No. 497
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 29, 2020

New Years in the Wings.

The fairy of the enchanted realm entertains her subjects in an earthly way.
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December 29, 2020
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JAMES HOPE
alias: OLD MAN HOPE
BANK BURGLAR

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comThis odd little story appeared in the “New York Sun,” June 30, 1875:One evening, a week or two since, a lady residing in one of the southern wards was returning to her home, from a social gathering at a private house, near the hour of midnight.  She was accompanied by a male relative who lived in the house. As they were about to ascend the steps, both glanced upward toward
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Strange Company - 10/8/2025

Soapy Smith's "STAR" notebook, Page #24: 1882 and 1884, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland.

Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 24 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's "STAR" notebook page 24, 1882 and 1884, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland. Steamer Ancon. This post is on page 24, the last of the "STAR" notebook pages I have been deciphering and publishing for the last two years, since July 24, 2023. The page is two separate notes dated 1882
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 9/17/2025
Amen.

The tenement is a menace to all, according to a dark and blunt illustration from 1901

There’s no mistaking the message of this darkly graphic illustration, which appeared in the satirical periodical Puck in March 1901. “The tenement—a menace to all,” the tagline says. Death hovers over the triumphant spirits of alcoholism, prostitution, gambling, opium dens, and other social evils, which escape like noxious vapors through the unlit tenement windows. Its […]
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Ephemeral New York - 10/6/2025

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman’s last

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

The Richardson McFarland Tragedy.

On the afternoon of November 25, 1869, Daniel McFarland walked into the office of the New York Tribune and there shot and killed Albert Richardson, a Tribune editor. Richardson had planned to marry Daniel McFarland’s ex-wife, Abby Sage McFarland. The facts of the murder were irrefutable, but the trial that followed focused instead on the behavior of Abby McFarland. Was her adultery an attack on
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Murder By Gaslight - 10/4/2025
On the Russians.

18th anniversary for Warps & Wefts

New to Warps & Wefts? We’ve been online since 2007 with hundreds of articles, posts, over a thousand images, animations, colorizations, newspaper coverage and clippings of the murders and trial day by day, cartoons, AI and imagined imaging, videos, profiles of important people in the case, on the road field trip vlogs and much more. We post every day on Facebook, usually 6-10 posts on various topics so everyone can find something to enjoy reading- why? Because we want a bit of the Borden case every day! We sign off every night around 10 p.m. and upload every morning around 9 a.m. Visit our Facebook and Youtube channel links below. Please do like and follow our Facebook page  Send us your questions! No Patreons or monetization ever. No detail too small to be considered. Stop by to see us- we learn something new every day!  https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts/ https://www.youtube.com/@LizzieBordenWarpsandWefts See less Comments Author Lizzie Borden Warps &
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 9/26/2025

Convicts to Maryland, 1773 by Peter Dickson

  [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
The Merry Wives of Boston. | "Well?"

New Years in the Wings.

New Years in the Wings

The fairy of the enchanted realm entertains her subjects in an earthly way. 

While everybody is taking a holiday, the players must work. The public, when it is in a good humor, must be amused. Therefore the temples of mirth open their doors and invite all in search of fun to come and get it on their boards. The merry dispensers of that article, however hearty they may contribute to the public’s amusement, do not take part as heartily as they seem to. It is acting, nothing more. The merry party whom our artist has sketched believe evidently in joining in the general good cheer, not in mimicry, but in earnest. The flowing bowl finds its place in the midst of their labors and lightens their tasks. The queen of the fairy realm of the stage becomes the hostess in real life, and dispenses her hospitality as liberally as she does her fairy smiles and good wishes to her subjects in the mimic world. “New Years in the Wings” passes as pleasantly oftentimes as it would in some grand parlor filled with callers, whose only interest in the host and hostess is what they can get out of them.

 

The National Police Gazette, January 8, 1881

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