Nancy Dawson

On 18 April 1823 the company of the Baltimore Circus put on a benefit for Mr. Lawson, Riding Master, “With a magnificent display of beautiful horses; to conclude with an Arabian horse dancing to the tune of Nancy Dawson.” In the 1840’s “Nancy Dawson” was one of the favorite names for yachts and race horses, almost as popular as “Dolly Varden” and “Becky Sharp.”

Nancy Dawson was a real personality; she was a celebrated horn-pipe dancer at Covent Garden Theatre in the 18^th Century. According to Timms in The Romance of London, Nancy Dawson “set up the skittles” at a tavern in High Street, Marleybone, then married a publican from the Scottish borders. She then took up dancing and her appearance as a dancer in The Beggar’s Opera in 1759 was so popular that her fame spread all over London.

“Nancy died at Hampstead 27th of May 1767; and was buried behind the Foundling Hospital, in the ground belonging to St. George the Martyr, where is a tombstone to her memory, simply inscribed, “Here lies Nancy Dawson.”” [Timbs]

E. M. Sanchez-Saavedra, who supplied the ballad-broadside, says that judging “by the typography, the ballad sheet is British, of the 1800-1810 period.” This example is what is known as a “White letter” ballad in Roman type. The “Black-letter” ballad was common in the 16^th and 17^th centuries and feature headlines in Gothic type.

Catnatch and his successors, who were active after 1813, carried the names and addresses of the publishers at the bottom of the broadsides. J. Stevens Cox, F.S.A. issued a facsimile pamphlet called Broadside Ballads of the 18^th and Early 19^th Centuries in 1976. J. Pitts was at 14, Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials. Others were J. Jennings, 13 & 15, Water-lane, Fleet Street; T. Batchelar, Little Cheapside, Moorfields, London; T. Evans (Evans Printer), Long-lane, London, and J. Jennings, 13, Water-lane, London. Many of the sheets indicated no publishers.

One Dictionary of Slang issued in 1890 notes that “Nancy Dawson” was “a name for a molly, an effeminate youth, apathetic &c.” A variant was “Miss Nancy” and another ballad went:

I’ll tell you of a fellow who’s a very heavy swell,

Who fancies he’s the idol of each fashionable belle,

And they call him Nancy Dawson,

And isn’t he a caution!

Oh, Mr. Nancy Dawson, what a tricky man you are!

Oh, Nancy Dawson, can’t you do the la-di-dar?

The tune of “Nancy Dawson” was apparently that of “Here we go ‘round the Mulberry Bush.” All together now --

Outlaw Brothers

These fascinating Jesse James artifacts were sent by my good friend Joe Rainone. Top is an ad from Frank Tousey's Boys of New York, a lovely 1910 photo and 'particulars' of the outlaw Jesse James, a rare pulp appearance from Sept. 1932 and a Richard K. Fox (National Police Gazette) publication, The Outlaw Brothers. The Outlaw Brothers was issued 3 times, once before Jesse's death, and two amendments after. Wonderful stuff --a heartfelt thanks to the many collectors of cartoons, broadsides and low literature who have contributed so much (text and illustration) to Yesterday's Papers. Thanks also to those who use the comments to contribute additional information and corrections -- always appreciated.

Gallows Literature

“Gallows Literature,” common in England and the United States from about 1730 to the eighteen-eighties, consisted of biographies, “last speeches,” and “dying verses”. They could be found in any country with a printing press, Spain, France, Germany or Russia. When a celebrated burglar or murderer was scheduled to be publicly “turned off,” enterprising street publishers issued “whole-sheet” broadsides, in one or two columns of wretched, aging type, with a woodcut at top, to be sold in shops and hawked at the foot of the gallows.

In Regency England, the two major publishers were Jemmy Catnatch and “Old Mother Pitts,” derided by her rival as “a former bumboat woman.” James Catnatch’s business was founded in 1813, and, in the hands of his successor, lasted until 1883 when the famous Seven Dials establishment was torn down. Its tempting to speculate on what happened to Catnatch's type and woodcut stock, containing “many designed and cut by Thomas Bewick.”

This late example, a Charles Peace broadside, from the collection of Stewart Evans, was published by George Slater, Snighill, sometime before Peace was executed on 25 February 1879. The last public hanging in England was in 1868 so instead of sales under the gallows broadsides seem to have been sold at newsagents. The only reference to a British publisher named Slater I found was from 1849, One George Slater was publisher of Slater's Shilling Series from 252, Strand.

The bill-sticker cartoon from Punch, below, was published when Jack the Ripper was still active. It seems a little unfair to the bill-stickers, who were probably not paid much by the publishers.

The Gambols

Denis Gifford wrote that The Gambols "evolved froma sports joke panel ... into a series on 16th March 1950." The script and art was by Barry Appleby. Appleby died in 1996 and art and script were passed on to Roger Mahoney, who later took on the drawing of Andy Capp. In 1999 the strip moved from the Daily Express to The Mail on Sunday.

Wes Slade

Wes Slade, Deputy Marshall, The Desperadoes by Jim Edgar and George Stokes, Daily Express, No. D9-7-6-'64-176 (1964). More strips HERE. Classic British Comics Abroad HERE.

More Tom Merry

Another Tom Merry image for the Ripper section courtesy Stewart Evans. London Puck, No. 36, [New Series, No. 14] September 21st, 1889.

Dr. Tumblety, Root-Doctor

The notorious Dr. Francis Tumblety, Indian Root-Doctor, confidence man, bi-sexual and criminal, was born in either Eastern Canada or Rochester, New York about 1833 and grew up in Rochester “a dirty, awkward, ignorant, uncared-for, good-for-nothing boy.” It was recalled by one acquaintance that as a young man he sold books, “largely of the kind Anthony Comstock suppresses now.” He left Rochester for Canada and was in Toronto in 1858, Montreal and Boston in 1859 and St. John in 1860. He rented offices and took out newspaper ads with glowing (and probably fraudulent) testimonials in almost every major city in North America; in San Francisco, New Orleans, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Washington.

He travelled widely abroad, in Great Britain, Ireland, and the continent, usually one step ahead of the law. He was arrested in Montreal for procuring an abortion for a 17 year old prostitute, driven out of St. John, N.B., after a patient died from his medicine, and arrested for assault and battery and picking pockets in New York. Although he had a reputation as a surgeon it is doubtful that he ever had any formal training; throughout his life he produced diplomas from various medical schools on demand so likely he was an accomplished forger as well.

Tumblety was arrested and jailed in Missouri for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, a case of mistaken identity. He was eventually released and wrote a melodramatic book venting his spleen over his ordeal titled Narrative of Dr. Tumblety: how he was kidnapped during the American War (available on Google Books full view). The illustration at top, courtesy Stewart Evans, is from said book. Tumblety was arrested and incarcerated once again in a high profile case in 1888, when he was a suspect in the Whitechapel murders carried out by Jack the Ripper. Loosed on bail he fled to America under the name Townsend, the name of another well-known root-doctor.

Tumblety’s arrest and escape were covered widely in North America but not in London, and he did not surface as a Ripper suspect until publication of The Lodger, by Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey, in 1995, a story which caused a world-wide sensation at the time. The celebrated Littlechild Letter (Chief Inspector Littlechild) purchased by Stewart Evans in 1993 was addressed to journalist George R. Sims and identified Francis Tumblety as a hitherto unknown Ripper suspect. Another book, Prince of Quacks, the notorious life of Dr. Francis Tumblety, by Timothy B. Riordan (2009) takes a more skeptical position regarding the viability of Tumblety as a Ripper suspect. My own view is that Tumblety is a much more plausible suspect than most but the case is unproven.

The good thing is that because of Tumblety’s flamboyant lifestyle, self-advertising and love of publicity it is quite possible that proof of his guilt or innocence may come to light at some future date. London Police were known to have kept a voluminous file on the Indian Root-Doctor, a file which is still missing. Below I have typed up a variety of Tumblety articles, and to show that there is still much to be learned about Tumblety’s life I end with an actual report of an interview with Dr. Tumblety which was conducted by a reporter for the New York World in 1899. The article was unearthed some time ago and was the subject of a Stewart Evans article.

New Orleans Times Jun 29, 1881.

Dr. Francis Tumblety, whose arrest in New Orleans on a charge of pocket-picking was published in THE TIMES, was subsequently discharged after an examination before Judge Miltenberger. Tumblety insisted that the arrest was part of a scheme to blackmail him.

The Western Druggist Vol. X.,1881.

“Dr. Tumblety,” known for a quarter of a century as “The Great Indian Herb Doctor,” has returned to New York from London, where he was recently locked up on suspicion of being the Whitechapel murderer. This eminent personage has been variously described by the lay press as a fool, crank, or villain. He is simply an old quack and a skilful personal advertiser. His top-boots and corduroy coats, his hirsute growths and theatrical manners, his hunting dogs, and curious riding whips, are used to call attention to the fact that the Great American Pimple Banisher is on hand. The man was arrested simply because he was known as a woman hater; at present he is smiling from ear to ear at the thought that this temporary connection with Jack the Ripper has given him an enormous amount of free advertising.

November 21, 1888, Wichita Eagle.

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERER. Chicago, Ill., Nov. 20.-

Billy Pinkerton, the detective, in speaking of the arrest of “Dr. Kimblety,” in London, as the supposed murderer of the Whitechapel victims, gave some reminiscences of the man who was well known in this country by the name of Dr. Twomblety. Pinkerton first met him in Washington when he was employed as a government detective in 1861. Twomblety was then known as a vendor of patent medicine, and was placed under surveillance by the army authorities for distributing so called medical works among the soldiers, which were very obscene books tending to lower the morals of the men. It became so unpleasant for him that he left Washington and went to New York.

He practiced certain nameless things which caused him to be hunted out of every place that he visited, and Pinkerton, several years afterwards, ran across the same fellow in all the principal cities and larger towns of the union from New York to San Francisco. In 1874 he saw him in England, in Liverpool and London. He says

“People familiar with the history of the man always talked of him as a brute, and as brutal in his actions. He was known as a thorough woman hater, and as a man who never associated or mixed with women of any kind. It is claimed that he was educated as a surgeon in Canada, and he was said to have been quite an expert in surgical operations.”

“Do you think he is the man who committed the Whitechapel murders and that he is insane?”

“Yes, I do. I think a man guilty of such practices, as he was known to have been, is insane. Dr. Hammond -- Surgeon General Hammond -- some time ago, when asked as to whether or not he thought that the Whitechapel murderer was an insane man, said that when the murderer of those women was discovered he would undoubtedly be found to be a woman hater, and a man guilty of the same practices which I have described Dr. Twomblety, or Tumblety as being guilty of, and that such men were crazy and as likely as not to murder women.”

The Daily Argus, February 26, 1889

THEY SUSPECTED HIS HAT.

WHY DR. TUMBLETY WAS ARRESTED.

After months of profound silence Dr. Francis Tumblety, whose name in connection with the Whitechapel crimes has become a household word, has at last consented to be interviewed and give his version of how he came to figure so prominently in the most remarkable series of tragedies recorded in the long list of crimes.

The doctor landed in New York on Dec. 8 last, and from the moment he set foot in New York he was under surveillance. An English detective, whose stupidity was noticeable even among a class not noted for their shrewdness, came over to shadow him, and scores of reporters tried in vain to see him. As soon as he got off the ship Dr. Tumblety went direct to the house of Mrs. McNamara, 79 East Tenth street, and has been there ever since. Mrs. McNamara is an old Irish woman whose fidelity to the doctor is remarkable, and it was due to her vigilance that all efforts to see him personally failed. She was able to throw the reporters and detectives completely off the scent, and if it were not for the fact that the doctor voluntarily came forward and made his own statement no one would have ever known whether he was in New York city or New Zealand.

The police long since ceased to take any interest in the case, as it became evident that the English authorities had no evidence to hold the doctor. Finding himself no longer pursued, the doctor concluded to satisfy the public by making a complete statement himself. With this object in view he has carefully prepared a pamphlet giving a history of his life. It will be a refutation of all the charges which have been made against him.

Dr. Tumblety talks in a quick, nervous fashion, with a decided English accent, and at times when describing his treatment by the English police, he would get up from his chair and walk rapidly around the room until he became calm.

“My arrest came about in this way,” said he to a New York World reporter. “I have been going over to England for a long time -- ever since 1860, indeed -- and I used to go about the city a great deal until every part of it became familiar to me. I happened to be there when these Whitechapel murders attracted the attention of the whole world, and, in company with thousands of other people, I went down to the Whitechapel district. I was not dressed in a way to attract attention, I thought, though it afterwards turned out that I did. I was interested by the excitement and the crowds and the queer scenes and sights, and did not know that all the time I was being followed by English detectives.”

“Why did they follow you?”

“My guilt was very plain to the English mind. Someone said that Jack the Ripper was an American, and everybody believed the statement. Then it is the universal belief among the lower classes that all Americans wear slouch hats; therefore, Jack the Ripper, must wear a slouch hat, and this, together with the fact that I was an American, was enough for the police. It established my guilt beyond any question.”

The doctor produced from an inside pocket two magnificent diamonds, one thirteen carats and the other nine carats, both of the purest quality, and a superb cluster ring set in diamonds. He said that in his opinion his arrest was due in a measure to the police desiring his diamonds and thinking they could force him to give them up.

“How long were you in prison?”

“Two or three days; but I don’t care to talk about it. When I think of the way I was treated in London it makes me lose all control of myself. It was shameful, horrible.”

“What do you think of the London police?”

“I think their conduct in the Whitechapel affair is enough to show what they are. Why, they stuff themselves all day with potpies and beef and drink gallons of stale beer, keeping it up until they go to bed late at night, and then wake up next morning heavy at head. Why, all the English police have dyspepsia. They can’t help it. Then their heads are as thick as the London fogs. You can’t drive an idea through their thick skulls with a hammer. I never saw such a stupid set. Look at their treatment of me. There was absolutely not one scintilla of evidence against me. I had simply been guilty of wearing a slouch hat, and for that I was held, charged with a series of the most horrible crimes ever recorded. Why, if inspector Byrnes was over in London with some of his men they would have had the Whitechapel fiend long ago. But this is all very unpleasant to me, and I would prefer talking about something else.”

“You are accused of being a woman hater. What have you to say to that?”

This seemed to amuse the doctor a great deal. He laughed loud and long. Then he said:

“I don’t care to talk about the ladies, but I will show you one little evidence that I am not regarded with aversion by the sex. I will first explain how it came to me. I had received a letter of introduction to a lady of rank, a duchess, who was then at Torquay, which is several hundred miles from London. I presented my letter and was invited to breakfast with her. When I came I presented her with a bouquet of flowers, and she picked up a quill that was lying on the table and dashed off the following stanzas extempore”

TO FRANCIS TUMBLETY, M.D. :-

Thanks for lovely rosebuds sent,

Its beauty may be fleeting

But not its sentiment.

-And as its charming beauty

Nor color cannot last

It will be a pleasant day

In memory of the past

To guard the faded flower.

When you have gone from me,

In memory of the hour

You came to sweet Torquay*

Pronounced Tor-kee

Mary.

“Now that doesn’t look like a woman hater, does it?” said the doctor, with a look of pride.

The doctor then exhibited a number of letters from well known people certifying to his character and integrity. He had any number of letters from merchants, physicians, lawyers, bankers and business men. Some of the letters he showed were from patients in England. One was from a gentleman named Bowers, connected with the Midland railroad, who told him that his former medicines had done his father a great deal of good, and who urgently requested the doctor to forward some more. Another letter was from W. H. Eccleston, of Finsbury Park, who wrote him a glowing letter of thanks for his services, and said that all his friends looked upon the doctor as having saved his life. In talking about his standing in England the doctor said:

“If it were necessary I could show you letters from many distinguished people whom I have met abroad. I am a frequenter of some of the best London clubs, among others the Carleton club and the Beefsteak club. I was the victim of circumstances when this horrible charge was first brought, and since then I have been attacked on all sides and no one has had a good word to say for me. It is strange, too, because I don’t remember ever to have done any human being a harm, and I know a great many who I have helped.”

*Thanks to E. M. Sanchez-Saavedra for the image of the pimple-advertisement from Frank Leslie’s Weekly and Stewart Evans for the George R. Sims photograph.

Tom Merry (1853-1902)

Tom Merry was the pen-name of cartoonist William Mecham (1853 – 21 August 1902). This striking cartoon features Jack the Ripper and British Justice debating the fate of the American Florence Maybrick, convicted of poisoning her husband in Britain. Maybrick served 14 years. The illustration above is courtesy Stewart Evans, author of The Lodger (1995) which has been updated and re-issued under the title Jack the Ripper First American Serial Killer. Stewart has a collection of over 8,500 books, newspapers, broadsheets and ephemera, much of it dealing with Jack the Ripper and true crime. One intriguing item he mentioned was possession of the last letter that Charles Peace wrote from the condemned cell on the eve of his execution. Hopefully Stewart will be sharing some more images with us in future.

The Tom Merry photo and text below is from Stead's London Review of Reviews circa 1890. At this period colour plates were being issued in America in Puck and Judge. The two London publications issuing color plates were the St. Stephen's Review and Vanity Fair. I have posted a high-res image of Merry's Ripper HERE for your enjoyment..

America’s Social Bandits Part II

America’s Social Bandits in Fact and Fiction

By E.M. Sanchez-Saavedra

PART II: THE FICTIONAL JAMES BOYS

Thanks to John Newman Edwards whose dispatches and later book, Noted Guerrillas, provided a plethora of mixed fact and fiction about Frank and Jesse James, New York-based dime novel publishers saw an opportunity to supply their readers with fresh reading matter about home grown American outlaws. A Missouri-born lawyer, novelist and historian, John Roy Musick, is credited with producing the first dime novel about the notorious brothers, The Train Robbers; or, A Story of the James Boys (Wide Awake Library, No. 440.) Publisher Frank Tousey, formerly a partner of Norman L. Munro, soon turned the “James Boys” into a minor industry, publishing dozens of yarns in his large format story papers, such as Young Men of America, and five-cent pamphlets, notably The Five Cent Wide Awake Library, The Boys of New York Pocket Library and later in the New York Detective Library. The stories were written by Musick and Francis W. Doughty under the house name “D.W. Stevens.” The Wide Awake Library was unique in publishing three special numbers containing reasonably factual material, including a transcript of Frank James’ trial. Tousey soon ran afoul of the New York Society for the Prevention of Vice and its bully-boy enforcer, Anthony Comstock. Comstock, who had begun his personal anti-smut campaign during his military service in the Civil War, convinced the YMCA to back his efforts to wipe out pornography and indecent literature through pressure on the Post Office. Publishers who lost their bulk mailing privileges faced bankruptcy. Independent Postal Inspector Comstock successfully prosecuted and jailed several hapless publishers and distributors.

Frank Tousey’s highwayman and outlaw publications became Comstock’s target and Tousey was forced to suppress many numbers of the Wide Awake Library. To preserve the numbering scheme, inoffensive titles were inserted into the series. The Train Robbers was replaced by Cavalry Jack at Corinth. Young Lynx the Amateur Detective filled the slot formerly occupied by The James Boys in Minnesota. Some 66 titles were suppressed, including all the English highwayman reprints and seventeen James Boys stories, plus a True Life of Billy the Kid and a couple of miscellaneous tales. Undaunted, Tousey soon realized that Comstock and his assistants only checked titles for “red-flag” words like “crime” or “bandit,” so he cautiously began slipping James Boys stories into the back pages of straight detective and adventure stories. The ruse worked and he grew bolder. By the 1890s, the brothers were back on the covers of the New York Detective Library. The final two mastheads for the series reflected the emphasis on James Boys stories. After Tousey converted all his nickel weeklies to colored cover formats, he launched the James Boys Weekly, which ran for 139 numbers from 1900 to 1903.

In addition to stories which featured the outlaws as protagonists, Tousey’s writers managed to work them into novels starring fictional detectives Old King Brady and Young Sleuth and inventors Frank Reade, Jr. and Jack Wright (who pursued the gang with a “steam team” and an “electric stage,” respectively.) Many of the James Boys novels starred the indestructible detective Carl Greene who single-mindedly pursued them from novel to novel. Of course Tousey also issued many novels about fictional but alliteratively-named western desperados such as “Denver Dan” and “Dandy Dan of Deadwood.”

Beadle and Adams, the firm which originated the dime novel, had qualms about portraying living outlaws as heroes or anti-heroes, although they would make an exception for Joaquin Murieta, a shadowy Mexican bandit of the 1850s. As a substitute they issued reams of stories about fictional characters like “Deadwood Dick,” “Captain Dick Talbot” and scores of other wholly fictitious western banditti. Their rivals had no such scruples. Publisher John W. Morrison issued 58 numbers of Morrison’s Sensational Series between 1881 and 1882, including The James “Boys,” Jesse James and His Pals, Frank James on the Trail and Jesse James’ Last Shot. Morrison also published several novels starring Billy the Kid.

To cash in on the phenomenon, Norman L. Munro had a number of detective stories rewritten to include the James Boys in his Old Cap. Collier Library. An example is No. 128, Frank James Alarmed. Number 388 dealt with another real-life outlaw, train robber Rube Burrows (1854-1890.) The Old Cap. Collier Library was unusual in that many of its stories were based on actual criminal cases, although fictionalized beyond recognition. In a later issue, Old Cap. Collier solved the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine while the actual investigation was underway.

In 1882, Street and Smith printed Jesse the Outlaw. A Narrative of the James Boys, and later added some James gang novels to their successful Log Cabin Library. Cole Younger’s cousins, the Dalton Gang, also appeared in this publication. (The Daltons came to grief in Coffeyville, Kansas, in 1892, in an eerie recapitulation of the Northfield fiasco.) Like Tousey, Street and Smith launched a colored cover weekly, the Jesse James Stories. These ran from 1901 to 1903 for 123 issues. (Volume 1, no. 1 was reissued in 1938 for the premiere of a feature film about Jesse, starring Tyrone Power.) The outlaw stories were credited to “W.B. Lawson,” a house name shared by at least a dozen authors. This series and Tousey’s both succumbed to critics who objected to the ambivalent view of crime presented by the novels.

Five years later, however, the Arthur Westbrook Company began issuing the Adventure Series, which ran from 1908 to 1910, and contained 35 Jesse James tales. Throughout the twentieth century, the James brothers have appeared in novels, pulps and comics, some serious, but most wildly imaginative.

When dealing with a historical figure whose basic biographical outline is generally familiar, even the most reckless fictioneer needs to conform to certain fixed points in his outline. Calling his wife and mother by any other name but Zerelda, or denying his quasi-military service, or describing him as standing six feet five inches would be pointless. On the other hand, the penny-a-liners were free to transport their fictional Jesse to exotic places where he had implausible adventures. Some stories depicted him as a psychopathic murderer, some as a wronged man crying for vengeance and most as an ambivalent adventurer, who could be heroic or vicious as the need arose. Americans love law and order, yet have a sneaking admiration for those who flout authority. Melodramas are generally propelled by the villain. Good may prevail in the end, but a really vile scoundrel is something to be savored as a guilty pleasure.

Since the demise of the dime novel, Jesse James has been portrayed countless times on stage, in the movies and on television by such Hollywood luminaries as Roy Rogers, Robert Duvall, Stacy Keach, Brad Pitt and many others.

Like the horror comics of the 1950s, stories of the James Boys had a subversive underground quality. The copies that were not traded and read to shreds were often destroyed by parents, clergymen and Anthony Comstock. And, like the horror comics, their illicit contraband nature and low survival rate has endeared them to collectors.

Fittingly, in the late 1920s, James R. “Jim” Cummins (a.k.a. “Windy Jim,” 1847-1929,) sole survivor of the gang, became a member of the Happy Hours Brotherhood, the fraternity of enthusiasts whose fanzine is the still robust Dime Novel Round-Up. Cummins had starred in Tousey’s New York Detective Library No. 698, Jim Cummins and the Detectives; or, Wild Adventures on the Missouri by “D.W. Stevens” (1896). In 1903 he wrote his memoirs, a curious mix of half-remembered facts and self-protective accusations. Many of his assertions came to life on the big screen a century later in the brilliant atmospheric film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Convicted of murder but pardoned by Governor Crittenden, Bob and Charley Ford moved East, where they reenacted the assassination on stage for hundreds of performances in sleazy theatres. Charles Wilson Ford, tubercular and depressed, committed suicide at his father’s home in 1884. Robert Newton Ford drifted to Creede, Colorado where he was himself assassinated by a nobody named Ed O’Kelley in 1892.

Bob Younger died in Minnesota’s Stillwater Penitentiary. Jim Younger committed suicide soon after his release. Cole Younger served his full 25-year sentence, eventually writing his autobiography and lecturing on “What Life has Taught Me.” (In other words, he made a fair living from preaching that “crime does not pay.”) He and Frank James toured briefly with a Wild West Show, but gave up after being swindled by their manager. Both men would die in bed of natural causes, a rarity among their set.

Towards the end of his life, Frank James had become deeply conflicted about his past. Always a philosophical person, he publicly repudiated the outlaw legend, (while continuing to profit from it.) He carried on a tidy little business giving guided tours of the Zerelda James home and selling tons of souvenir rusty horseshoes “from Jesse’s horse” and bushels of pebbles “from Jesse’s grave.” He never failed to speak out against the glamorization of crime on stage and in popular fiction.

“The dad-binged play glorifies these outlaws and makes heroes of them. That’s the main thing I object to. It’s injurious to the youth of the country. It’s positively harmful. I am told the Gillis Theatre was packed to the doors last night, and that most of those were boys and men. What will be the effect upon these young men to see the acts of a train robber glorified?” -- Frank James, Kansas City Star, 10 Feb 1902, quoted in Jesse James was his Name, William A. Settle Jr., University of Missouri Press, 1966.

*Part I HERE

America’s Social Bandits Part I

America’s Social Bandits in Fact and Fiction

By E.M. Sanchez-Saavedra

After the classic dime novel format became established during the 1860s, American publishers noticed that reprints of English bandit and highwaymen tales sold more copies than tales in other genres. Stories about the American Revolution and adventures set on the Alleghany frontiers during the endless conflicts between European settlers and Native Americans remained popular well into the next century, but the public fascination with crime and punishment provided a fertile market. Long English serials in penny-part editions lent themselves well to various ten cent and twenty-five cent reincarnations, but their number was finite and American publishers had pretty well saturated the market. What was needed was an American equivalent of Claude Duval or Dick Turpin. In the early 1870s one appeared in the violent border state of Missouri. As if tailor made for the dime novel industry, he had an alliterative name, a fascinating history and he managed to elude the forces of law and order during a fifteen-year crime spree.

PART I: THE REAL JAMES BOYS

The U.S. Civil War of 1861-1865 had thoroughly upset American life in many ways. Aside from the over half a million combat deaths and untold numbers of physical and psychological wounds, entire populations were physically displaced, disenfranchised and demoralized. The former “Confederate” states, their lands and economy ruined, fell under the heavy burden of a vengeful “Reconstruction” and military occupation. The midwestern border states of Arkansas and Missouri were particularly hard hit. The “dress rehearsal” for the war occurred in Kansas, as pro-slavery men and “free-soilers” carried on guerrilla warfare during the late 1850s. The abolitionist nexus was Lawrence, which was burned by Missourians in 1856 and again by Quantrill’s raiders in 1863. Unlike the horrific carnage wreaked by “civilized” regular armies on the East Coast, the warfare in the Midwest was equally terrible, but more personal and tribal in nature, waged by “irregulars” such as the Kansas “Jayhawkers” and “Red Legs” for the Union, and bands of “bushwhackers” under such stalwarts as William Quantrill and “Bloody Bill” Anderson, on the Southern side. Conditions in Missouri during the war resembled the current situation along the Afghan/Pakistani border, where settling old scores trumps military strategy.

From this toxic environment came the teenaged boys who would become America’s real and fictional Wild West outlaws. Large interconnected families like the Jameses, the Youngers, the Daltons, the Millers and the Fords, all swept up in the uncompromising guerrilla war, contributed their men folk to be killed or psychologically warped for the rest of their lives. The survivors were the most ruthless, reckless and skillful pistol shots and horsemen, fully the equals of Comanche warriors. After the Southern Confederacy fell in 1865, a majority of Southern veterans signed an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and went home to rebuild their lives. A general amnesty did not extend to the Missouri guerrillas, however, who were considered war criminals and outlaws. Unable to find jobs at home, many of them drifted west and attempted to start afresh, with varying success.

Men such as Thomas Coleman Younger, Alexander Franklin James (1843-1915) and his kid brother Jesse Woodson James (1847-1882), and their cousins the Millers, tried to settle down with their families, but they found it almost impossible. Today, these men would be diagnosed as “adrenaline junkies,” suffering from “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Undoubtedly, some were sociopathic to begin with and honed their techniques in an orgy of ambushes, raids and individual murders. Their seething rage, alcohol abuse, mood swings, paranoia and violent tempers, coupled with incredible survival skills and weapons proficiency, would form the basis of their legendary reputations.

In 1866, the James brothers robbed a bank in Liberty, Missouri, and soon graduated to train and stagecoach robberies and even the Kansas City Fair. Their accomplices were mostly fellow veterans of Quantrill’s raiders. Once embarked on a career of crime, they planned their forays as guerrilla raids against the hated “Yankee” capitalists who were oppressing their neighbors. The fact that they rarely shared the proceeds of their robberies with those oppressed neighbors made little difference; they were “social bandits,” striking blows against the Establishment. At least that is how Kansas journalist John Newman Edwards saw and reported it. Thanks to Edwards, all America came to know of the “border Robin Hoods” as they continued to operate with impunity on their home turf. The only widely circulated authentic photograph of Jesse during his lifetime depicted him as a scrawny teenager. Lawmen were severely hampered by not knowing what he looked like at thirty. As long as the brothers stayed in and around Clay County, there were always kinfolk and safe houses to shield them from posses and Pinkerton detectives hired by the express companies. When Pinkerton agents killed their younger brother and seriously wounded their mother in a botched raid on Mrs. James’ home, the detectives destroyed any chance of cooperation from the locals. (Not that there had been much of a chance to begin with.)

Favorable publicity became a double-barreled proposition, with Jesse supplying his own press releases after certain daring train robberies! (The amount of money stolen would be left blank – to be filled in by authorities later.) He was a darling of Richard Kyle Fox’ National Police Gazette, to which he subscribed and occasionally sent communications. In addition to tabloid coverage of Missouri train robberies, Fox published “factual” pamphlets about the James brothers, relying heavily on John Newman Edwards’ articles. Other serious attempts at biography emanated from publishers in St. Louis, during Jesse’s lifetime and immediately following his death.

Once the James/Younger gang left their comfort zone, all the rules changed. In 1876, the outlaws arrogantly decided to strike north into Minnesota, where one of their members had worked briefly. Their plans soon fell into disarray as they were forced to improvise in unfamiliar territory. Their superb horses and equipment, coupled with their rough manners, attracted unwelcome attention. Urban banks in St. Paul were too exposed or too well guarded. By default they settled on the First National Bank in the little college town of Northfield. During the robbery everything went suddenly and disastrously wrong: the heroic assistant cashier Joseph Lee Heywood refused to cooperate and was killed; another employee raised the alarm, despite a serious gunshot wound; armed townspeople defended their property furiously; two gang members were killed outright, and the wounded survivors barely escaped with a handful of loose change. Worst of all, their guide, Bill Chadwell, lay dead in the street and the gang became hopelessly lost in the swamps, pursued by hundreds of angry citizens in large posses. Leaving the three grievously injured Younger brothers and Charley Pitts to their fates, Frank and Jesse James lit out for home by a roundabout route.

Although they soon raised a new gang of second-stringers and petty criminals like Jim Cummins and Dick Liddell, and boys like Charley and Robert Ford, too young to have served in the war, the James brothers lost their well-trained guerrilla coherence at Northfield. The gang’s days were further numbered by political and financial factors. Still shaky from the Panic of 1873, the U.S. economy took another nosedive in 1877, following crippling railroad strikes and Wall Street failures. Pressured by the loss of potential outside investment in Missouri through fear of lawlessness, Governor Thomas T. Crittenden offered a hefty reward, dead or alive, for each member of the gang. The reward money came from the exasperated express companies. Frank James, sick of the outlaw life, moved east and Jesse lived quietly with his wife and two children under the alias of “Thomas Howard,” frequently changing his address. He met his fate in 1882, in St. Joseph, Missouri, at the hands of Robert Ford, dazzled by reward money and the chance of fame. Jesse’s post-mortem photo adorned the front page of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper several weeks later.

The assassination was the last straw for his elder brother. Tired of looking over his shoulder for a Bob Ford copycat “wannabe,” Frank James, with the help of John Newman Edwards, surrendered publicly to Governor Crittenden, stood trial and was acquitted by a sympathetic jury. He returned home to farm and care for his mother.

*Continue to America’s Social Bandits Part II HERE

W. H. Thwaites

W. H. Thwaites was not as prolific as most penny dreadful artists. Not much in the way of biography could be found for W. H. Thwaites but his career can be traced into the 1870’s. According to the article “Illustrated Journalism in England” from The Magazine of Art (1890) W. H. Thwaites was brought up in Mr. Vizitelly’s “wood-engraving establishment” at The Pictorial Times (1843-1845) where he concentrated on ‘figures.’

“The draughtsmen chiefly employed on the new venture were John Gilbert, W. H. Prior, and others who had been brought up in Mr. Vizitelly’s wood-engraving establishment, namely F. Danby (landscape), W. H. Thwaites (figures), R. Hind (figures), and Martin, son of John Martin the painter (figures and portraits).”

Care is needed in researching Thwaites past because there was another wood engraver and landscape painter of the same name active in the fifties and sixties in New York. In 1856 The Crayon wrote that the American Thwaites “has returned from a tour of studies in the White Mountains, and has brought with him a number of carefully studied drawings, in water colors and sepia, heightened with pencil. Mr. T.’s ability with water colors should make his works much sought after as are his designs in wood.” In 1890 the American Thwaites and Arthur Lumley’s illustrations appeared in E. D. E. N. Southworth’s The Hidden Hand published by Robert Bonner’s Sons, New York in a 50 cent paper edition. The result is that there is a lot of erroneous information spread on the internet regarding two separate gentlemen.

Our London-based Thwaites was a talented artist whose woodcut engravings adorned James Lindridge’s classic penny bloods Jack Rann, Alias Sixteen-String Jack (1845), Tyburn Tree; or, the Mysteries of the Past (1848), The Merry Wives of London, a Romance of Metropolitan Life (1850), and Jenny Diver, the Female Highwayman (1851) all published by George Purkess senior. In 1851 he illustrated Jonathan Wild; or, the Thief-taker’s Daughter by Ambrose Hudson, published by W. Winn. Jonathan Wild may actually be another pseudonymous Lindridge parts-work. Most famously Thwaites illustrated Pierce Egan the Younger’s Robin Hood (1850) and Wat Tyler (1851) as well as The Lamplighter (author unknown, 1855).

Rook the Robber; or, London Fifty Years Ago (serialized in the Halfpenny Gazette 15 Mar 1862) and The Felon's Daughter; or, Pamela’s Perils (according to advertising in Reynolds’s Miscellany 24 Oct 1863) were both illustrated by W. H. Thwaites and published by John Dicks in penny numbers as written ‘by the author of “Daughter of Midnight.”’ The Felon's Daughter was serialized in the Halfpenny Gazette under the author name ‘George Armitage’ before publication in penny parts. The Halfpenny Gazette was published by John Dicks and G. W. M. Reynolds. The Daughter of Midnight; or, Mysteries of London Life was serialized there 25 July 1863 as ‘by the author of “Ruth the Betrayer.”’ Ruth the Betrayer; or, the Female Spy was published by Dicks in 1863 under the name ‘Edward Ellis,’ a pen-name used by Charles Henry Ross and Ernest Warren. Thwaites supplied the wood engravings.

Much of Thwaite’s work through the fifties and sixties was done for John Dicks English Novels, such as Gabriel Alexander’s Adelaide; or, the Trials of a Governess (1865), and he illustrated several works by G. W. M. Reynolds; Pope Joan, The Soldier’s Wife, and The Young Fisherman and other Stories. Thwaites worked for the engraving department under foreman C. Bonner at Reynolds’s Miscellany until the paper closed in 1867 then possibly transferred his efforts to Dicks’ Bow Bells weekly. The last mention of ‘W. H. Thwaites’ I found was a listing as a stationer and bookseller in Newcastle-on-Tyne at 20 Northumberland Street (Bookseller 17 Dec 1871) but that could be another gentleman entirely.