Daily Mail first edition 1896

Daily Mail dated Monday 4th May 1896

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This is the first edition of the Daily Mail sold as ‘the penny daily for a half-pence’.  As was usual at this time the front cover was given over to small-ads. 

I like the Personal ad in column 2:  ‘Uncle Jim – Come home at once, all is forgiven. Bring the pawntickets with you – Niece.’  I wonder what sad story lies behind this, or could it be a coded message? 

I'm pleased to note that the Hotel Cecil is ‘fire-proof’.  I’m not sure that modern advertising rules would allow such a claim, unless the place was made entirely of asbestos.

I can’t wait to get my copy of ‘Narada Sutra: An inquiry into Love’ Translated from the Sanskrit by E T Sturdy.  I do hope it’s illustrated.

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Muswell Hill was a wealthy neighbourhood in 1896 and the 79 year old Henry Smith lived there alone in a large house. Rumour had it he was a wealthy miser.

Smith's body was discovered on the morning of 14 February, a few hours after his murder, by his gardener.  The police found that he had been bound with shreds of blankets and had sustained several head wounds.

Inquiries led to two men, Albert Milsom and Henry Fowler, and a police raid captured both of them in Bath. Milsom gave up meekly, but Fowler had to be beaten into submission.

Fowler and Milsom blamed each other for the killing and, during a recess in their Old Bailey trial, Fowler suddenly started throttling Milson. A number of policemen pulled the attacker off. They were both found guilty of the murder and sentenced to hang, but the authorities were afraid that Fowler might attack Milsom again, so it was decided to hang the two men with a third one between them.

A recent double murder had been committed in Whitechapel of a pawnbroker and his housekeeper by a burglar named William Seaman, who was also sentenced to hang. He was put between Milsom and Fowler on the gallows built at Newgate Prison on 9 June 1896. 

Actually it should have been a quadruple hanging on that day because Amelia Dyer the notorious baby farmer, who had been found guilty of murdering 3 children in Reading, was supposed to be hanged with them, but it was decided that her execution should be delayed until the following day.

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This is an editorial piece. 'The motor carriage will never replace the smart trotting pony...' - The Daily Mail as ever had its finger on the pulse of modern progress.

Why not re-introduce the 3mph speed limit? It would cut fatal accidents and save a fortune on fuel. 

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Not the first name I would have chosen.  ‘Dobbin's’, ‘GeeGee's’ or  ‘Tasty's’ but not ‘Krog's’, there again I don’t suppose the horse minded what it was called.

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No extractions required?  Were they offering a second set of teeth to go behind or in front of your existing set?

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This from Wikipedia’s entry for English cinema pioneer Robert W Paul – 

In 1896, R W Paul pioneered in the UK a system of projecting motion pictures onto a screen, using a self-developed ‘Maltese cross’ system. This coincided with the advent of the projection system devised by the Lumiere Brothers. After some demonstrations before scientific groups, he was asked to supply a projector and staff to the Alhambra Music Hall in Leicester Square, and he presented his first theatrical programme on 25 March 1896. This included films featuring cartoonist Tom Merry drawing caricatures of the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II (1895), and Prince Bismarck (1895). Merry had previously performed his lightning-fast drawing as part of a music hall stage act. (The Lumieres were appearing on the bill at the Empire Music Hall, nearby.)

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By Gad, Sir, I don’t care what state the bloody Joanna’s in; if the Memsahib dips a soft rag in my alcohol, I’ll beat her on the wrong side and no mistake.  Pass the brandy!

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In last week’s post I admitted to not understanding cricket scoring.  This week I admit to further sport related ignorance.  The baseball entry seems fairly straightforward - 16 runs beat 13 runs – but the tennis lost me at ‘allowed 15 and bisque’, and as for the billiards, which I thought was like snooker with a top score of 147, I have to wonder how long do you would have to play to score 24,000 points?

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By Gad, Sir, (again), ‘Museum of instruments of stern discipline’ eh?  That reminds me I’ve got an appointment tonight with a damn fine... well… never you mind whom with.  Pass the scotch! 

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At first look I thought the advert was referring to cocaine, but that's from a different plant, this is just good old-fashioned caffeine. And lots of it.  The extract of the Kola Nut is used these days in drinks such a Red Bull’s Simply Cola, so you know what to drink if you want to carry a 176lb bag of coffee for leagues.  And you don’t have to be an ‘old negro’.

U-2 Spy Plane Trial

Daily Express dated Thursday 18th August 1960

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On May 1, 1960 a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down over the airspace of the Soviet Union.

The United States government at first denied the plane's purpose was to spy on Russia, but was forced to admit its true role when the Soviet government produced its intact remains and surviving pilot, Francis Gary Powers, as well as photos of military bases taken by Powers.

A couple of weeks later the Paris Summit meeting between president Dwight Eisenhower (USA), Nikita Khrushchev (USSR), Harold Macmillan (UK) and Charles de Gaulle (France) collapsed, mainly because Eisenhower refused to apologize to Khrushchev for the incident. The Russian leader left the talks in a huff.

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At his trial Powers pleaded guilty and was convicted of espionage on August 19^th. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment and seven years hard labour. He served one year and nine months of the sentence when, on February 10, 1962, he was exchanged for the Russian spy known as Rudolf Abel who had been arrested in 1957 and was serving a 45 year sentence.

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Formerly a member of the Nazi party, a commissioned Sturmbannführer of the paramilitary SS and decorated Nazi war hero, Werner von Braun was responsible for the deadly V-2 long-range rocket during World War II. 

After the war, he and some of his team of scientists were spirited away to the United States as part of the then secret, and highly controversial, Operation Paperclip.

Von Braun worked for the US Army and later  NASA, under which he served as director of the newly formed Marshall Space Flight Centre and as the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon.  He died in 1977.

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1960 was the year my parents first had a TV.  I was 14 and had been brought up listening to the radio, and, looking at the programmes on offer on the Home and Light services, I imagine the TV was a Godsend.  Two TV programmes I would definitely have watched that evening were ‘The Adventures of Hiram Holliday’ a comedy starring Wally Cox, and ‘No Hiding Place’ a Scotland Yard crime show starring Raymond Francis.  I also note ITV at 4:15 was showing the series ‘Ivanhoe’ which starred someone called Roger Moore.

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So this was what he was doing before he came up with Lord of the Dance etc.

I like the idea that the clothes drier not only dries and airs clothes but also ‘dries the pots’ and ‘warms the room’.  What more could you ask for and just 1 penny under £6 (or a week’s wages for many people).

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I can remember when we only ate chicken at Christmas but can’t remember when eggs came without shells. Maybe that was before my time. 

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That’s 9 week’s wages and no HD!

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This is before the James Bond films started which may explain why Bond looks more like Bill Haley (with his ‘kiss-curl’) than Sean Connery.  I assume the villain is the eponymous Dr No.

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Anyone who has followed this blog will realise that I know nothing about football. I can now reveal that I know even less (if that’s possible) about cricket. I don’t even understand the scoring, so this chart might as well be in Chinese.  Someone might find it interesting though.

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The book “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by D H Lawrence was originally published in 1928 in Italy but banned in the UK.  It tells of Lady Chatterley's passionate affair with Mellors, the family gamekeeper, and details their erotic meetings.

In 1959 the UK Government introduced the Obscene Publications Act that said that any book considered obscene by some people, but that could be shown to have "redeeming social merit", might still be published.

In 1960 the publishers Penguin printed and stored 200,000 copies, sending 12 copies to the Director of Public Prosecutions and challenging him to prosecute. He did.

The six-day trial at the Old Bailey began on 27 October. The defence produced 35 witnesses, and the prosecution was unable to make a substantial case against the novel.

Famously the prosecution counsel Mervyn Griffith-Jones shocked the jury by asking: "Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?"  It goes unrecorded whether he prefixed this question with “By Gad, Sir...”

The jury returned a verdict of ‘not guilty’ and the book went on sale officially on the 10^th November 1960 amid a great deal of publicity.

The 12 books sold in August in Nottingham must have come from the 200000 copies stockpiled by Penguin pending the trial. If the buyers had some proof that the books were bought when they were, I reckon they’d be worth a bit on E-bay by now.

Sorry yet again

No post again this week I'm afraid.  Will try to resume normal service next Sunday (12th February)

Body in Suitcase: New Shock (Brighton Trunk Murder)

Daily Mirror dated Tuesday June 19th 1934

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On 17^th June 1934 a worker at the left-luggage office of Brighton Railway Station complained about the smell coming from a large suitcase or trunk that had been deposited there a while before.  The police were called and, when opened, the trunk was found to contain the dismembered torso of a woman. Two days later, further searches at other Railway termini turned up the trunk at King’s Cross Station in London. This contained a woman’s legs.  Sir Bernard Spilsbury, England’s most senior and most famous criminal anthropologist (and 1930's answer to Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan), established that the torso and legs were from the same person, but little else.  

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As can be seen from this clipping form the next day’s Mirror the story took a bizarre turn with the revelations of a Psychic, even so the rest of the victim was never found, her identity never established and the murderer never charged.

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During house-to-house investigations around Brighton Railway station the police found another trunk and another body.  It was soon decided that this had no connection to the previous discoveries and was treated as a separate case.  This time the victim was identified, as Violette Kaye, and her ex-boyfriend Tony Mancini stood trial for murder but he was acquitted due to lack of evidence.  38 years later Mancini apparently confessed to a ‘News of the World’ journalist (remember them?) that he had killed Violette.


Incidentally, for crime fiction fans I can thoroughly recommend Peter Guttridge's Brighton Trilogy - 'City of Dreadful Night', 'The Last King of Brighton' and 'The Thing Itself' - the latter out in April 2012.

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Piracy in the China Seas was quite common in the 1930’s. According to a statement in Hansard in 1936, 17 British adults and 70 British schoolchildren had been victims of Chinese pirates between 1933 and 1935. Of these only 3 were killed.  On the 17^th June 1934 SS Shuntein, a passenger and cargo vessel on only its second voyage was taken over by Chinese pirates. 5 Brits, 1 Japanese and about 20 Chinese passengers were taken onto 8 or 9 Junks.  6 Royal Navy vessels led by the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle immediately set out to intercept the pirates and, having dropped warning notices demanding the release of the hostages, proceeded to bomb and machine gun the boats.  The British and Japanese hostages were released unharmed. 

“By Gad, Sir, that’ll show the yellow devils they can’t mess with the British Empire. Pass me another Singapore Sling.”

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George Fratson was subsequently released from prison.  Lucky really that he hadn’t been hung (or is it hanged?).  I hope Messrs Avory, Swift, Branson and Finlay read this and had a moment's pause for thought. 

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Enough of crime for now.  The play turned out to be J M (Peter Pan) Barrie’s last – ‘The Boy David’ and indeed Elizabeth Bergner did play the title role!  It was premiered in Edinburgh in 1936 and, despite scenery by Augustus John and music by William Walton, received a less than favourable review from the Glasgow Herald. (search Google News for “‘Elizabeth Bergner’ Barrie”)

Ironic and sad. And 78 years later it still happens, but fortunately only rarely.

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Latymer Court still stands today and if you want a 1 bedroom flat there you’ll need about £300,000, which, I note, is almost as much as it cost to build the whole place in 1934.

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Is there nothing new under the sun?  Miss-behaving footballer in road-rage attack.

Some things have changed, though.

No Post Today (Again)

Sorry but still recovering from an eye operation and virtually blind in my left eye.  Will try again in 2 weeks - 5th February 2012.

No Post Today

Sorry, but no newspaper today because I have a detached retina.  Hopefully normal service will be resumed in a fortnight on Sunday 22nd January.

Let's Party like it's 2000

Millennium Daily Mail dated Saturday January 1st 2000

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There were many an hour wasted round the coffee machines of the nation discussing whether or not the new millennium started on 1^st January 2000 or 2001. Who cares – there goes another £10000 worth of fireworks, oooh, aaah.

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The Y2K Bug or Year 2000 Bug was the big media-driven scare of 1999. They predicted that at the stroke of midnight when the century changed from 19 to 20 computers controlling everything from your trusty video recorder to in-flight jumbo jets would crash.  The problem went back to the early days of commercial programming when computer memory and storage space was at a premium.  To save space most date fields in records were given just 2 bytes instead of 4 – i.e. yy instead off ccyy – i.e just the year without the century – i.e. 99 instead of 1999.

The news media decided that this meant that at the vital moment the computers would think it was 1900, and because the Wright Brothers hadn’t flown yet, all the planes would just drop from the sky.

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Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin became the first President of the Russian Federation (which replaced the old communist USSR) in 1991 and tried to convert the Russian state into a ‘free-market’ economy. The result was widespread corruption and inflation, not to mention personal unpopularity.  He finally resigned and his Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took over.

Yeltsin was an eccentric figure who enjoyed a drink of five – a sort of political Oliver Reed.

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Born when Rutherford B. Hayes was US President, Queen Victoria was on the English throne and Gladstone was Prime Minister, she was already 23 years old when the Wright Brothers pioneered powered flight. She lived through two World Wars, the proliferation of the motor car, the Stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing depression, the start of both radio and TV broadcasting, the rise and fall of Communism, the Cold War, the assassination of John F Kennedy, the coming and/or going of 24 Presidents and saw the first man walk on the Moon. Now that's what you call a life.

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Ex-Beatle George Harrison was stabbed in the chest by and intruder in the early hours of Thursday 30^th December.  The attacker, Mike Abram, was found to be insane and committed to a secure hospital but was released in 2002!

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As it says, predictions are pointless and a Happy New Year to one and all.