No. 675
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 8, 2024

Oscar Wilde Gets a Reception.

Too, too, utterly utter! Remarkable effect of the appearance of Oscar Wilde, the apostle of Aestheti
More...
June 24, 2015
...
...

WILLIAM B TOWLE
alias:
DOCTOR'S OFFICE SNEAK

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comGhosts may be alarming, but they’re usually not hazardous to your health.  This following tale may be an exception.  The “Altoona Times,” October 27, 1884:New York, October 25.--Dr. Charles C. King, of Buffalo, who is now here, tells a curious story. A month ago two men entered his office.  One said he was suffering from a physical injury inflicted by a ghostly
More...
Strange Company - 11/6/2024

A visit to the scene of another Borden tragedy

Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph.  The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
Amen.

Soapy Smith's "STAR" notebook, 1882: Part #11 - page 11

Soapy Smith's "star" notebookPage 11 - original copy1882Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) OAPY SMITH'S "STAR" NOTEBOOKPart #11 - Page 11     This is part #11 - page 11, dated 1882. This is a continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook can be seen on page 1.    &
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 11/5/2024

Read My Article on Convict Transportation in New Politic

An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
More...
Early American Crime - 12/17/2021

"The Boy Murderer."

Myron Buel.“He possesses an expressionless and almost idiotic countenance.”  Illustrated Police News.Myron Buel was called “The Boy Murderer,” though he was 20 years old when he committed the crime. He was charged with the murder of Catherine Richards in Plainfield, New York, on June 25, 1878. The following February he was tried and convicted of first-degree murder. Buel
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 11/2/2024
On the Russians.

A remnant of the late 19th century city at the corner of First and First in the East Village

On the northwest corner of First Avenue at First Street, on the border of the East Village and the Lower East Side, is a handsome red-brick tenement. Five stories high (with a two-story, beach house–like penthouse on the roof, but that’s a subject for another post), it’s a typical, well-kept building likely on this corner […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 11/4/2024

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 →
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Eaten by Sharks. | What it Has Come To.

Oscar Wilde Gets a Reception.

Too too utterly utter

Too, too, utterly utter!

Remarkable effect of the appearance of Oscar Wilde, the apostle of Aestheticism, on the streets of New York City. [more]

The appearance of Oscar Wilde, the great London apostle of Aestheticisim, in New York the first week of the new year was an event that thrilled the first circles and provoked all the wits in town to open their battalions on him. As he stepped nimbly ashore, though, and holding his head high proposed to a friend who had done America before to frown down the hackmen and walk to his hotel, he met quite a different reception from what he had possibly anticipated. With his sprig of fern in hand, his quaint stride, his long locks, his wild eye and his incroyable air generally, he made a genuine sensation on Broadway. The newsboys and bootblacks, that precocious set who hail a novelty with delight, saw in him a fresh guy and made the most of him from the moment he burst in all his aesthetic effulgence upon their astonished vision.

They dubbed him “Count” on the first sight, varying it by occasionally saluting him on his promenade as “Charley, the Masher,” and have even gone so far as to organize a procession in his train, bearing cabbages, onions and garbage from the streets with an air of affectation of aesthetic grace that is laughable from its close imitation of Oscar’s poise of the lily and the fern.

The police will have to furnish a guard to protect him in the streets form the burlesque advances of the fierce and untamed bootblack if he remains among us long, that is a certainty.

Reprinted from National Police Gazette, January 21, 1882.

Turn to Page 1