No. 50
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 23, 2011

Anxious For a Funeral

October 23, 2011
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Tag: Voyeur

The Scandal Which Agitates St. Louis.

Astounding Revelations of a Low Cunning and Vile Curiosity in One of the Proprietors of the Grand Opera House.

7/23/2024

Peeped at the Bride.

A little incident that marred actor Lawrence Hanley’s wedding night in Terre Haute, Ind.

4/3/2017

A Man under Her Bed.

Had Miss Baker looked under the bed before making her toilet she would have postponed it.

9/26/2016

His Peep Ends Disastrously.

William Peters, a Cincinnati dude, tries to mash Maggie Bolton but gets mashed instead.

8/15/2016
Via Newspapers.comA ghost that was, you might say, all things to all people was reported in the “Moncton Transcript,” February 1, 1922:London, Jan. 30-Eastbourne is being troubled, or entertained, by a "ghost" mystery.A strange apparition has been seen several times gliding along the Crumbles, near the fishermen's huts, and across Fishermen's Green. As the place is within 800 yards of the spot on
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Strange Company - 7/15/2026
"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
The first things I noticed about 2029 First Avenue were the decorative lintels above the second floor windows. Attractively styled for window lintels on upper First Avenue, I figured this stubby holdout wedged beside two brick buildings between East 104th and 105th Streets must have been a former stable. I imagined that those roll-down window […]
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Ephemeral New York - 7/13/2026
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
The Confession of Mary Cole, 1813.Cornelius and Mary Cole lived in a farmhouse in Sussex County, New Jersey, with their two children and Mary’s widowed mother, Agnes Teaurs. Cornelius bought the property from Agnes in exchange for an annuity of $50 per year for the rest of her life. Mary and her husband did not live happily with Agnes. According to Mary, her mother was always very hard on her,
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Murder By Gaslight - 7/11/2026
Join us on our Facebook page as we begin counting down the days to August 4th and all of the events leading up to the day. https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/7/2026
  [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
McGinty Survives! | Trixie Got the Best of It.

Anxious For a Funeral

Anxious For a Funeral

Joseph Biberich, of San Francisco, has his wife measured for a coffin before she is dead. [more]

Joseph Biberich, a San Francisco. Cal., man, was arrested the other night for disturbing the peace. Blberich has been married only six months, and his wife lies on her deathbed, cared for by a nurse and attended by kind-hearted neighbors. Biberich got drunk and tried to drive tho nurse from the bedside.Then the police interfered.

The nurse says he has openly threatened to poison his wife, and has pinched and beaten her while she lay powerless in bed. He called in an undertaker and had his wife measured for a coflin. Then be purchased a burial lot and made arrangements for the funeral. His wife has some property which, the nurse says, Biberich wants to get hold of.


The National Police Gazette, October 10, 1891