No. 680
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 4, 2024

Hospital Horrors.

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March 20, 2012
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WILLIAM WRIGHT
alias: ROARING BILL
GENERAL THIEF

The Colonel and the Civilian: A Wartime Ghost Story

Bernhard-Georg Meitzel fought in the German Army during WWII, reaching the rank of SS-Obersturmführer.  British forces captured Meitzel after the Normandy invasion, leading him to spend some months in an internment camp.  After the war, while in Germany awaiting his “denazification” trial, Meitzel--who was fluent in English--wrote an eerie tale which appeared in the Winter 1949 issue of
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Strange Company - 12/2/2024

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.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
Amen.

The slow slide of a postwar Bronx hotel once patronized by the New York Yankees

In the shadow of Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx stands the postwar-era Stadium hotel. And unlike the 2024 pennant-winning baseball team, this hotel building is in rough shape. It wasn’t always so rundown. Apparently in the early 1960s, with the Yankees dominating the league thanks to players like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, what […]
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Ephemeral New York - 12/2/2024

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: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021

The Mysterious Murder of Rose Clark Ambler.

 Rose Ambler said goodnight to her fiancé at the Raven Stream Bridge in Stratford, Connecticut on the night of September 2, 1883, and started walking home alone as she usually did. She was never again seen alive. Her body was found the next day, beaten and stabbed, and the perpetrator was never captured. Rose Ambler joined Mary Stannard and Jennie Cramer in the growing list of
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Murder By Gaslight - 11/30/2024
On the Russians.

Soapy Smith's "STAR" notebook, 1882: Part #14 - page 14

Soapy STAR notebookPage 14 - Original copy1882Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) OAPY SMITH IN CALIFORNIA♫ California's the place you outta to beSo he loaded up his grip and moved to Grass Valley ♪ This is page 14, dated 1882, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook can be seen on
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 11/26/2024

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 →
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Allan Pinkerton. | Being Initiated.

Hospital Horrors.

Rats eat toes

September 1880 - A helpless Woman while staying in a hospital, has her toes eaten off by rats; Alameda County, Cal.[more]

August Johnson, the husband of Margaret Johnson who died in Alameda County Hospital, has made the following damaging statement of the treatment of his wife while in that institution:

“After I received a telegram stating that my wife was dead, I went out there with some others to see about it, and took her two children with me. She was paralyzed in her legs and arms, and could not help herself. The nurses have been discharged out there, and there was no one to attend to her. One of the patients told a lady who was there to take off her stockings. I found all her tows eaten off. The patients said the rats ate them off before she died. The doctor was three. He asked if I wanted her buried. I said ‘Yes.’ He replied, ‘I will bury her now while you can see it.’ He then sent some men to bury her. The put her in an express wagon and we followed in our buggies. When we got to the burying ground there was no grave dug and this was between 3 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon. They laid the coffin down on the ground and went back to the hospital after a pick and shovel. We could not wait for them to come back and dig the grave, as I had a tired team and it was so far, and I had to be back at a certain time.

“I do not know whether they buried her or not. I asked for her clothing, but cone not get it. No one seemed to know what had become of it."

Marshall Glynn makes a similar statement, saying that he went to County Hospital with Mr. Johnson, and saw the body of Mrs. Johnson, the toes were eaten off by rats. The blood had run down her foot into the heels of her stockings.

A patient named Annie, a paralyzed woman, and another patient named Mrs. Evens said that the rats ate at her feet before she died. She could not help herself. They heard her wild cries for help, but could not get to her, and those that could move paid no attention. She was lying in a hallway off from the rest. They saw rats jumping on and off her bed. I was out there before on Sunday, September 12. At that time there were no nurses, and she had no attention except what she could get from the other patients. The patients told me there were women around there who stole the clothes form the dead people.

Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, October 23, 1880

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