I was lucky enough to get my grubby hands on a 1931 book titled, as seen above, Sins of America, by Edward Van Every, and my my are they many. It was a follow-up to a book he put out a year earlier titled, Sins of New York. Both books are collections of stories and illustrations which originally appeared in The National Police Gazette and they are fantastic. The Gazette was a sensationalistic tabloid aimed at the “sporting” single men of the 19th Century. It was sold through barber shops and saloons. It was chock full of dramatic woodcuts of sporting events, brutal crimes, female burlesque performers, actresses in racy poses, and the scandals of the day. During it’s peak it had a readership of over 200,000 and was the most successful such publication of it’s time. More than that it can be credited with the invention of the sports page and the gossip column. Pretty much everything we associate with tabloid journalism, as well as men’s magazines, had a start in the Gazette.

Below are reproduced a few fine examples from Sins of America. But be ready.

You’ll laugh!

You’ll groan!

You’ll be outraged!

You’ll drink more heavily!

You’ll feel a tingling sensation in unmentionable areas of your person!

In short goodly reader… you’re pretty much sure to enjoy, sporting folk you are.

BARE POLES ALOW AND ALOFT
A visiting party of seminary girls experiment with the firehouse system of getting down stairs, with quite shocking results.

“TO WHAT BASE USES MAY WE NOT RETURN?”
Ghastly sport by hard-hearted medical students - they turn a dissecting room into a bowling alley, and have a game of nine-pins with skulls and cross bones.

TORTURING A LOVER
A young masher who fools a Louisiana girl is tied hand and foot, smeared with molasses and laid in the sun to be tortured by flies until he consents to marry.

“WHAT IS IT?”
A human gobbler in an indiana madhouse.

BOUNCED BY A SKELETON
“Who’s dat? Go way dar!” - The novel yet hideous way in which a landlord got rid of some objectionable tenants.

HE CALLED HER BIRDIE,
and they made one of her - how a party of western women undertook to make the complexion of an erring sister as black as her morality.

SHE JOINED GAMMA DELTA
The novel way the freshman class of Boston University initiated a new scholar.

TRIED TO IMITATE AN ACROBAT
A young woman of Longsport, Ind., comes to grief attempting a contortion act. (Imitate an acrobat? Riiiight.)

SPORT FOR SEMINARY GIRLS
Muscular maidens of Lake Forrest University, Michigan, who battle with pillows.

“I can laugh, I can dance, I can sing with glee, oh, I feel just as young as I used to be - You’re a darling - Don’t think I’m old: You won’t will you, my pretty one?”

A couple of inquisitive damsels, anxious to learn the secrets of freemasonry, are given a dose of initiation which cools their curiosity.

An old maid pining for something masculine to love and caress, illustrates upon a scare-crow just how she would act were it a living reality instead of a counterfeit presentment.

NINE NAUGHT YOUNG GIRLS
Disrobe themselves and have their loveliness photographed at Wheeling W.Va. in cartes de visite for a select circle of friends.

HE DISLIKES BLOOMERS
So he lashes female bicyclists who happen to wear bifurcated skirts.

Darwin vindicated- A Goldsboro, N.C., monkey catches the suicidal mania, and hangs himself by the neck until dead.

For more info on The National Police Gazette check out the following:

A Little Visit to the Lower Depths, by Gene Smith
The National Police Gazette at Everything2
The Sporting Life, at The Intimate Bachelor

To see how the Gazette eventually ended up see:

Cover Girls of WWII
Bad Mags
And the a modern, online version Here

Expect a follow-up with more. Hope you enjoyed.