PART THE THIRD.
Newspapers.—Distemper.—Guildhall.—Hangings.—Daring Burglaries.—A Lock-up Story.—An Alibi.—The Mud Case.—When the Railways First Came.—Retrospective.
In my former Notes I alluded to the Post Office. Well, the first Post Office I recollect was a little room about 10ft. square—I think it has been altered since—in one of those houses at the back of the “White Lion” gates. An old gentleman lived there who was Postmaster, and I think he was assisted, being rather infirm, by his daughter, and I have been told it was the amusement of a little grandchild or a little boy accustomed to visit him, that by way of a treat he was allowed to catch letters in his pinafore, and as a grand treat he was allowed to stamp them. At that time the Post Office establishment consisted of the Postmaster, the lady who assisted him, and the letter carrier, who, as some of you recollect, was Mrs. Waterfield, a tidy woman, who had a little basket in which she carried letters. By degrees the establishment got on. You will bear in mind that at that time we were not troubled with Post Office Orders. There was no way of conveying 5s. or 6s. in stamps, or by order, from one part of the country to another. The present Post Office consists of palatial buildings, since their enlargement in 1904, and great departmental accommodation, the smallest room of which is larger than that old Post Office altogether. It would not do now to catch letters in a pinafore, as their number is many millions a month. There are telegraph messages, Post Office Orders, and Savings Bank business. The Postmaster and old woman have grown into a Postmaster at £500 a year, Chief Clerk, a very important personage, the Assistant Superintendent (Postal Department), the Assistant Superintendent (Telegraph Department), 7 controllers, and a staff numbering altogether nearly 350, with 66 sub-Post Offices—a pretty good number. A great deal of the business is forwarding mails passing through Peterborough, as a convenient centre for such purposes.
Then, as to newspapers, we used to have once a week the “Stamford Mercury,” a very good paper, full of advertisements and local news, but the “Stamford Mercury” was always conducted on this principle: “Opinion is quite free in this country, and we are going to dictate to nobody,” so you never have editorial articles in the “Stamford Mercury.” They used sometimes to select leaders and bits of intelligence from other papers, generally of one way of thinking. Then we used to have the London papers. They cost 7d. each. London papers used to come down the day after publication, after they had gone the round of the club houses, the hotels, and the London eating houses. Those that had been in the eating houses used sometimes to come in rather a greasy form. Now we can have the “Times” on our breakfast table, or earlier if wished. After a time some gentlemen thought we were very benighted in Peterborough, and two of them, very much in advance of their age, started what we should now call a Society paper of a very pronounced type called the “Peterborough Argus.” The first one heard of it was, after one or two publications, that a solicitor had inflicted upon the responsible Editor a sound thrashing for a libel. The case went to the Northampton Assizes, and although the verdict was not quite “served him right,” the publisher got damages of very small amount. It was one of the most scurrilous papers in its way, and at length it became intolerable.
We now have in Peterborough four newspapers, besides a most ample supply of daily newspapers. It has been very interesting to witness the growth of Peterborough newspapers, particularly that of the Advertiser (the first in the field—in 1854) from its small two pages to the very satisfactory form in which it now appears, with its mid-weekly auxiliary, the Citizen. There was also a difficulty as to supply of books. There was a book club, the Church Porch Club, existing fifty years ago, and one or two others, but somehow or other literature did not thrive very much in Peterborough. One gentleman retired from the book club, and when asked why he gave up he said “The fact is I cannot eat suppers any longer.” It does not strike me as a good reason to give up reading, because one would have thought he could have read better without his supper. However, they were not then so badly off for newspapers as they were 150 years ago.
I mentioned just now the “Stamford Mercury.” I have before me a copy of the “Stamford Mercury” a friend has kindly lent me, that I might extract a little valuable comparison. What should we think if our intellectual food came from sources such as that we got, for instance, in the year 1730, as seen in the “Stamford Mercury.” It then had a most aspiring title, as you will see:—“The Stamford Mercury, being Historical and Political Observations on the Transactions of Europe, Together with Remarks on Trade.” Here is this little sheet—a good-sized sheet of letter paper, one-eighth taken up by the title and an illustrated figure of “Mercury.” Another eighth is literally taken up by “Bills of Mortality of London for the week or month,” and from it I wonder what some of the diseases of that day were. One person died of “Headmouldshot,” one of “Horse Shoehead,” and amongst other things there is very large mortality attributed to “teeth.” Another eighth of that paper is taken up with price lists, giving the rate of exchange between London and Madrid, also between London and Cadiz, etc. Then prices of goods at “Bear Key.” Another eighth is given up to observations upon the affairs of Europe: “Our Government has received advice from Florence that Princess Dowager Palatine has renounced all her pretentions to the succession in favour of Don Carlos,” and such pieces as that, and then the other half is taken up with advertisements. It is a curious thing that in one advertisement we are told “To Let, the Three Tuns, an old accustomed inn on the Market Place at Peterborough, Northamptonshire,” that being the site where the present Stamford and Spalding Bank now stands. That was in 1730.
Twenty years later, in 1755, there is an Ipswich paper, and to show how history repeats itself, for the consolation of our farming friends, we are told that amongst other Acts just passed was one to continue several laws relating to the distemper then raging among the horned cattle in the Kingdom. There is nothing new under the sun. We have had it before, and no doubt they said in that time legislation very much interfered with the markets. Another curious thing in the paper is this: “The ship the Royal George was put out of the Dock to go to Spithead.” Was this the Royal George that “went down with twice 400 men”? Public news was important just then. There are details as to watching the French Fleet. Those were very anxious times, but the peculiarity of those papers is that they gave you so little of what may be called local news. Our own local papers give you ample City News and a Complete Chronicle of the affairs of villages; but you may look through those papers and find nothing approaching local news excepting this:—
“By a letter from Thirsk in Yorkshire we learn that very lately a terrible shock of earthquake was felt, inasmuch that several large rocks were removed to considerable distances; several large grown elms were swallowed up by the earth so that no part of them remained to be seen but the uppermost branches. A man driving a cart near the place, the horses were so much frightened by the shock that they broke loose from the carriage and ran away. The horses seem to have behaved very sensibly.”
Then there is an advertisement which strikes one as rather peculiar, because I think if some of the ladies now-a-days happened of this misfortune you would hardly put it in the paper:—
“Lost out of Tom Shave’s London caravan between London and Ipswich (but supposed to be dropped between here and Colchester) a small black trunk, containing a pink silk gown, with a pink sarsenet lining, a blue silk quilted petticoat, a pink silver lined child’s hat, a white chip hat with pink ribbons, a pink silk skirt, two pair of white cotton stockings, two shifts, two lawn handkerchiefs and owner’s other things, with a hoop petticoat tied on the outside.”