This is great!

From the Ste. Genevieve Herald, March 29, 1884:

We are told that J.W. WILKINSON, the man who kept an ice cream stand here last Summer, was hanged in Indiana for the murder of his mother-in-law who he is said to have poisoned previous to his stay here in order to get possession of her property. When here, he gave out that he came from Kentucky, but it seems that Freeport, Indiana, was his home. After the commission of the deed, he fled from place to place with his mother, sister and son, staying nowhere very long as the detectives were on his track. From here he went to Poplar Bluff, thence to Memphis, Tenn., where the officers of the law hunted him down. We don’t know how much truth there is in this story, as we have nothing to vouch for it but the word of a man who says he saw the account in an East St. Louis paper.

How you like that? :)

Or, how about this one, same paper, same date:

When a fellow is sparking his girl he smokes 10-cent cigars; after he becomes engaged he gets down to 5-centers; and after marriage he generally contents himself with a stinking old pipe, that 2 years ago he wouldn’t have had in the same block. Matrimony is rather demoralizing to the cigar trade, in the long run.