Founded in 2017, Strange Times is a twice-monthly newsletter that explores the weirdest news of 1921, one day at a time. To get free games and the original PDFs of every article that runs in Strange Times—plus stories that didn’t make the cut—back me on Patreon.

Things I Like

1. Minor League Baseball! Suspecting that for Mother’s Day my wife would like nothing better than to spend a quiet afternoon at home while her children were in another state, my boys and I drove to Wilmington yesterday to watch the High-A Blue Rocks get knocked around by the Hudson Valley Renegades. It was a warm day in a ballpark that felt full without being crowded. Parking was free, hotdogs were ample and the lines were short. For two boys still learning the game, the simple closeness of a minor league park beats the overstimulation of the show every time. Oh, and if you’re ever taking kids to the ballpark and want something to keep them busy and mildly interested in the game, try my free kids’ scoresheet.

2. Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine! The glory days of pulp fiction live on in the shape of EQMM, which has been publishing mysterious shorts for over 75 years. Although I’ve published five mystery novels (and counting!), I’ve written very little short mystery fiction, and I signed up for a subscription to try to better understand the form. I cannot tell you how pleasant it is to cozy up with my dog, reading murder stories on newsprint. If you like this newsletter, you’ll dig EQMM.

3. Naps! Tired? Take a nap! Unless you’re currently flying an airplane, you’re unlikely to regret it.

Today’s issue brings nice boys and a pilfered skeleton, a gambling lady and a fatal misnake. Disrupt a cabaret on…

August 9, 1921

• A Brooklyn police officer is held on suspicion of having bludgeoned a man to death with a blackjack in retaliation for “bad words” said about the patrolman’s wife.

• Two off-duty police officers beat a fan at the Polo Grounds with a blackjack, after accusing the fan of stepping on one of their coats.

• An argument over an allegedly-overcharged restaurant check leads to four NYPD detectives opening fire in a Midtown restaurant, leading to a general brawl and two shooting injuries.

• The First Lady’s designer says that American women need not heed European trends and that a proper, conservative skirt length should be 8.5 inches from the ground.

• A seaplane opens fire on a launch sailing in Narraganset Bay, spraying the ship with machine gun fire and seriously wounding a 24-year-old girl.

• The Weather: Fair today and tomorrow.

This is the funniest thing I’ve read in, well, about a month. The blimp on a rampage was very funny, is all!

Joseph Berry, a 13-year-old schoolboy of 105 West Sixty-eighth Street, was playing hide and seek with chums shortly before 9 o’clock last night when he found a skeleton in the corner of the yard of the College of Pharmacy at 119 West Sixty-eighth Street. He carried the bony relic into the street and placed it on the stoop in front of the door at 111 West Sixty-eighth Street. Then he rang the bell and waited with his playmates on the sidewalk.

A woman accompanied by a black cat came down and opened the door. When the cat saw the skeleton it arched its back and gave a heartbreaking mew which startled its mistress. As she sighted the skeleton the woman became hysterical, stepped on her black cat and both whizzed out into the middle of the street howling in concert.

Then Berry and another nice boy made a chair of their hands and carried the skeleton away down the street to Broadway, where they arrived just as a stout woman was getting off a bus. The vehicle was just moving when she espied the spook and, taking three long steps, she emitted a yell and leaped on the footboard again, knocking the conductor inside the bus. The skeleton’s next call was at a cabaret on the corner of Sixty-ninth Street and Broadway, where the boys bobbed it up and down outside the window like a jumping jack to cheer up the dinner guests.

To get more action the boys brought the skeleton inside and placed it in a chair by the door. The manager heard the screams of the women, guests, and after one waiter had refused, he and another waiter carried out the skeleton and chair and threw both to the street. It had just been rescued by the boys from the débris in the roadway and dusted off when Patrolman Edward Schnaible of the West Sixty-eighth Street Station came along and took Berry and the remnants to the station.

It was an interesting procession for the onlookers as the policeman carried the head and shoulders, while Berry, the juvenile discoverer of the trophy, carried the feet into the station house. On examination the skeleton was found to be one of a woman with a white ribbon tied round the neck, and the bones had been carefully wired to keep them in place. Anthony, the night keeper, hung it up on a nail in a cell and left it for the day keeper to investigate.

I hope all of you mothers out there celebrated on Sunday by sticking it to your spouses in the best way possible: making an absolute killing at Deauville.

LONDON, Aug. 8.—London society is interested in a report that the Countess of Cathcart won a large amount of money in two hours at the Casino at Deauville Saturday night. It is stated that she started with only 125 francs, had a wonderful run of luck and rose at midnight the winner of 175,000 francs.

The Countess’s first husband was Captain de Grey Warter, who was killed in the war. She married the Earl of Cathcart in 1919. Last week differences between the Earl and his wife led to the announcement by advertisement that he would not be responsible for his wife’s debts.

The countess replied by advertisement that her allowance from her husband had been £960 yearly, out of which she paid all her traveling expenses and £276 yearly in school fees for her two children. Her husband, she said, had offered her £1,500 a year, less income tax and less any debts he might pay, for a separate establishment, but this offer she had “indignantly declined.”

Don’t mess with copperheads, kids.

NAUVOO, Ala., Aug. 8.—William Edmonds is in a critical condition today and his brother, the Rev. Albert Edmonds, is seriously ill from the bite of a snake, said to have been used in a religious service at a revival near here Friday.

The minister is said to have told his congregation that the “true believer” was immune to the bite of reptiles, and invited non-believers to bring poisonous snakes to the service. A copperhead was captured and taken to the meeting. William Edmonds and the minister were bitten, and immediately became ill.

William Edmonds, doctors say, will die.