1859: First Temporary Insanity Defense in U.S.

(Wikipedia) ... Sickles's career was replete with personal scandals. He was censured by the New York State Assembly for escorting a known prostitute, Fanny White, into its chambers. He also reportedly took her to England, leaving his pregnant wife at home, and presented White to Queen Victoria, using as her alias the surname of a New York political opponent. In 1859, in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House, Sickles shot and killed the district attorney of the District of Columbia Philip Barton Key II, son of Francis Scott Key, who Sickles had discovered was having an affair with his young wife.  Continued

The Johnston Gang

(Wikipedia) Bruce Alfred Johnston Sr (March 27, 1939 – August 8, 2002) was the leader of one of the most notorious gangs in the history of Pennsylvania, USA. The gang started in the 1960s and was rounded up in 1978 after his son, Bruce Jr, testified against him.
The gang and its wide network stole primarily in Chester County, according to a 1980 Pennsylvania Crime Commission report, but they made their way into Lancaster County on several occasions. They also crossed the state lines to Maryland and Delaware. Continued

The Greenbrier Ghost

(Wikipedia) The Greenbrier Ghost is the name popularly given to the alleged ghost of a young woman in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States, who was murdered in 1897. The events surrounding the haunting have led to it becoming a very late instance in American legal history in which the testimony of a "ghost" was accepted at a murder trial. Continued 

 

 

Police arrest five in raid on Catonsville saloon in 1912

 

(Towson Times) Samuel Bloom saloon on Frederick road at Paradise was raided Sunday night at 7 o'clock by Patrolmen Hutson and Phelps, of the Canton Police Station.
The patrolmen, who were dressed in plain clothes, say they entered the saloon and ordered bottle beer which was served to them. They then arrested Samuel Bloom, John Hall, a helper, and two other men as witnesses. All were taken to the Catonsville Police Station and released on a $500 bail. Continued

‘Copper’ Resurrects the Five Points

(NYTimes) ... Ostensibly the new series is about a former boxer and Civil War veteran turned police detective, Kevin Corcoran (played by Tom Weston-Jones), an Irish immigrant who returns to the Five Points after serving in the Union Army’s 71st Regiment to find his daughter dead and his wife missing. New York is really the main character.
Where “Gangs” signed up as technical adviser Luc Sante, whose 1991 book “Low Life” evoked “The Gangs of New York,” Herbert Asbury’s 1928 nonfiction confection, “Copper” is rooted in fiction — Jack Finney’s “Time and Again,” which Ms. Wayne read in high school at Manhattan’s Hewitt School, and “The Alienist” by Caleb Carr, which she read more recently (as well as “Low Life”). But the creative team also decided to hire a full-fledged historian, Daniel Czitrom, who teaches American cultural and political history at Mount Holyoke, to keep “Copper” believable. (Mr. Fontana is himself a self-styled would-be historian who started college as a history major.) Continued

1859: First Temporary Insanity Defense in U.S.

(Wikipedia) Daniel Edgar Sickles (October 20, 1819 – May 3, 1914) was a colorful and controversial American politician, Union General in the American Civil War, and diplomat.
As an antebellum New York politician, Sickles was involved in a number of public scandals, most notably the killing of his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key. He was acquitted with the first use of temporary insanity as a legal defense in U.S. history. He became one of the most prominent political generals of the Civil War. At the Battle of Gettysburg, he insubordinately moved his III Corps to a position in which it was virtually destroyed, an action that continues to generate controversy. His combat career ended at Gettysburg when his leg was struck by cannon fire. Continued

The Johnston Gang

(Wikipedia) Bruce Alfred Johnston Sr (March 27, 1939 – August 8, 2002) was the leader of one of the most notorious gangs in the history of Pennsylvania, USA. The gang started in the 1960s and was rounded up in 1978 after his son, Bruce Jr, testified against him.
The gang and its wide network stole primarily in Chester County, according to a 1980 Pennsylvania Crime Commission report, but they made their way into Lancaster County on several occasions. They also crossed the state lines to Maryland and Delaware. Continued

Mrs. Damon Runyon's Serving Suggestion

Somehow, it just never occurred to me that Damon Runyon had a wife. I guess I confused his writing with his life, assuming he spent all his time screwed to a bar stool, drinking rye whisky and pounding out stories about gangsters and the such.

"Boardwalk Empire" State of Drink

(Cigar Aficionado) How do you celebrate the season premiere of a television show centered on the Prohibition era? By taking a drink, of course.
That's the premise behind the promotions for two separate whiskies as HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" starts it second season on Sunday. Canadian Club and Templeton Rye, both of which have historic connections to the dry era that ensued after America's 18th Amendment took effect in 1920, are suggesting a libation may go best with the return of the critically acclaimed cable series. Continued

Photo: Enoch L. ("Nucky") Johnson

Alleged document thief pleads not guilty

(Baltimore Sun) Barry H. Landau, whom authorities call the mastermind behind a scheme to swipe American treasures from museums throughout the Mid-Atlantic, pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal theft and conspiracy charges that prosecutors now characterize as the country's "single largest" theft of its kind.
The suspected victims and the number of items taken have tripled since the investigation began July 9 with an arrest by Baltimore police at the Maryland Historical Society, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Warwick said during the lengthy, multi-part hearing in the city's U.S. District Court.
Investigators have now identified hundreds of stolen documents, instead of dozens, from at least 11 locations in five states and Washington, Warwick said. Continued

The Deadliest Book Review

(NYTBR) ... But in Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, Phillips found an enemy even more formidable than Roosevelt. Goldsborough hailed from the gilded aristocracy that Phillips regarded as so destructive to America. The Goldsboroughs of Maryland were venerable. An ancestor was a delegate to the Continental Congress who just missed out being a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Another was a commander in the War of 1812 who later became a senator. Fitzhugh’s father, a doctor and Civil War veteran, relocated the family to Washington, D.C., where Fitzhugh was raised in a home a few blocks from the White House. Continued

Photo: David Graham Phillips