No. 295
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 22, 2016

Shocking Youthful Depravity.

The discovery that public school children frequent immoral places creates a startling sensation in C
February 22, 2016
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Tag: America

The Day We Are Waiting For -

- When the "Irish," "Germans," and All the Other "National Votes" shall Get Together and Call Themselves Americans.

11/19/2018

July 4.

So this is your birthday again. Well, bless my soul! Columbia, you will be as tall as your father soon.

7/3/2017

Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Dinner.

11/26/2013
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!And greetings from the Strange Company mail room!A teenager who died in the American Revolution has finally been identified.An ancient Roman fossil collector.The strange case of the "Leavenworth Look-Alikes."The legend of what may have been the first underwater tunnel.Casual snapshots of the Romanovs.The strange case of the Beale Ciphers.A diplomat's widow
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Strange Company - 7/17/2026
"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
The first things I noticed about 2029 First Avenue were the decorative lintels above the second floor windows. Attractively styled for window lintels on upper First Avenue, I figured this stubby holdout wedged beside two brick buildings between East 104th and 105th Streets must have been a former stable. I imagined that those roll-down window […]
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Ephemeral New York - 7/13/2026
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
(Philadelphia Inquirer, April 29, 1895.)Johanna Gahan married Jimmy Logue, a professional thief, in 1871, just as he was preparing to serve a seven-year prison sentence for burglary. She waited for him, and after his release, Jimmy bought a house for them in Philadelphia. Within a year, Jimmy was off on a “thieving expedition” to Boston. When he returned, Johanna was gone. Those who knew Jimmy
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Murder By Gaslight - 7/18/2026
Join us on our Facebook page as we begin counting down the days to August 4th and all of the events leading up to the day. https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/7/2026
  [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
Chang and Eng, The Siamese Twins. | She Swallowed Her Teeth.

Shocking Youthful Depravity.

Shocking Youthful Depravity

The discovery that public school children frequent immoral places creates a startling sensation in Columbus, O. 

From the startling developments which have been in process of unfolding for the last few days at Columbus, O., says the Journal of that town, and which reached a culmination yesterday, it would seem that the well disposed missionaries have found a fruitful field at home. Conscientious Christian ladies have been stricken with horror in the past few days when they were told that public school pupils—boys and girls—had been for several weeks previous engaged in the pastime of visiting a resort on Town street which sails under the front name of saloon and restaurant, but has rear establishments with stalls and booths and all the paraphernalia which go to make up and improvised place of assignation, where drinking and intoxication may be imagined as among the milder crimes indulged in.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, December 22, 1888.