No. 91
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 10, 2012

Female Tobacco Chewers.

What a Correspondent Asserts Regarding a Boston Girl.
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July 10, 2012
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JAMES McMAHON
alias:
BURGLAR, RIVER THIEF

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comCalvin is among the literary cats who have been immortalized in prose.  Originally part of the household of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Calvin eventually made his home with author Charles Dudley Warner.  After the cat died, Warner wrote the following biographical essay, which was often republished in various late 19th century newspapers and periodicals.  This
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Strange Company - 9/9/2026

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

Sadie and Clarence.

Sadie and Clarence.In April 1894, the murder of Montgomery Gibbs, a successful attorney, caused great excitement in Buffalo, New York. He was found shot to death in a driveway on Delaware Avenue with no clues to the killer’s identity. The police and newspapers investigated the crime, but they had no solid leads, and it remained unsolved. Then, in October, they received a tip that Clarence
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/5/2026
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
Spectacular Scenes & Sights Down on the Jersey Coast | Ararat: City of Refuge.

Female Tobacco Chewers.

Boston Girls

A stranger in Boston is shocked by seeing one of the “culchawed girls” of that city chewing tobacco like a sailor. 

What a Correspondent Asserts Regarding a Boston Girl.

The refinement and culture of the Boston girl has passed into a proverb. But if a correspondent of the Louis Republican is to be believed, the B. G. has taken of late to the habits which must pull her down from her pedestal. The correspondent says that he saw a Boston Girl—one of a party returning from a picnic—on a street-car, “chewing tobacco to such an extent that the quid puffed out her cheek to the size of a hickory nut, and she frequently bent forward and squirted the juice on the floor.”

In a subsequent issue of the paper an admirer of the Boston girl offers to bet a case of wine that the correspondent is a liar. No takers as yet.

 

The National Police Gazette, October 9, 1880

 

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