No. 147
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 07, 2013

Shooting at the Elevated.

After-dinner pistol practice at the trains that rush by windows
May 7, 2013
...
...

Tag: Burglar

Society Women Turn Burglars.

A Widow and Her Pretty Daughter Caught Thieving in Men’s Attire in Tecumseh, Mich.

4/13/2015
Via Newspapers.com This account of an extremely weird cloud (?) appeared in the “Caledonian Mercury,” January 18, 1821:COSENZA. On the 29th Nov. last, about half-past six in the evening, there suddenly appeared, on the west of the horizon, a luminous body, more brilliant than the moon at its full. This body had the figure of a dragon. After passing with great velocity across the horizon, it
More...
Strange Company - 7/8/2026
"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
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
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/7/2026
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 Haven Independent) Taylor Ward sings "Found Drifting with the Tide" (excerpt), the tragic ballad of Jennie Cramer's murder.“Found Drifting with the Tide” was a song written by A. C. Willis, "Dedicated to the memory of Jennie Cramer," who was murdered in 1881.When the body of beautiful young Jennie Cramer was found on a sandbar
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 7/4/2026
Bare arms, visible ankles, a more relaxed waistline—the most fashionable “bathing dresses” of 1868 allowed a woman to strip off her day-to-day corsets, feather hats, and petticoats and luxuriate in the freedom of the seaside. This ad for what were also called “bathing costumes” came from Godey’s Lady’s Book, an influential periodical that helped shape […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 7/6/2026
  [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
Baseball Animals. | Philanthropist or “Moral Leper?”

Shooting at the Elevated.

Shooting at the Elevated

A party of New York girls enjoy a little after-dinner pistol practice at the trains that rush by windows of their hotel. 

Popping at the Elevated.

How a Certain Reckless Party of Fast Young Men and Women Added to the Dangers of Travel.

The luxuries of metropolitan life are many and novel, but we think the rag has been taken off the bush completely by late developments of the methods of enjoyment that have become popular among a certain class of reckless young bloods and the equally reckless young women who are assisting them in running through their fortunes. The dear creatures have been in the habit, when full of wine after the little suppers given in a certain famous off color hostelry on the line of one of the elevated railroads, to get up shooting matches, the mark being the elevated trains as thy fly by the second-story windows of the hotel. This practice became so common a few weeks ago that the entire detective force was set to work to ferret out the marksmen. One of these companies of female sharpshooters was caught by the officers but the male friends of the women proved to be related to some high officials and they were let go with a reprimand, and the mystery of the shooting at the trains has never been revealed to the indignant public until now, when the Police Gazette takes the ditty on itself in its usually bold form of description and illustration.


National Police Gazette, Decmber 23, 1882.