Today’s Elastic Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Many of the girls and women who were sent to the 18th and 19th century English Bridewells (prisons) for correction were street-walkers, and part of the punishment meted out to them was whipping with the birch-rod in the presence of the governors of the prisons, and of such members of the public as were able, by influence or bribery, to obtain admission. For, strange as it may seem, the witnessing of flagellation was looked up on as an entertainment, and as such was popular among the society ladies of the day—these ‘bright young things’ made up parties to go and see the delinquents whipped, much as today they might go to see a boxing match. According to Ned Ward in The London Spy, in the Bridewells, prisoners of both sexes were stripped to the skin and whipped in the presence of the Court of Governors.
The two most widely employed scourges in the Bridewells were the bull’s pizzle (penis) and the birch. The bull’s pizzle, elastic and capable of standing enormous strain, in truth a terrible weapon, was reserved for the more severe castigations. In a strong man’s hand it was not only deadly in its punishing powers but dangerous to life and limb, and care had to be taken to avoid striking the seat-bone or lower end of the spine (os coccygis). On all ordinary occasions, the birch was the instrument selected. This was really a bundle of selected birch twigs, bound together at one end and fixed to a handle. The more fiendish of the flagellators, the day before the whipping was to take place, steeped the birch in vinegar and salt, a process which increased considerably the pain incident to the flogging.
“I’ll birch ya! I’ll birch ya real good!!!”
Culled from: The History of Corporal Punishment
Murder Mystery Du Jour!
Luc Sante’s Evidence is a compelling collection of crime scene photographs taken by the New York City Police Department between 1914 and 1918. The images are always intriguing, often mysterious, sometimes artistic, occasionally shocking, and reliably graphic. The appendix contains a detailed explanation of all known facts regarding each image (include applicable newspaper clippings) and much reasonable speculation on those images where the facts are lost to history. Here’s an example:
Homicide 2/14/18
The archivists unaccountably guessed that the victim here might be a sailor. Perhaps the shoes, or the trunk, or the calendar girls suggested it. In any event, the figure is quite evidently female, and not nearly as decayed as the poor condition of the plate might cause one to believe. The newspaper account clears up the more immediate mysteries:
WOMAN FOUND CRUELLY SLAIN IN OWN HOME.
MRS. HELEN HAMMELL, DEAD 24 HOURS WHEN DISCOVERED IN THE LODGING HOUSE SHE HAD RUN
MARKS OF SMALL TEETH AND BANDANGE ON WOULD POINT TO MEMBER OF OWN SEX AS ASSASSIN.
Two pet dogs and a taciturn green parrot were the only witnesses to the murder of Mrs. Helen Hammell. She was slain in the lodging house she conducted at No. 507 West 23rd Street sometime on Wednesday. The body was discovered yesterday.
Mrs. Hammell’s assailant obviously repented after the victim had been stunned by a blow on the back of the head. The wound was carefully bandaged, and a cloth found knotted around Mrs. Hammell’s throat may have been placed there to stop the flow of blood rather than to strangle her.
A man’s first instinct is escape, not to remain and play Good Samaritan.
In the next room, jewelry was found at more than $1000 worth, diamonds, and $860 in cash. The body was found on a couch in a rear bedroom in the basement.
Edward Kelly who runs a pool room next door, heard screams at around noon on Wednesday. One lodger, who was home sleeping, heard Mrs. Hammell arguing with a woman.
Mrs. Hammell’s husband works at Sailors’ Snug Harbor and is only home on weekends.
A small piece of broomstick and a two-inch steel file are believed to be the weapons.
One of the most mystifying features of the case is that, despite the fact that the body was discovered on a couch in a rear bedroom, there is a wide blotch of blood on the door opening from the basement into the street. On the walls of the hall leading from this door to the bedroom are also bloodstains. [Abridged from the New York American, February 15, 1918]
The blood might have been on the assailant’s hands from contact with Hammell, and she or he might have been attempting to wipe it off before going out into the street. The assailant may, indeed, have been unaware that Hammell was dead or dying. What the account fails to say is how the two-inch steel file could have come into play; a small piece of broomstick, for that matter, hardly seems like a weapon that could deliver a fatal blow to the back of the head.
******
I did some sleuthing and found some additional details on the murder.
LANDLADY SLAIN, WOMAN IS HUNTED
Shell Hairpin and Teeth Marks in Victim’s Arm Point to Female.
W. 23RD STREET MYSTERY
Body in Kitchen With Wounds Bandaged and Towel Tied Stranglingly.
A few tortoise shell hair pins and a broken side comb, found on the floor of a hallway in 507 West Twenty-third street, led to the believe that Mrs. Helen Hammell, whose body was found lying in the kitchen yesterday, came to her death at the hands of a woman. Two imprints of teeth on the left forearm strengthened this belief with the police officials trying to unravel the mystery of the woman’s death.
Two women who had rooms in the place were questioned last night by Police Inspector Cray and Capt. Walsh of the West Twentieth street station, while a search was conducted over the city for a third woman who lived there until Wednesday.
Mrs. Hammell’s body was found by Eugene Wendle, a lodger, when he went to the rear of the first floor yesterday. Dr. W. H. Nammack, assistant county medical examiner, said the woman had been dead not less than fifteen hours when the body was found.
Edward Kelly, who conducts a pool hall at 505 West Twenty-third street, told of hearing screams in the lodging house about 1 o’clock Wednesday.
“I thought a child was getting a hard whipping,” he said, “and didn’t pay any attention to the matter. As I went home last night I looked in at the door and saw the gas burning in the hallway an decided that everything was all right.”
Two deep wounds were found on Mrs. Hammell’s head. These had been carefully bandaged by the assailant. A towel was found tightly knotted about her throat, and was sufficiently tight, the doctors said, to have caused strangulation.
It is thought that Mrs. Hammell attempted to flee when she was attacked and was overtaken at the door before she could escape to the street. The hairpins and the broken comb on the floor of the hallway strengthen this theory, and lend color to the belief that her assailant was a woman. Mr. Hammell was unable to identify either the hairpins or the comb as belonging to his wife.
A small purse with some silver change was found on the floor of the kitchen. Nothing was found to indicate the motive was robbery.
In the room with Mrs. Hammell’s body was a dachshund. Another dog was chained in a front room.
Mrs. Hammell moved into the house five years ago and opened a rooming place. Her lodgers were chiefly stewards, cooks and sailors of vessels frequenting the Twenty-third street piers. Her house was very popular until the war began, but since then her patronage has been limited.
Culled from the New York Herald, February 15, 1918
And then in the February 21, 1918 issue of the The Allentown Morning Call clears up more of the mystery:
GIRLS FROM THIS VALLEY SUSPECTED OF MURDER
Misses Baksa and Galley Arrested for Homicide in New York
The arrest of Elizabeth Baksa, aged 19, of Freemansburg, and Anna Galley, aged 16, of Northampton Heights, is expected by the Homicide Bureau of New York City to clear up the mysterious murder of Mrs. Helen Hammel, at 507 West Twenty-third street, New York, whose body was found by a boarder on a couch in her home last Thursday. The murder of Mrs. Hammell has been a headliner in most of the New York City papers and has been treated as one of the most mysterious murders there in months.
Elizabeth Baksa was arrested at New York on Saturday afternoon and Anna Galley was taken into custody yesterday morning at a Bethlehem restaurant, where she was employed as a kitchen girl.
Mrs. Hammel, the dead woman, conducted a boarding house at the above address. On Thursday morning at about 11 o’clock one of the boarders entered the kitchen of the home and found Mrs. Hammel lying on a couch, dead. A towel, stained with blood, was wrapped around her head. A steel used to sharpen knives was on the floor; also a broomstick used to stir the washing. A wash tub filled with water stood in the center of the room and clothing which had just been washed still hung on the line in the yard, showing that the dead woman was doing her weekly wash when the crime was committed. Nine small wounds were found on her scalp, as though she had been struck by the steel, but these were not though to be sufficient to cause death by a coroner’s jury, which investigated the case. the police believe that the woman was strangled with the towel found wrapping her head.
When the boarder who found the body and reported the matter to the police was questioned he stated that he left the Hammel home at 11 o’clock on Wednesday morning. At that time he said, Mrs. Hammel and Elizabeth Baksa were in the kitchen washing clothes. Returning home at 1 o’clock Thursday morning from his work as a cook he went directly to his room and went to sleep. He arose as usual at 11 o’clock on Thursday morning and upon entering the kitchen he found the dead body.
The police then made an attempt to locate Miss Baksa, but to no avail. She had disappeared. On Saturday she was apprehended at New York.
Whether the girl confessed is not known. She told the police that she left New York Wednesday afternoon at a late hour for her home at Freemansburg, arriving there at 1 o’clock on Thursday morning. On Saturday morning, while the officers were scouring the city for her, the girl returned to New York, arriving in that city at 3 o’clock. She was immediately taken into custody by detectives who were watching for her at the railroad terminal.
When the New York authorities learned that the Baksa girl had a companion they had Anna Galley arrested.
Anna told the police that she and the Baksa girl were companions in Bethlehem. The girls became smitten with wanderlust and a longing to see the “Great White Way” and on January 29 they left for New York, where they secured work at a laundry and went to live at the Hammel boarding house. She pleaded entire ignorance of the crime. She says that she returned last Tuesday, a day before the crime is thought to have been committed.
The police have investigated the records of both girls and find that they were both at the Darlington Reformatory for Girls at Philadelphia up to only a few months ago. Both were let out of the reformatory on probation and the authorities there have been trying to locate the Galley girl to bring her back to the institution.
And I was able to find the transcript of the trial of Elizabeth Baksa in the Lloyd Sealy Library Digital Collections which indicates that Miss Baksa was charged with first degree murder and Anna Galley was a witness in the trial. The transcript is cutoff before a verdict which I thought was an unfortunate clerical error. However, the final twist in the case was revealed in the December 6, 1918 Knoxville Sentinel:
GIRL FREED OF MURDER CHARGE
Judge Orders Elizabeth Baksa Released When Convict Confesses to Crime
VIEW OF JURYMEN
Do Not Believe Convict’s Story and Think He Only Wanted Notoriety
NEW YORK, Dec. 6—Without taking the stand in her own defense, Elizabeth Baksa, the 19-year-old Freemansburg, Pa., girl on trial for the murder of her boarding housekeeper here, was acquitted at the direction of Judge Rosalsky.
When James Regan, Sing Sing convict, called in rebuttal by the prosecution, persisted in his story as a witness for the defense, that he had killed Mrs. Helen Hamel last February, afterward threatening Miss Baksa’s life when she discovered the crime, the court ruled that the evidence need not be presented to the jury.
“Thank God, they knew I was innocent,” the youthful prisoner cried when informed that she was free. After her sobs had subsided the girl declared she would return tomorrow to her Pennsylvania home, adding that “a country girl has no business in New York.”
Judge Rosalsky, created a most unusual situation after Miss Baksa had left the court room by asking the jury for its opinion as to what should be done with Regan, who had “confessed” to the murder of Mrs. Hamel. After a half hour of conference the jurors returned a “verdict,” as follows:
“We do not believe the statements of Regan on the stand. We do not believe he was ever in the house, nor had he any connection with the murder. We believe he committed perjury.”
The jurors individually ascribed Regan’s action to a desire for “cheap notoriety.”
Judge Rosalasky announced he would confer with the district attorney concerning what action should be taken.
Regan was sentenced to life imprisonment in January 1919 for being a “habitual criminal”. There is no sign of Baksa having received another trial, so it seems to me that the judge really fucked up big time with this one. You sure lucked out, Elizabeth Baksa!
Also, it looks like the site of the murder is still standing in NYC:
