No. 699
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
April 23, 2025

Did the Naughty Midway Dance

Pretty Ida Lawrence gets arrested while entertaining some hackmen in Cincinnati, O.
March 28, 2011
...

Tag: Sports

Shark Fishing off Cobb's Island, Virginia.

Aquatic Sport on the Virginia Coast.

7/7/2024

Crowds Watch the Bicycle Race.

Wheelers break records in the six-day contest in Madison Square Garden, New York.

1/9/2024

Sport on the Brain.

Puck's American Phrenological Chart for the Season.

5/30/2023

Skating in Central Park.

1/10/2023

Forex news live

Two female athletes at Virginia City, Nevada, indulge in a wrestling match for the championship.

11/9/2021

Great Base Ball Match.

Great baseball match between the Atlantic and Boxford Clubs of Brooklyn.

4/23/2018

Tennis.

"Who wants to pway me a couple of wattling stwong games?"

6/5/2017

Athletics.

Athletics

8/23/2016

Killed by a Baseball.

John Walters, of Richmond, Indiana becomes a victim of his love for the national game.

4/5/2016

A Winter Scene.

Winter Pastime – A Skating Scene.

1/25/2016

Fierce Football.

The great game recently played between teams representing the colleges of Princeton and Yale, on the former's grounds, Thanksgiving Day.

11/23/2015

The Bicycle Tournament at Springfield, Mass.

Perhaps the most successful bicycle tournament ever held in this country was that which opened at Springfield, Mass., on Tuesday, September 18th, 1883, and continued for three days.

9/29/2015

Yachting.

Yachting.

8/3/2015

Skating in Central Park.

Winter sports in the metropolis—a skating scene in Central Park.

2/9/2015

Belle Gordon.

9/29/2014

The Girls Have a New Game.

8/18/2014

Tennis.

7/14/2014

Tobogganing.

1/7/2014

Collegians at Football.

12/10/2013

The Last Dip of the Season.

Water witches who frolic with Neptune, no matter how cold his embrace.

9/3/2013

Baseball Animals.

Cigarette cards, 1880s, 1890s

5/14/2013

George Dixon’s Victory over Australian Billy.

2/26/2013

John L. Sullivan Saved by a Neck.

11/6/2012

A One Legged Baseball Club.

9/11/2012

Pretty Female Billiardists

1/3/2012
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Did the Naughty Midway Dance

Naughty Midway Dance

Cincinnati, Ohio, November 1893 - Pretty Ida Lawrence gets arrested while entertaining some hackmen in Cincinnati, O. 

It was just 2 o’clock the other morning when Ida Lawrence reached Fifth and Vine Streets, Cincinnati, Ohio. She had a jag that would have poisoned an ordinary man.

But Ida was happy. She was still happier when she met with a crowd of all-night hackmen.

“Hello, Ide,” said one.

“Goo’ night,” said Ida.

“Hain’t seen you for a time. Where’ve you been?”

“Me? Where’ve I been? Oh, no place. I guess I ain’t been no place.”

Then she sang:

“On the Midway, the Midway, the Midway Plaisance,
Where the naughty Algiers girls
Do their naughty, naughty dance.”

And she danced a dance that made even the boy on the stone fountain blush. Behind a telegraph pole stood Officer Moffit. He sneaked over and stpped the performance by calling a patrol wagon. The next day he told Judge Gregg about it and the Judge sent Ida out for four months.


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette - November 25, 1893