No. 678
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 21, 2024

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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The Bloody Century 2 Audiobook
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Murder By Gaslight - 11/19/2024
There’s a lot to love about Patsy’s, the three-generation family-run restaurant celebrating its 80th year on the far off-Broadway, low-rise block of West 56th Street off Eighth Avenue. This old-school Italian spot offers highly rated red sauce classics, old-school ambiance, and a connection to Frank Sinatra, who considered Patsy’s one of his favorite New York […]
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Ephemeral New York - 11/18/2024
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.    &
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 11/5/2024
Via Newspapers.comThis sinister little ghost story--with hints of murder and spectral vengeance thrown in--appeared in the “Garnett-Journal Plaindealer,” May 6, 1887:New York, May 2. A New Haven, Conn., special says: Charles L. Beecher, who committed suicide Sunday, is now believed by many to have been driven to his death by a belief that he was haunted by the ghost of his wife.  The fact
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Strange Company - 11/20/2024
There’s a lot to love about Patsy’s, the three-generation family-run restaurant celebrating its 80th year on the far off-Broadway, low-rise block of West 56th Street off Eighth Avenue. This old-school Italian spot offers highly rated red sauce classics, old-school ambiance, and a connection to Frank Sinatra, who considered Patsy’s one of his favorite New York […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 11/18/2024
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
The Bloody Century 2 Audiobook
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 11/19/2024
Via Newspapers.comThis sinister little ghost story--with hints of murder and spectral vengeance thrown in--appeared in the “Garnett-Journal Plaindealer,” May 6, 1887:New York, May 2. A New Haven, Conn., special says: Charles L. Beecher, who committed suicide Sunday, is now believed by many to have been driven to his death by a belief that he was haunted by the ghost of his wife.  The fact
More...
Strange Company - 11/20/2024
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
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.