In the nineteenth century, Brunswick was a satellite suburb of Melbourne, a place of 'bricks and pottery, mud and poverty' with the unruliness of a frontier town. This collection of contemporary newspaper stories includes the trial and execution of 'baby farmer' Frances Knorr, Mary Ryckman attacking her neighbour with dynamite, and the outbreak of Irish sectarian violence in Sydney Road. Street larrikins, pub brawls, industrial deaths, poisoning both accidental and deliberate - this is a vivid picture of the seamy side of life in 1800s Brunswick.