No. 53
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 08, 2011
alias: BIG JIM CASEY
PICKPOCKET, BANCO
Via Newspapers.com Here is just one of those minor little oddities that help keep life on this earth from getting too dull. The “Boston Globe,” December 17, 1928:SANTA BARBARA, Calif, Dec 16 (A.P.) -There may be sermons in stones and books in the running brooks, but it was left for a Santa Barbara woman to reveal today that there is a Schubert melody in a pan of boiling vegetables.&
More...
Strange Company - 4/22/2026
"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
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
Fractional house numbers can be found across New York’s older brownstone and townhouse neighborhoods. Usually the half refers to an adjacent carriage house or backhouse, or sometimes even a basement apartment. But as far as I can tell, this is the only 3/4 fractional on a Gotham doorway or entryway. It’s at 184 3/4 West […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 4/20/2026
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
(New York Journal, May 31, 1896.)On the
morning of Memorial Day, May 30, 1896, Mrs. Annie Cunningham had to go to work,
while her 13-year-old daughter, Mary (known as Mamie), was home from school for
the holiday. Mrs. Cunningham asked Mamie if she planned to go to the parade.
Mamie said no, she wasn’t interested, and she planned to do housework and
study. At 8:30, she said goodbye to her daughter
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 4/18/2026
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
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
[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
Waldo, Florida, September 1894 - Dan Wiggins, a notorious wife beater of Waldo, Fla., was dragged from his home by masked men recently. Wiggins was carried into the woods and lashed to a tree. Several women of the neighborhood, who sympathized with Mrs. Wiggins, were present, and as soon as Wiggins had been tied, they began to whip him. After he was beaten unmercifully, Wiggins was untied and left to make his way home. It is thought he will die from the beating.The Bloody Century 2
Takes the reader back to 19th-century America in all its gory glory.
