No. 696
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
April 1, 2025

Street Arabs and Gutter-Snipes.

Waifs and strays of a great city - A group of homeless New York Newsboys.
June 11, 2012
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Tag: Bad check

Saratoga’s Naughty Girl.

Minnie Hull, a dashing young lady from the watering place, is unjustly or otherwise accused of crookedness.

3/7/2016
"Chicago Tribune," December 1, 1935, via Newspapers.comMany murders go forever unsolved due to a complete lack of clues.  On certain rare occasions, the opposite happens: the victim left behind so many clues--many of them either contradictory or just plain incomprehensible--that it is impossible to make enough sense out of them to conduct a successful investigation.  Anyone who tries
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Strange Company - 3/31/2025
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph.  The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
There’s a stone fortress with a battlement-like central tower and a double staircase entrance at the corner of Riverside Drive and 140th Street. As striking as this fortified castle is when you encounter it from the sidewalk, viewing it from the West Side Highway helps you truly absorb its out-of-place Medieval feel. Five stories high […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/31/2025
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, June 1, 1889.On May 12, 1889, the janitor of the Clifton Boat Club on Staten Island found the body of a young woman floating in the water. Though badly decomposed, Dr. S.A. Robinson identified her as Mary Tobin, who had recently resigned from her job in his office. Mary Tobin’s life was clouded with mysteries and contradictions. She had come to Staten Island from
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/29/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 18 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884.This is page 18, the continuation of page 17, and dated March 28 - April 12, 1884, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 3/11/2025
  [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
Napoleon's Oraculum. | A Ghastly Table.

Street Arabs and Gutter-Snipes.

Their only bed A group of homeless New York Newsboys.

The rapid population expansion of New York City in the years following the Civil War was accompanied by an equally rapid expansion of in the population of homeless boys sleeping in alleys and living hand-to-mouth on the city streets. Sometimes taking to the streets to escape abusive fathers, sometimes abandoned by unwed mothers, the waifs had no family connections and no identities beyond the nicknames they gave each other. Though tough and ruggedly independent, to a great extent they survived by taking care of each other.

There were two classes of homeless boys – “street arabs” and “gutter-snipes.” Street arabs were the older, stronger boys. Sturdy and self-reliant, they were always ready to fight for what was theirs, and ready, as well, to fight for the weaker gutter-snipes who looked to them for protection. Gutter-snipes were younger boys—sometimes as young as four or five—brutalized by abusive parents and left to the dangers of the street until they find the protection of an older boy. In time the gutter-snipe would harden into a full-fledged arab with snipes of his own.

extra

The most enterprising of these boys—both street arabs and gutter-snipes—became newsboys hawking the many competitive daily newspapers sold on the streets of the city. Being a newsie required a considerable amount of self-discipline. A newsie had to wake before dawn and arrive at the newspaper with enough money in his pocket to pay for the papers he would be hawking throughout the day. During the regular course of business, they respected each other’s turf and would not interfere with another boys clientele. But a fire, a brawl or any other event that drew a crowd would also draw newsboys competing directly with each other.

A number of societies and agencies were established to aid the homeless boys of New York but the boys were extremely independent and suspicious of handouts. Better to sleep outside than to risk being trapped and taken the House of Refuge. The most successful aid organization was the Newsboy’s Lodging House which offered a bed and bath for six cents a night and a hot supper for four cents. Skeptical at first, the boys came to view the Lodging House as their hotel. Rules were minimal, a gymnasium was available for their use, and reading lessons were provided for those interested.

But even with affordable lodging, many of the boys preferred sleeping outside. They were avid theatre goers and given the choice between a warm bed and a ticket to a play or vaudeville show were likely to choose the latter. Alcohol, gambling and the rest of the urban vices worked to drive the older boys from the straight and narrow.  Though the Newsboy’s Lodging House could boast of many triumphs, including homeless boys who went on to graduate from great universities, more often the lessons learned on the street prepared the boys for the fastest growing occupation in the city— crime.

 

 


Sources

  • Campbell, Helen, Thomas Wallace Knox, and Thomas Byrnes. Darkness and daylight, or, Lights and shadows of New York life: a woman's pictorial record of gospel, temperance, mission, and rescue work "in His Name" .... Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington, 1897.
  • Needham, Geo. C.. Street Arabs and gutter snipes The pathetic and humorous side of young vagabond life in the great cities, with records of work for their reclamation.. Boston: D.L. Guernsey, 1884.