No. 175
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 27, 2013

Hallow Eve Sports.

The cool reception that some frolicsome young Doylestown girls gave to a verdant beau who was not posted as to the manners and customs of the Pennsylvania Dutch
October 27, 2013
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Tag: Football

A Great Game of Football.

Fair college students engage in a rough-and-tumble chase after the pigskin.

11/7/2023

Fierce Football.

The great game recently played between teams representing the colleges of Princeton and Yale, on the former's grounds, Thanksgiving Day.

11/23/2015

She Went into the Scrimmage.

Mrs. Miller Forcibly Removes Her Two Sons form a Football Game at Bridgeport, Conn.

12/8/2014

Collegians at Football.

12/10/2013
Via Newspapers.com Here is just one of those minor little oddities that help keep life on this earth from getting too dull.  The “Boston Globe,” December 17, 1928:SANTA BARBARA, Calif, Dec 16 (A.P.) -There may be sermons in stones and books in the running brooks, but it was left for a Santa Barbara woman to reveal today that there is a Schubert melody in a pan of boiling vegetables.&
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Strange Company - 4/22/2026
"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
Fractional house numbers can be found across New York’s older brownstone and townhouse neighborhoods. Usually the half refers to an adjacent carriage house or backhouse, or sometimes even a basement apartment. But as far as I can tell, this is the only 3/4 fractional on a Gotham doorway or entryway. It’s at 184 3/4 West […]
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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
(New York Journal, May 31, 1896.)On the morning of Memorial Day, May 30, 1896, Mrs. Annie Cunningham had to go to work, while her 13-year-old daughter, Mary (known as Mamie), was home from school for the holiday. Mrs. Cunningham asked Mamie if she planned to go to the parade. Mamie said no, she wasn’t interested, and she planned to do housework and study. At 8:30, she said goodbye to her daughter
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Murder By Gaslight - 4/18/2026
Whatever you believe about the guilt or innocence of Lizzie Borden, I have always believed film makers do a great injustice to the story by not beginning at the beginning- the death on March 26, 1863 of the first Mrs. Borden. In the dying moments of Sarah Morse, Emma takes on the weight of the care of her little sister, not yet three years old. Emma herself was just 12 on March 1st. Emma has seen her mother suffer for a long time, seen her pain and loss of little Alice Esther. Emma is old enough
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
  [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
Unpleasantly Like. | Hungry Joe.

Hallow Eve Sports.

Hallow Eve Sport

The cool reception that some frolicsome young Doylestown girls gave to a verdant beau who was not posted as to the manners and customs of the Pennsylvania Dutch. 

In no part of the country can be found a place where the old times sports of Hallow Eve are better kept than Doylestown, Pa. The last day of October is a carnival of fun for the honest and mirth-loving descendants of the Pennsylvania Dutch, of good old Bucks county. It is a holiday in which the young girls can particularly enjoy themselves by a little practical joking. Socials parties are held on the occasion, and the young folks rack their brains to devise schemes to catch the unwary in some ludicrous predicament. They enjoy catching some unsophisticated youth to play their tricks on. A party of gay damsels of Doylestown lately captured a fresh young dude from Philadelphia, and after playing many tricks on him, capped the climax by inducing him to take a seat between two of the belles of the occasion, who were apparently seated on a lounge covered by a sheet. It was not long before he discovered that the supposed lounge was two chairs at the end, and under the enticing looking centre seat was a tub of cold water, as the young man found to his sorrow.


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, November 10, 1883.