No. 367
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 12, 2017

Jack the Garter Stealer.

A bold and eccentric individual, who is alarming the girls and puzzling the authorities of Exeter, M
June 12, 2017
...
...

 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!The Strange Company HQ staffers wish you pleasant reading!A handy reminder that bees are weird.A look at medieval executioners.The world's oldest dated printed book.A stupid theory about the Salem Witch Trials that refuses to die.The 11th century abbot and the recycled sarcophagus.The duel between W.B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley.The man who made a living
More...
Strange Company - 10/23/2026
  [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
"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
 Carlyle Harris and Helen Potts.(The Trial of Carlyle W. Harris for Poisoning His Wife, Helen Potts, at New York.)Helen Potts, a nineteen-year-old student at Miss Comstock’s School in New York City, decided not to join her roommates when they went to hear a concert. Helen was feeling ill, but her boyfriend (secretly her husband), a medical student named Carlyle Harris, had prescribed a
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 10/17/2026
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
Retribution. | Tennis.

Jack the Garter Stealer.

Jack the Garter Stealer

A bold and eccentric individual, who is alarming the girls and puzzling the authorities of Exeter, Mass.[more]

The terror which Exeter’s (Mass.) mysterious “waterproof” man has aroused among the weaker sex of the town shows no sign of abatement. The best description which has been given of the man comes from one of Exeter’s prettiest society belles. She describes the fellow as tall and slim with a slouch hat pulled down over his eyes. He wore a long black coat which came nearly down to his heels. She was going to her home, which is in almost the very centre of the town, between the hours of 7 and 8, when suddenly she was grasped around the waist with one hand, the other being placed over her mouth so she could not cry out. She was thrown on her back to the ground and her garters forcibly removed. The girl’s cries frightened the man away.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November4, 1893.