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Monthly Archives: June 2011

In the Media: Recent Crime-Related Blog Articles

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Some notable crime-related blog articles have appeared over the last week or so. Ben Ruset of the NJPineBarrens has written a fascinating article on Captain John Bacon, a notorious outlaw who took advantage of the American Revolutionary War to commit robbery and burglary in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. ExecutedToday.com notes the execution of Thomas […]

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The American Malefactor’s Dictionary: booly-dog

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

booly-dog – a police officer. From bulldog, via bouledogue (French). Note: This cartoon by Thomas Nast–which depicts a bulldog dressed in the uniform of a police officer–was inspired by charges of corruption and graft in the New York City Police Department by Rev. Charles Parkhurst in 1892. Parkhurst accused police officials of accepting money for […]

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Early American Criminals: John Quelch’s Piratic Joy Ride

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

In the fall of 1703, the owners of the 80-ton brigantine, the Charles, desperately wrote to various West Indies ports in an attempt to discover any information on the whereabouts of their new ship, but without success. This leading group of Boston merchants—Charles Hobby, Col. Nicholas Paige, William Clarke, Benjamin Gallop, and John Colman—built the […]

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Early American Criminals: The Curse on Joseph Lightly

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Joseph Lightly relates in his Last Words and Dying Speech that when his mother learned he had enlisted in the British army, “she told me she hoped she should hear of my being hanged, for my Cruelty of going to leave her against her Will.” Lightly’s mother may simply have been reacting to the moment, […]

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The American Malefactor’s Dictionary: bone orchard or bone yard

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

bone orchard or bone yard – a cemetery, graveyard, burial place. Sources Farmer, John S. and W. E. Henley. A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English. Abridged from Slang and Its Analogues. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1912. Partridge, Eric. A Dictionary of the Underworld. New York: Bonanza Books, 1961. Note: See “Cant: The Language […]

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