No. 494
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 29, 2019

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 29, 2019
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Tag: Gunshot

Shot for a Bear.

An unsuspecting woman in Platte Lake, Mich., is horribly and fatally made game of.

12/9/2020

Another Fool with a Gun.

Mattie Salter killed by her brother, who didn’t know it was loaded, Sandersville, Ga.

2/18/2019

The Wedding Postponed.

11/27/2017

Packed Away in a Trunk.

James Lavender of Irwinton, Georgia, tries to elude his bondsmen but is found and dragged out.

11/13/2017
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
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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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
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Stores come and go; office buildings gain and lose tenants. But the grief really hits when a shuttered movie theater remains empty, stripped of posters, concession signs, even the theater’s name. This is what remains of the Beekman Theater at 1271 Second Avenue, between 65th and 66th Streets. It showed its last film before abruptly […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/23/2026
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
Duel of the Divas. | 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.