![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
10 July 2005 10:38 amOne hundred and twenty years ago today, the fourth and last chapter of W.T. Stead's "Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" series of articles was published in the Pall Mall Gazette. A hundred and twenty years ago Friday, a mob, rabid to get their hands on the day's issue of the Pall Mall, which was contained the third chapter of the "Maiden Tribute", threw a man through the plate glass windows of the newspaper's office.
I'm assuming the mob, with typical mob logic, figured the unfortunate gentleman would serve as a battering ram. I have not found any reference to the poor man's condition after his impromptu flight. One hopes he wasn't killed.
W.T. Stead, on the other hand, was at this time practically living in the Pall Mall Gazette offices. In part due to the difficulties of getting in and out past the mob at his door, and in part because he was writing the "Maiden Tribute" chapters right up to the minute of each day's printing deadlines. He slept on a couch in his office, leapt up at random intervals to write, paced the halls giving interviews out to those few journalists from other papers who had snuck in through the throng outside, edited and oversaw the publication of each day's issue, kept up with the multitude of newspapers and periodicals that he read each day, and wrote a staggering number of letters to his many acquaintances, supporters, and detractors. He laughed in the face of the government representatives who came and alternatively ordered and begged him to leave off publishing his articles. He fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon and stayed up all night.
I'll stop now before I give in to the urge to copy and paste the bulk of my third chapter into the post to explain what a wonderful and important bit of journalism the "Maiden Tribute" was. Instead, here's a picture of W.T. Stead from the "Maiden Tribute" era.
( W.T. Stead, 1885 )
I'm assuming the mob, with typical mob logic, figured the unfortunate gentleman would serve as a battering ram. I have not found any reference to the poor man's condition after his impromptu flight. One hopes he wasn't killed.
W.T. Stead, on the other hand, was at this time practically living in the Pall Mall Gazette offices. In part due to the difficulties of getting in and out past the mob at his door, and in part because he was writing the "Maiden Tribute" chapters right up to the minute of each day's printing deadlines. He slept on a couch in his office, leapt up at random intervals to write, paced the halls giving interviews out to those few journalists from other papers who had snuck in through the throng outside, edited and oversaw the publication of each day's issue, kept up with the multitude of newspapers and periodicals that he read each day, and wrote a staggering number of letters to his many acquaintances, supporters, and detractors. He laughed in the face of the government representatives who came and alternatively ordered and begged him to leave off publishing his articles. He fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon and stayed up all night.
I'll stop now before I give in to the urge to copy and paste the bulk of my third chapter into the post to explain what a wonderful and important bit of journalism the "Maiden Tribute" was. Instead, here's a picture of W.T. Stead from the "Maiden Tribute" era.
