Imagine: It’s a chilly Thursday evening in early November 1859. You’re a middle-aged man, a joiner by trade. You live in Brooklyn and don’t come to the city often because it means a nail-biting ferry ride, but tonight, with cash in your pocket ($8 to be exact), you feel optimistic.
As you stroll up Broadway you notice a young girl standing in the shadows. She beckons to you. You move close and she takes your hand. She leads you around the corner to a quiet, out of the way spot off Lafayette Place. All goes well until the girl’s hand makes it’s way to your pants pocket. She grabs your wallet and runs. Before you have time to recover your senses, there’s a man at your side. He’s short and stocky and has a head like a bull’s. In a heavy Irish brogue he loudly informs you that he’s a police detective. He demands to know what you were doing with the girl. Fear washes over you and words dry up in your mouth.
To your astonishment the bull-man grabs your watch and chain and pulls hard, yanking it off your belt. He turns to run, but an officer appears—a real one—and grabs the man, who reacts by pulling a revolver from his coat pocket. Another officer joins the first one; there’s a struggle. The two officers manage to disarm the bull-man and arrest him. Later they also arrest the young woman; She’s the fake detective’s partner.
The prisoners, James Brown, age 23, and the girl, who claimed her name was Margaret Clark but was known by the alias “Scotch Mag,” were held for trial in The Tombs. Their victim was reluctant to testify due to embarrassment. He gave a false name—“John Wilson”—because he did not want anyone back home to know what had happened. He didn’t have $1000 for bail required in order to be released, so he was held in the Home for Witnesses on White Street until the court hearings of the Brown and Scotch Mag.
Scotch Mag was found guilty and sent for a six-month sentence to Blackwell’s Island. James Brown was also found guilty, which earned him a year on The Island. Engravings of their rogues’ gallery photos were published in the National Police Gazette so that other men might not suffer the same fate as “Mr. Wilson.”
Featured photo: “Scotch Mag” from Rogues, a Study of Characters, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Captured and Exposed 
Why on earth would the victim be required to post bail or be confined until trial?
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That’s a good question, Eilene. I’m sorry that I can’t give you a definite answer, but NYC must have had a big problem with witnesses not showing up for hearings (and without witnesses there often is no case). So they imposed a fee they knew no one could afford to keep them in custody. At first the witnesses were housed in The Tombs with suspects, but of course that led to problems. The authorities opened housing for witnesses in October 1859, shortly before the events in my blog post. I don’t know how long the housing lasted but it was expensive, so probably not long. Thanks for your comment!
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Sounds totally like a civil rights violation. Where’s the ACLU when you need them?😉 Seriously, though, if a victim doesn’t want to be a witness, they have to understand the perpetrators will not be prosecuted. It shouldn’t be up to the police and courts.
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That was just a guess on my part. We’ve come along way since 1859, when slavery was still legal in many places in America and much of the population didn’t have the right to vote!
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I love how you dramatize the scene! Scotch Mag has the perfect face for a Rogue’s Gallery.
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Thank you, Liz! I agree that she looks down and out. Her hair is quite short and she’s wrapped in an old blanket. Most of the women in the Szabo collection look prosperous. I think when her photo was taken, Scotch Mag had recently been in the custody of an institution that required her hair be cut short (a workhouse?). I hoped to find out more about her life, but after the incident in my post, I found nothing more about her.
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She looks like a teenager in that photo. Maybe she was young enough to turn her life around after she got out of Blackwell’s Island.
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She does look so very young. I hope her life improved but the odds were against her. Thanks, Brad!
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