No. 761
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 30, 2024

Counterfeiters Surprised.

New York—Base Metal Coinage
July 30, 2024
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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
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!The Strange Company HQ staffers wish you pleasant reading!A handy reminder that bees are weird.A look at medieval executioners.The world's oldest dated printed book.A stupid theory about the Salem Witch Trials that refuses to die.The 11th century abbot and the recycled sarcophagus.The duel between W.B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley.The man who made a living
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Strange Company - 10/23/2026
  [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
"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
This week, we feature a guest post by Don Everett Smith Jr., author of The Goffle Road Murders of Passaic County (History Press, 2011).   In a previous post on Murder by Gaslight, “Revisiting the Goffle Road Murders,” Don presented an excerpt from his book. This week’s post, “The Three Hangings, Lycoming County,” examines the 1880 murder of Andrew Miller in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania
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Murder By Gaslight - 10/24/2026
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
The Convicts Returning from Dinner. | The Scandal Which Agitates St. Louis.

Counterfeiters Surprised.

counterfeiters Notwithstanding the extreme hazards involved, in these days of sharp detective service, the factitious business of manufacturing counterfeit money seems to keep a greater or less number of "crooks " at work almost continually. The latest capture in this line was accomplished in Brooklyn, upon the night of Thursday. December 27th, by Special Operative John P. Brooks, of the U. S. Secret Service force, who surprised three men in the act of turning out a rather poor imitation of the silver dollar. Some of the base coins were red hot in the molds, while the crucible, battery, milling - tools, and other paraphernalia, were in active employment in the hands of Messrs. Green, Cassidy and Kenney, the three men who constituted the gang. The two former are old offenders, both having recently completed terms in the Penitentiary for counterfeiting. The dollars turned out by their counterfeit-factory, upon the top floor of a tenement in Pearl Street, Brooklyn, where they were arrested, had been in circulation in Brooklyn for two or three months past. Mr. Brooks traced up their source, and planned the raid so successfully, that when the doors were burst in by the police the crooked alchemists were completely surprised, and surrendered without resistance.


Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 12, 1889.