No. 703
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 11, 2025

This Soubrette Played Faro.

To win a bet she played in the "combination" at Butte Mont.
February 11, 2025
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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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Strange Company - 9/17/2025
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
Artificial Intelligence would be an excellent tool for historical research, but for one flaw – it does not distinguish between fact and guesswork. I was researching Robert Sprague, who murdered his mother in Jasper County, Iowa, in 1868, and I could not find any information on his trial and sentencing. I decided to ask Grok, which very confidently returned a quite detailed answer, concluding
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Deep roots anchor P.J. Clarke’s, the restaurant and bar occupying a Civil War–era brick building with its top two floors sheered off at Third Avenue and 55th Street. Converted into a tavern in 1884 when Irish laborers held a large presence in the developing neighborhood, the building was bought by Irish immigrant Patrick “Paddy” J. […]
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  [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
Concert Saloons Changed to Skating Rinks. | Pick-pockets "Working the Crowd.''

This Soubrette Played Faro.

Soubriette

The three-night date which a snap extravaganza company played in Butte, Montana, a short time ago, will be remembered for a long time by some of the leading citizens of that very enterprising town. In the first place the bunch of girls who came with the show, and who, in fact, were the show, were the jolliest lot that ever smoked cigarettes or knocked the heads off champagne bottles.

They had seen something of the world, they had, and so when a swell sport of the town invaded the rooms behind the scenes and said there was a cold hundred in it for any girl who would go around to the Combination house and play out a deal of faro in tights, half a dozen of them jumped at him so quick that he almost lost his balance. He didn't want them all so he picked out the one that pleased him most, Nadage De Witt. He engaged a carriage for her after the show and after she had wrapped up well to keep those precious legs of hers warm, she was bundled in. She made the hit of her life when she stepped into, the brilliantly lighted faro room, and the created the biggest sensation Butte has known for some time. She took a seat at the layout and was staked to a $50 stack of chips. She played out three boxes, when she got up from the chair with $160 to the good, which with the $100 she earned by her appearance, made $260 clean. She tells the story herself now and is very anxious to get with any theatrical companies intending to play Butte. Do you blame her?


National Police Gazette, January 25, 1896.