No. 805
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 18, 2025

Birds with False Plumage.

Bogus "Christian Endeavor" Delegates at Washington.
March 18, 2025
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Tag: Society

Heroism of a Society Belle.

The Bravery of charming Miss Jaffray, the daughter of a New York millionaire, saves many lives at Irvington, N. Y.

12/28/2015

A New Wrinkle.

How the fashionable women of “sawciety” get their complexions whit the assistance of a hypodermic injection.

12/14/2015

Society Unveiled.

2/3/2014

Puck's Dude Champions.

12/17/2013

Unpleasantly Like.

11/5/2013
When reading about UFO sightings, one gets a bit bored of encounters with the usual saucer-eyed little green men, so it’s always welcome when extraterrestrials think outside of the box and offer us humans a more novel spectacle.  In the November/December 1968 issue of “Flying Saucer Review,” a French UFO researcher named Lyonel Trigano presented a striking case which had been brought to his
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Strange Company - 3/30/2026
"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
New York didn’t invent April Fools Day; this holiday might date back all the way to ancient Rome. But starting in the 19th century, April 1 in Gotham has been a day to celebrate with stupid pranks, outrageous hoaxes, the mocking of politicians and business leaders, and since 1986, a parade down Fifth Avenue. This […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/30/2026
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
National Police Gazette, January 28, 1882Mrs. J.W. Gibbons was away from her home in Ashland, Kentucky, on December 23, 1881. She left behind her 18-year-old son Robert, her 14-year-old daughter Fannie, and 17-year-old Emma Thomas (aka Carico), who was staying with them. Mrs. Gibbons returned the following day to find her home burned to the ground and all three inhabitants dead.Read the full
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/28/2026
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
An Actress Used a Pistol. | An Irishman and a Yankee Settle a Dispute.

Birds with False Plumage.

False-Plumage

During the great Christian Endeavor convention in Washington, D. C., last week, some women of the place, women with painted faces and strident voices, women who plainly never dwelt in the odor of sanctity but preferred the scent of musk, flaunted in Christian Endeavor badges, and did skirt dances in bar rooms along the boulevards. They were loaded to the guards with liquor, and evidently had been making use of false plumage to ply their trade among the religious brethren and pious strangers.


Illustrated Police News, July 18, 1896.