No. 517
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
April 21, 2020

Shot Down in His Office

Ruined and Despondent Ronald Kennedy, a Philadelphia speculator, kills broker Charles H. Page, and then commits suicide.
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April 21, 2020
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Tag: Prostitution

Wantons' Wiles.

The Bad Girls of Gotham and Their New Schemes for Man-Catching.

9/10/2024

The Can Can in Denver.

Elevating the Fantastic Toe.

1/2/2024

Snares for the Unwary.

The "Sawed-Door Game" on a Gudgeon.

5/17/2022

Pedal Advertising.

How two Dizzy Girls Advertised Their Charms and Political Faith.

11/5/2018

Their Sex's Worst Foes.

How the gilded vice of the metropolis fishes for its victims in the public streets, and innocent confidence is trapped by the fine feathers which disguise foul birds.

6/26/2017

Demi-Monde Excursion.

Members of the New Orleans Demi-Monde Enjoying an Excursion to the Suburbs of the Southern Metropolis.

5/16/2016

Breaking Up a Bagnio.

11/18/2012

Steam Powered Reformation.

8/14/2012

Saloons and Houses of Ill-Fame.

Buffalo, New York, May 1893.

5/8/2012

Melancholy Boat Accident.

4/24/2012

The Female Marine

12/27/2011

“I’ve Taken Poison, Maudie!”

7/25/2011

Recruiting For Sin's Army

7/5/2011
EDW'D FAIRBROTHER
alias: DOCTOR ST CLAIR, DR EDW'D S WEST
HOTEL, BOARDING-HOUSE THIEF

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

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Strange Company - 10/21/2026

Convicts to Maryland, 1773 by Peter Dickson

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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

Carlyle and Helen.

 Carlyle Harris and Helen Potts.(The Trial of Carlyle W. Harris for Poisoning His Wife, Helen Potts, at New York.)Helen Potts, a nineteen-year-old student at Miss Comstock’s School in New York City, decided not to join her roommates when they went to hear a concert. Helen was feeling ill, but her boyfriend (secretly her husband), a medical student named Carlyle Harris, had prescribed a
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Murder By Gaslight - 10/17/2026
On the Russians.

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman’s last

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A Velocipede Riding-School. | A Woman Whipping Her Husband

Shot Down in His Office

Shot down in his office

Philadelphia, PA, August 13, 1893 – Ruined and Despondent Ronald Kennedy, a Philadelphia speculator, kills broker Charles H. Page, and then commits suicide.

Charles H. Page, of the firm of E. D. Page & Brother, stockbrokers, 132 South Fourth Street, Philadelphia, Pa, was recently shot and instantly killed in his office by Ronald Kennedy, a customer, who had been dealing in margins with the firm for two years. Kennedy then placed th pistol to his own head and sent a bullet into his brain.

The murderer and suicide is said to have lost between $15,000 and $20,000 since he began dealing with the firm, and despondency over the losses is supposed to have caused the crime.

Mr. Page was shot while reading the reports of the “ticker.”

Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, August 13, 1893

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