No. 650
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
April 30, 2024

The Panel Woman and her Wiles.

“He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction or the stocks."
April 30, 2024
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Lady Eleanor Smith (1902-1945) was one of the “Bright Young Things,” the name given to the group of aristocrats and socialites who enlivened 1920s London society.  The Bohemian, eccentric Lady Eleanor had a short, but busy career as a society journalist, novelist, and circus publicist.Lady Eleanor was a great admirer of the prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, who stars--sort of--in this passage
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Strange Company - 4/29/2024
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
It doesn’t look like much, just another semi-vacant commercial building—this one on the southeast corner of 106th Street and Third Avenue—now occupied by a Duane Reade. But give it a closer look, and Art Deco decorative touches come in to view, like the patterns in the light bricks and small geometric shapes above the first […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/29/2024
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
 In 1883, Edward Rowell of Batavia, New York, suspected his wife of cheating and set a trap to catch her. He told her he would be gone for severl days on business but did not leave. That night he caught his wife in bed with their former neighbor, Johnson Lynch. Rowell burst into the room brandishing a revolver and fired wildly wounding his wife and killing Lynch. The murder caused quite a
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Murder By Gaslight - 4/27/2024
CHIEF OF CONSThe Morning Times(Cripple Creek, Colorado)February 15, 1896Courtesy of Mitch Morrissey ig Ed Burns robs a dying man?      Mitch Morrissey, a Facebook friend and historian for the Denver District Attorney’s Office, found and published an interesting newspaper piece on "Big Ed" Burns, one of the most notorious characters in the West. Burns was a confidence man and
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 4/2/2024
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
| A New Gag.

The Panel Woman and her Wiles.

Panel-woman

Solomon, who was the wisest man in his own day and generation, left words of wisdom that will be invaluable to all the generations to come if they are heeded. Solomon was emphatic in his denunciations of the "strange woman" and her tempting wiles. In the seventh chapter of Proverbs, he exhorts young men to beware of such dangerous females who flatter with their tongues. "For," he says, “at the window of my house I looked through my casement, and beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, in the twilight or the evening, In the black and dark night; and, behold, there met him a woman with the attire or a harlot, and subtle of heart."

“So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, 'I have peace offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows; therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.'

‘I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.'

'I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.'

'Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning; let on solace ourselves with loves; for the good man is not at home, he is gone on a long journey.’"

“He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction or the stocks; till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it Is for his life."

"Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death."

The police of any of our cities will testify that the panel woman, and her tempting wiles, is the same treacherous and deceitful creature she was when Solomon reigned; that she spares neither the young middle-aged or even the old men she can draw up her winding stairs, and that the "good man gone on a long Journey" is liable to return unexpectedly and gather up much spoil from the deluded victim.


Illustrated Police News, November 16, 1871.