No. 693
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 10, 2025

The Cruelties of Fashion.

“Who is killing all the beautiful blue breasts, and green breasts, and purple breasts, and gold brea
October 12, 2015
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 A driverless horse and wagon wandered aimlessly in the prairie between Fort Gibson and Tahlequah in Indian Territory on December 3, 1883. Jim Merrill heard the wagon come up to his front gate and went out to investigate. In the bed of the wagon, he found the body of Arch Casey with a large bullet hole in his left breast. The wagon tracks were clearly visible in the dirt. They followed a
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/8/2025
 Welcome!  Our hosts for this week's Link Dump will be two members of the crack Strange Company HQ research team.A notorious Appalachian murder.A look at glacial archaeology.An examination of a musical conspiracy theory.The long-unsolved disappearance of three small boys.And here is your unparalleled opportunity to view the contents of an ostrich's stomach.The Case of the Disappearing
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Strange Company - 3/7/2025
(Click image to enlarge) ce Box Murphy Did He Exist?Anyone reading my book, Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel, and this blog, might have wondered why I have not included the history of the soap gang member, “Ice Box” Murphy. The early biographies introduced me to Murphy, whose story was also included in most of the later biographies and articles. Today, many writers repeat
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 3/6/2025
It’s been seven years since the closure of Coffee Shop, a pioneering cafe on the west side of Union Square that since 1990 emanated coolness—especially with its vertical neon “Coffee Shop” sign. A few years later, what moved into the space of this former model and celeb hangout? A Chase bank branch—which then put up […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/10/2025
 Welcome!  Our hosts for this week's Link Dump will be two members of the crack Strange Company HQ research team.A notorious Appalachian murder.A look at glacial archaeology.An examination of a musical conspiracy theory.The long-unsolved disappearance of three small boys.And here is your unparalleled opportunity to view the contents of an ostrich's stomach.The Case of the Disappearing
More...
Strange Company - 3/7/2025
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
 A driverless horse and wagon wandered aimlessly in the prairie between Fort Gibson and Tahlequah in Indian Territory on December 3, 1883. Jim Merrill heard the wagon come up to his front gate and went out to investigate. In the bed of the wagon, he found the body of Arch Casey with a large bullet hole in his left breast. The wagon tracks were clearly visible in the dirt. They followed a
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 3/8/2025
It’s been seven years since the closure of Coffee Shop, a pioneering cafe on the west side of Union Square that since 1990 emanated coolness—especially with its vertical neon “Coffee Shop” sign. A few years later, what moved into the space of this former model and celeb hangout? A Chase bank branch—which then put up […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 3/10/2025
(Click image to enlarge) ce Box Murphy Did He Exist?Anyone reading my book, Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel, and this blog, might have wondered why I have not included the history of the soap gang member, “Ice Box” Murphy. The early biographies introduced me to Murphy, whose story was also included in most of the later biographies and articles. Today, many writers repeat
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 3/6/2025
A Rattling Main. | Another Amorous Parson.

The Cruelties of Fashion.

Cruelties of Fashion

"Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds"

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It is no longer the question of “Who killed Cock Robin?” that “most foul and unusual” assassination which so perturbed our youthful minds, but “Who is killing all the beautiful blue breasts, and green breasts, and purple breasts, and gold breasts. Add the gorgeously-feathered songsters of groves in every clime?” The sad, sad, answer is, “Woman.” Yes, woman, lovely woman, it is at whose door lies the destruction of millions of beautiful birds, in order that her hat, her coat, her cuffs, may be adorned with the gloriously-colored plumage. A melancholy sight it is to behold a charming representative of the female sex divine promenading in a hat upon which is perched some exquisite specimen of ornithology, which, thanks to the skill of the hunter and taxidermist, looks as though it were yet alive and reveling in its native grove. The great car of Juggernaut, Fashion, rolls over the hapless birds, and women, who would swoon at the fall of a sparrow into the claws of the harmless necessary cat, unthinkingly issue the fiat that dooms to destruction thousands upon thousands of beauteously feathered choristers.


Reprinted from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, November 10, 1883.