No. 157
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 09, 2013

It Was a "She."

July 9, 2013
...
...

Tag: Crime

Garrotting.

To Choke.

8/12/2025

What it is Coming to in Chicago.

3/24/2014

Mother Mandelbaum's Secrets.

4/23/2013

Beauty as a Shield.

Beauty Conquers avarice and outlawry "We won't rob this house to-night."

7/24/2012

Allan Pinkerton.

The Eye that Never Sleeps.

3/27/2012

Hospital Horrors.

3/20/2012

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

3/4/2012

Driven by Delusion

Henry Goodwin entered the office of his partner, Albert Swan, pulled out a revolver and shot him.

11/14/2011

Whipped By Women

11/8/2011

Anxious For a Funeral

10/23/2011

Trixie Got the Best of It.

Two Little Gem Theatre, Buffalo, N. Y., Soubrettes have a scrap on account of a man.

10/8/2011

The Astor Place Riot

8/15/2011

The Swindling Beggar

7/11/2011
Sarah Althea HillThat old, old story:  “Boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy dumps girl.”  Whenever I encounter it, I usually shrug and move on.  However, present me with a sequel that says, “Girl takes boy to court, practices voodoo curses, with everything ending in a shootout,” and I start to take an interest in the situation.During the 1860s, William Sharon was lucky enough to
More...
Strange Company - 8/31/2026
  [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 […]
More...
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
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
 When John Keys and Eva Dickenson were married in Cincinnati on August 21, 1890, they told their relatives that they planned to honeymoon on the Atlantic coast, but John had another plan. He purchased an Ohio River shanty-boat and planned a slow trip downriver to St. Louis. It would not be their last deception; in fact, what transpired on that fateful journey would remain forever shrouded in
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 8/29/2026
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
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Gold from Seawater! | She Skipped.

It Was a "She."

It was a she

Charles Kelly, arrested for burglary near Princeton, Ind., turns out upon examination to be Clara King. [more]

A Horrible “Find.”

A correspondent at Princeton, Ind., writes: It will be remembered that about two months ago a burglary was committed at Ft. Branch, and that Sheriff McGary and his assistant, Wm. Wire, shortly afterward captured five men near Mt. Carmel who proved to be the guilty parties. After bringing them to the city they pled guilty, at the preliminary trial, to the charge of larceny, and were committee to jail in default of bail. The five burglars gave their names as John Kelly, “Charles Kelley,” John Murphy, Thomas O’Neil and James Gallagher. Charles Kelly seemed to be a very young boy, and gained considerable sympathy from several who saw him, thinking that he had probably been enticed into leaving a life of the Lord. The prisoner were placed in cells together and mingled together in jail, and nothing was supposed to be wrong. On several occasions Charles informed the sheriff that he was afraid of the roughs therein, and would rather be locked in a cell. The prisoner then said her name was Clara King, and that she hailed from Chicago, and had no home or relatives that she knew of, that she joined the gang of burglars in order to make a living. She was taken before the judge of court and proved that she was a female, when she was given three years in the State Female Penitentiary.


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, October 15, 1887.