Wheel of misfortune

Chicago Tribune, August 1, 1897. Cars are the new bikes.Read more.

He took a powder

Forgot to cross-post this one. Pretty astounding.

When trees hug back

National Police Gazette, April 22, 1882.
Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1891.

Surprise package

Washington Post, October 17, 1885. I dunno, preserved in alcohol in an air-tight box strikes me as pretty professional work.

A foot like a box of herring

Pomeroy’s Democrat, 1869-1870. This is kind of a Frankenclipping of tweets I gleaned from 3 or 4 editions of Pomeroy’s Democrat, which is a fascinating paper. Editor and eponym Mark “Brick” Pomeroy was a lippy freethinker, a vicious negrophobe (I mean even by the standards of his day), a hack political partisan, a fizzing misogynist, a staunch Mason and a terminal smart aleck. I adore his writing. Olive Logan was a contemporary actress and author and boy, did Pomeroy ever have it in for her. He’s always taking these random shots at her about her immense feet, how they eclipse the footlights when she’s on stage, etc. Palpitators, I am delighted to learn, is an archaic name for falsies. “Grecian bend” = “among women, an affected carriage of the body, the upper part being inclined forward,” says a 1913 Wesbter’s.

We regret to report

Norwich Courier, November 8, 1826. I love the white-gloved, pornography-for-Puritans delicacy of that two-sentence preamble. “We shall barely mention some particulars as we understood them” is also quite good.

Stop the presses!

Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1875. This kind of thing happens to me all the time–other bloggers try to provoke me into throwing a punch so they can pull out a hand cannon. Old media, new media: what’s the difference?
I’m not familiar with an opera or operetta called Deborah. Anyone know of it?

I’ve never seen “nerve” as an adjective before, but I kinda like it.

“Downing’s carrying a pistol was regarded by everybody as a joke”–ouch!

Climate change

Chicago Defender, February 10, 1917. Read more.

The Cordova Entrapment

Salt Lake Telegram, June 14, 1902. Getting tied to the tracks was not generally a posh pastime, but on occasion it did happen to the quality too.

The Staffleback Indictment

Chicago Tribune, September 15, 1897. Veteran Hope Chest readers will surely recall the notorious Bender Family of Kansas, whose frontier depredations set the contemporary bar for homicidal family enterprise. This here Staffleback crew strikes me as small potatoes in comparison–murder seems to have been less their “trade” than a sideline–but their operation was not without a certain Gothic panache. Abandoned mine shafts are always good value.