windows. Its […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 10/6/2025
Artifact #91James Joseph SmithCommencement ExercisesJeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge) ames Joseph SmithCommencement Exercises for Soapy Smith's youngest son, circa 1897-1904.The document has no date, but advertises the piano as being furnished by the Val A. Reis Music Company of St. Louis, which had a store open between 1891-1908, thus, I am guessing that James was between the age
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/10/2025
 It's time for this week's Link Dump!Please make yourselves at home.A Maine ghost ship.The once-famed Lyon Quintuplets.Ermengarde de Beaumont, Queen of Scots.A brief history of the word "yclept."The man they just couldn't imprison.It sounds like Shackleton's "Endurance" was a bit of a lemon."The idea that many panhandlers are secretly wealthy is, I'm sure, just an urban myth."  Fun fact
More...
Strange Company - 10/10/2025
New to Warps & Wefts? We’ve been online since 2007 with hundreds of articles, posts, over a thousand images, animations, colorizations, newspaper coverage and clippings of the murders and trial day by day, cartoons, AI and imagined imaging, videos, profiles of important people in the case, on the road field trip vlogs and much more. We post every day on Facebook, usually 6-10 posts on various topics so everyone can find something to enjoy reading- why? Because we want a bit of the Borden case every day! We sign off every night around 10 p.m. and upload every morning around 9 a.m. Visit our Facebook and Youtube channel links below. Please do like and follow our Facebook page  Send us your questions! No Patreons or monetization ever. No detail too small to be considered. Stop by to see us- we learn something new every day!  https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts/ https://www.youtube.com/@LizzieBordenWarpsandWefts See less Comments Author Lizzie Borden Warps &
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 9/26/2025
Emma Malloy and George E. GrahamIllustrated Police News, April 17, 1886 & May 15, 1886.Famous Evangelist, temperance leader, author, and publisher Emma Molloy opened her home to the lost and lonely, much as others would take in stray cats. She had an adopted daughter, two foster daughters, and she found a job at her newspaper for George Graham, an ex-convict she had met while preaching at a
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 10/11/2025
Artifact #91James Joseph SmithCommencement ExercisesJeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge) ames Joseph SmithCommencement Exercises for Soapy Smith's youngest son, circa 1897-1904.The document has no date, but advertises the piano as being furnished by the Val A. Reis Music Company of St. Louis, which had a store open between 1891-1908, thus, I am guessing that James was between the age
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/10/2025
There’s no mistaking the message of this darkly graphic illustration, which appeared in the satirical periodical Puck in March 1901. “The tenement—a menace to all,” the tagline says. Death hovers over the triumphant spirits of alcoholism, prostitution, gambling, opium dens, and other social evils, which escape like noxious vapors through the unlit tenement windows. Its […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 10/6/2025
Gold from Seawater! | She Skipped.

It Was a "She."

An Easy Winner

Architect John M. Merrick of New York triumphantly finishes his thirtieth canvas-back duck on the thirtieth consecutive day. [more]

One of the best known gourmets of New York is Mr. John M. Merrick, a famous architect. He is considered the greatest authority in the metropolis on luxurious living, and his views were quoted with respect, even by such an apostle of the cousine as the late Wm. Stuart. In a recent conversation Mr. Merrick declared that to eat thirty quail in thirty days was a treat which owed its difficultly, not to the monotony of the dish, but the natural dryness and insipidity of the bird. This opinion be offered to back practically by undertaking to eat a very different kind of wild. fowl—the canvas-back duck—at the rate of one a day for a month. The canvas-back is a very large and rich bird, and considerable doubt was expressed by epicures as to the possibility of the feat. But with true Galway pluck, Mr. Merrick demolished his thirtieth consecutive bird on New Year's day amid the applause of all beholders at Cable's restaurant on Broadway.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette January 15, 1887.

It was a she

Charles Kelly, arrested for burglary near Princeton, Ind., turns out upon examination to be Clara King. [more]

A Horrible “Find.”

A correspondent at Princeton, Ind., writes: It will be remembered that about two months ago a burglary was committed at Ft. Branch, and that Sheriff McGary and his assistant, Wm. Wire, shortly afterward captured five men near Mt. Carmel who proved to be the guilty parties. After bringing them to the city they pled guilty, at the preliminary trial, to the charge of larceny, and were committee to jail in default of bail. The five burglars gave their names as John Kelly, “Charles Kelley,” John Murphy, Thomas O’Neil and James Gallagher. Charles Kelly seemed to be a very young boy, and gained considerable sympathy from several who saw him, thinking that he had probably been enticed into leaving a life of the Lord. The prisoner were placed in cells together and mingled together in jail, and nothing was supposed to be wrong. On several occasions Charles informed the sheriff that he was afraid of the roughs therein, and would rather be locked in a cell. The prisoner then said her name was Clara King, and that she hailed from Chicago, and had no home or relatives that she knew of, that she joined the gang of burglars in order to make a living. She was taken before the judge of court and proved that she was a female, when she was given three years in the State Female Penitentiary.


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, October 15, 1887.