No. 283
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 01, 2015

Her Last Quadrille.

The bursting of an artery due to tight lacing causes the death of Miss Mary Crawford of Detroit, Mic
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December 1, 2015
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Tag: Louisiana

Torturing a Lover.

6/26/2012

Terrible Struggle with Flame and Flood

The burning of the steamer John H. Hanna near Plaquemine, Louisiana, by which thirty lives were lost

6/20/2011

Voodoo Queen Marie

For over forty years, beginning around 1830, Marie Laveau was the most powerful and most feared woman in New Orleans.

3/21/2011
CHARLES R TITUS
alias: DOCTOR THOMPSON
FORGER

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comFile this one under “Life’s random little oddities.”  The “Miller County Vidette,” May 6, 1875:A correspondent of the Toledo Blade, writing from Hastings, Michigan, says:About ten miles south of this place, a farmer, while driving some cows through a deep forest adjoining his fields, unexpectedly came upon an unusually large buck, stretched out upon the ground, and moaning
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Strange Company - 9/2/2026

Convicts to Maryland, 1773 by Peter Dickson

  [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
Amen.

Artifact #93: Soapy's son, hires attorney to stop the slurring of his father's name.

"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

John and Eva.

 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
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/29/2026
On the Russians.

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman’s last

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
Absolutely Pure. | Fierce Football.

Her Last Quadrille.

Her Last Quadrille

The bursting of an artery due to tight lacing causes the death of Miss Mary Crawford of Detroit, Mich. 

The craze for slender waists found a victim Saturday night at Detroit, Mich., in Miss Mary Crawford, who was attending a dance. In the midst of the quadrille she suddenly cried and fell, but was caught by her partner, who carried her to a lounge, where she seemingly fainted. It was found impossible to resuscitate her, and a physician was summoned who pronounced the young lady dead. An examination revealed the fact that she had died from tight lacing, the stays in her corsets having been drawn so tightly that her flesh lay in folds beneath, so that the exertion of dancing caused the bursting of a blood vessel. Miss Crawford was to have been married today, and her betrothed is completely prostrated.

Reprinted from National Police Gazette, October 6, 1888.

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