"Hash" was a weekly paper, owned by one American, edited by another, and conducted on strictly American principles. It mostly consisted of sharp, incisive paragraphs, strongly epigrammatic in their phraseology, and attention was drawn to these by startling sensational headings. The staff of this journal comprised two men besides the editor, and there was a good deal of paste and scissors work in connection with the production of a number. As to the name Hash, it requires some explanation.
The word "hash" is used in America to designate a certain dish much in favour with lodging-house keepers in the land of the free, wherein all the unconsidered trifles left over from the six dinners of the week are made into a savoury stew to serve for the seventh, and, being highly spiced and deftly concocted, is apt to deceive an inexperienced novice in lodging-house cookery, inasmuch as he deems it a dish formed of new ingredients, a mistaken view, as can be seen from the foregoing explanation.
The proprietor of Hash, therefore, did in a literary sense that which is often done in a culinary one, for, by stealing items of news from other sources and making them into spicy little paragraphs, he succeeded in producing a very readable paper, much in favour with Londoners.
If there was any new scandal, or shocking occurrence, Hash was sure to have a bright and witty description of it, and consequently sold capitally. It was in this paper that the following items of interest were told to the public a week after the discovery of the body in Jermyn Street:
"HIGH JINKS IN HIGH LIFE.
"They're at it again. When will the British aristocracy learn that they must not covet their neighbour's wife? Another elopement has taken place, which will, doubtless, end as usual in the Divorce Court. Same old game.
"Last Monday Lady B---- left her home and went off with Lord C---- an intimate friend of the lady's husband. It generally is the intimate friend who is on the racket.
"The guilty couple have sailed in a yacht for foreign climes, and the indignant husband, Sir R---- B---- is inquiring for their whereabouts. If he calls at our office, we will lend him articles of warfare, and do our best to put him on the track. There is nothing new or original about this comedy--they all do it. It's getting a trifle monotonous, and we should suggest something new in the elopement line--a mother-in-law, for instance. Good old mother-in-law!
"When the pursuing husband comes up with the flying lovers, we will give a report of the inquest."
In the same number of Hash a longer article appeared, headed: