“The Produce and Refuse of Civilization Announced in Staring Letters, in Daubed Effigies, Base, Paltry, Grotesque…” Or: Victorian Advertising:

Unlike us, the Victorians did not have a TV or radio to bombard them with constant advertising at peak time. They had magazines, but nowhere near as many as assault our senses when we walk into a supermarket or newsagents. But advertising in the latter part nineteenth century was still big, brash and almost everywhere. Victorian companies that wanted to persuade the public to buy their products had, really, only one method of advertising, and that was through printed words and pictures. Adverts in the form of posters, handbills and newspaper advertisements were hugely prevalent from the 1860’s onwards, and the business of advertising grew larger and larger as the century went on. The entrepreneurial businessman Mr. Luckworth Crewe in George Gissing’s 1894 novel of London society ‘In the Year of the Jubilee’ summed up the mood of his fellow businessmen:

"Look here," said I, "my dear sir, you're impeding the progress of civilisation. How could we have become what we are without the modern science and art of advertising? Till advertising sprang up, the world was barbarous. Do you suppose people kept themselves clean before they were reminded at every corner of the benefits of soap? Do you suppose they were healthy before every wall and hoarding told them what medicine to take for their ailments? Not they indeed! Why, a man like you—an enlightened man, I see it in your face (he was as ugly as Ben's bull-dog), ought to be proud of helping on the age."

Later on in the book, the wealth of advertising on show in the 1890’s is described wonderfully by Gissing:

…They descended and stood together upon the platform, among hurrying crowds, in black fumes that poisoned the palate with sulphur. This way and that sped the demon engines, whirling lighted waggons full of people. Shrill whistles, the hiss and roar of steam, the bang, clap, bang of carriage doors, the clatter of feet on wood and stone – all echoed and reverberated from a huge cloudy vault above them. High and low, on every available yard of wall, advertisements clamoured to the eye: theatres, journals, soaps, medicines, concerts, furniture, wines, prayer-meetings – all the produce and refuse of civilization announced in staring letters, in daubed effigies, base, paltry, grotesque. A battle ground of advertisements, fitly chosen amid subterranean din and reek; a symbol to the gaze of that relentless warfare which ceases not, night and day, in the world above...

I’ve found it difficult to pinpoint when advertising really boomed in the nineteenth century, but one of the more handy pointers has been the press of the time, most notably old newspapers. Here, on the left, is the front cover of the Illustrated London News from December 1852. 

As you can see, the front bears nothing but news. Generally, these newspapers would have pages of advertisements inside and on the back cover.

On the right is a picture of the same publication from 1896:

The latter version has dedicated its entire front page to adverts, and even ten years prior to this particular issue, research suggests that newspapers began to dramatically increase the amount of space within their pages dedicated to advertising. In 1886 that cornerstone of news for upper class England, The Times, devoted almost 60% of its space to advertising. The Illustrated London News was well behind with 20%, but seemed to make up for it by placing the adverts in prominent places, such as the covers, as seen above. Everything seems to suggest that the mass shift in advertising was gearing up toward one special event that businesses and entrepreneurs could use to market their goods, and I and have narrowed it down to Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee in 1887.

That year a handbook was published entitled ‘An Advertiser’s guide to publicity’ which encouraged advertisers to focus their efforts upon one main theme that may catch the attention of the public and help sell their products. (We see the self-same tactic these days – how much junk have you seen lately with the Olympics emblazoned across it, and does everyone remember the commemorative tea towels, mugs, coins, plates &c from the Royal Wedding last year?)

In 1887 advertisers clung to the coat-tails of the Queen’s popularity and used her image to sell their wares – anything from perfume to pills, jewelry to drinks. In fact, Gissing’s Luckworth Crewe reproaches himself in the novel for not having jumped on the bandwagon and developed a ‘Jubilee drink…that would have sold itself.’

Luckworth Crewe – or rather, Gissing – recognized that the public will buy anything if it is associated with a popular figure or event, and the public’s celebratory mood in the year of Victoria’s jubilee created a huge demand for commemorative products and items bearing the image of the Queen.

In that same jubilee year a massive fire raged through London department store Whiteleys. Why is this relevant? Well, the fire isn’t, but the building it destroyed is. Whiteleys opened in 1863, but by 1867 it had swallowed up a whole row of shops, and within its walls were various ‘departments’ in which customers could buy a vast range of goods. By 1890, the shop was employing six thousand people. Whiteleys had started a trend for so called ‘department stores’, and by the 1880’s London was full of them. In an age when your social standing was expressed by the clothes you wore and the décor of your home, these stores did a roaring trade, and competed with each other for the public’s attention and cash with ever larger advertisements, and ever more ingenious marketing schemes, such as elaborate window displays. (Another form of advertising that survives to this day, and can be seen on Oxford Street at Christmas)

Adverts had begun to appear everywhere, and after the Queen’s jubilee, showed no signs of going anywhere. As is still the case, something which is so successful at making money is very difficult to stop once it has started. Trains, omnibuses, walls and, as we have seen, newspapers were plastered with advertisements for every kind of item you could imagine. There was even a court case in 1895 in which a man (who sounds like a bit of a busy-body) took an omnibus firm to court because their advertisements in the carriage covered part of the window:

ADVERTISING ON OMNIBUSES

Yesterday, at Bow Street, Mr. Vaughan had another point to decide with respect to omnibus advertising. The complainant was the Rev. William James Jenkins, and he summoned the London General Omnibus Company for unlawfully suffering a certain advertisement to appear on the inside of a stage carriage so as to cause annoyance to passengers.

Mr. Hicks (of the firm of Hicks, Davis, and Hunt) appeared for the Company.

Mr. Jenkins conducted his case in person, and he stated that on the morning of the 26^th ult. he was riding in the Strand in an omnibus belonging to the defendant Company, and noticed that, contrary to the statute, advertisements were affixed to the windows. Mr. Vaughan — On every window in the omnibus?

Mr. Jenkins —I won't say that there were advertisements on every window, but they certainly appeared on at least six of the windows in this particular omnibus.

Mr. Vaughan — Did they cover any part of the window.

Witness — Yes, they covered the top of the window to a depth of five or six inches.

Mr. Vaughan — Did you notice what the advertisements were?

Witness — l noticed there was a soap advertisement.

Mr. Vaughan — Did the advertisements cause any obstruction to you?

Witness — Yes, they did; I had to bend my head to see whether I was Hearing my destination.

Mr. Vaughan— You mean to say that, when looking straight, you could not see? Witness —Not what I wanted to see.

Mr. Vaughan — Did you feel yourself aggrieved by that ?

Witness — I felt so much aggrieved that I came here to complain to you. I have here a copy of the regulations I have obtained from the Secretary of State.

Mr. Hicks contended that no evidence had been given in support of the summons. The complaint the Company had to answer was one for suffering an advertisement to appear so as to cause annoyance.

Mr. Vaughan — There are statutory enactments as well as the regulations of the Secretary of State with regard to omnibuses. Advertisements affixed to the window of an omnibus are clearly prohibited.

Mr. Hicks — But this summons is for causing an annoyance, and l am here to meet that. Advertisements have been allowed on these omnibuses for years by the Commissioner of Police, who is the servant of the Secretary of State.

Mr. Vaughan — I know nothing about them. I do not allow them. I have had cases of this sort before, and I have convicted.

Mr. Hicks We are summoned for annoyance, and I want to know how the complainant is annoyed. (To Witness) Why do you devote yourself to worrying omnibus companies in this way?

Witness — I will answer that in the words of the Judges.

Mr. Hicks — At no great length, I hope.

Witness Oh, no; there are only six lines on this occasion, they were most merciful. Witness proceeded to read the expressed opinion of a learned Judge, that a traveller who felt himself aggrieved by the conduct of a railway, tram, or omnibus company was justified in prosecuting on behalf of the general public.

Mr. Hicks — And various magistrates have told you that what you are doing is nonsense.

Witness — On the contrary.

Mr. Hicks — Did Mr. Newton, in dismissing a summons taken out by you, and awarding the other side two guineas costs, say that your proceedings were vexatious?

Mr. Vaughan — l cannot go into that, because I know nothing about the circumstances. Mr. Hicks — I want to know, Mr. Jenkins, what advertisement caused you annoyance. Witness — Advertisements not according to the statute.

Mr. Vaughan — What is the personal annoyance.

Witness — It is, as I said the other day, if I were a tee-totaller, which I am not, I should object to a gin and bitters advertisement.

Mr. Vaughan — That is a hypothetical case.

Mr. Hicks — ln the same way, I suppose, if you were a moral person you would object to anything immoral.

Mr. Vaughan pointed out that these advertisements were prohibited by the regulations of the Secretary of State.

Mr. Hicks — We are not summoned here under the regulations of the Secretary of State. The statute says that before it can be illegal the advertisement must be an annoyance.

Mr. Vaughan — This summons was taken out for an infraction of the statute, and not for an infraction of the Secretary of State's regulations.

Mr. Hicks — I am prepared with independent evidence to show that the advertisements do not cause annoyance.

Mr. Vaughan — The proper course is to withdraw this summons, and then, if you think proper, you can take out a summons for the infringement of the regulations of the Secretary of State. If the Company is wisely advised it will withdraw these advertisements. The regulations are most precise. It is ordered that advertisements shall not be affixed to the windows. It is not a case of the exclusion of light or air. Witness — If the Company follows your advice and withdraws these advertisements, I will take no further proceedings.

Mr. Hicks — That is very good of you.

Mr. Vaughan — lf the complainant chooses he can take proceedings in the way indicated.

This summons is withdrawn.

            - Morning Post - Friday 4th October 1895

‘An old soldier’ wrote the following letter to The Morning Post ten years later, for the Queen’s diamond jubilee in 1897 in which he complained that the articles on show were of a very poor quality:

AN OLD SOLDIER TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING POST.

SIR, — The Jubilee has been the means of flooding the shop windows with wares of every sort and kind bearing the National emblems: Jubilee mugs, walking-sticks, charms, photograph frames, links, watches, pins, clocks — nothing is lacking; but it is too lamentable to see the terrible errors which have been made in carrying out the heraldic part of the designs. It has, alas! too long been evident that heraldry is almost forgotten by this generation, for it almost seems that the chief necessity in colouring the national emblems is to do that which is the reverse of right. To represent the historic Union Rose of York and Lancaster, so long the badge of England (and now taking its part in the Union badge), as a garden variety of red or white, or to omit the double treasure within which the Scotch lion should perform his gymnastic feats, are merely minor errors. Again, we frequently see the Irish harp on a green ground instead of the Royal blue; also the colours of the lions and of the ground on which they disport themselves reversed. I noticed at a certain store in the vicinity of Albert-gate the red St. George's Cross in the Union flag shown blue, St. Patrick white on red, and St. Andrew blue on white. Surely, when one sees these flagrant mistakes, it is time that some steps should be taken to prevent unscrupulous tradesmen from foisting on a credulous public these despicable parodies of the National insignia. Has not the Earl Marshal of England the power to forbid or punish such desecration? or, if not, cannot Parliament confer such power on him? Now that her Majesty's uniforms have ceased to clothe the sandwichmen, could not some little attention be paid to this misuse of the Royal Arms and badges? Truly there are a few bright exceptions, amongst them a well known Bond Street firm, who are making the most laudable efforts to ensure the strictest accuracy in design, and their Jubilee souvenirs are most instructive, being quite an education to those not well versed in the intricacies of heraldry. — Yours, &c,

            - Morning Post, 4th June, 1897

In 1897 you could get yourself anything from a jubilee bible, or a jubilee prayer book, to a jubilee handkerchief or a jubilee ash tray. I have even seen mentions of a jubilee comb and a jubilee toothpick. Another big national event and nothing changes. (Do you still have your Charles and Diana commemorative wall-plate?)

But what did the Victorian public make of all these invasive and ever-present advertisements that were spreading over the city like technicolour ivy?

Victorian Bill-Posters

I discovered many, many letters similar to the one above, in which concerned members of the public wrote complaints to editors of various newspapers concerning advertising:

“If you once give the pushing advertiser scope you never know where he will finish. He not only disfigures our walls and hedgerows, but he desecrates and spoils the landscape, and if he were allowed he would call in even the clouds to his aid.“ (From a letter to the editor of Reynolds's Newspaper, October 1895)

I managed to find a particularly humerous opinion piece on the subject of advertising, and it came, interestingly, from the London Society magazine all the way back in 1863, suggesting that the onslaught of advertising was perhaps a slow-burner, that exploded in the late 1880’s:

The Modern Art of Advertising.

There is a worldly wisdom continually crying aloud at the corners of the streets and arresting a considerable amount of popular attention – a wisdom which, utterly discarding the theory of happiness which would teach mankind to make their wants few, is never tired of reminding us how long we have been satisfied without obtaining possession of those things which properly constituted minds have recognized as necessities.

Of the thousand conveniences that ‘nobody should be without’, a large percentage becomes so notorious that we dare not acknowledge our ignorance of the comforts they profess to bestow. Of the thousand worthless inventions which are published into public notice by loud reiteration of their supposed qualities, a still larger proportion finds purchasers who cannot doubt the testimony of big placards and favourable certificates.

'Nothing is done now without advertising' has become an indisputable statement in relation to almost every trade where there is any possibility of competition; and even the quietest, sternest representatives of the quiet old steady men of business, who rejoiced in their scorn of a puff, and long held fast to the proverb that ‘Good wine needs no bush’ – have latterly been compelled to adopt the new method which has been introduced by the revolution effected through advertisements.

There is, doubtless, much to be said in favour of our present system, and to people really ‘in want’ of an article intended to serve a desired purpose, there can be no excuse on the score of ignorance, and much unnecessary trouble is saved: at the same time industry and invention are stimulated, and many actual wants are created which indirectly improve the condition of mankind.

Having frankly, and with considerable difficulty, admitted this much, it is surely excusable to point out the lamentable results which our present system of advertising have brought upon a number of individuals who have a right to be considered, and of whom the present writer is one.

In the first outburst of the advertising mania – the most startling symptoms of which were enormous placards announcing ‘monstre concerts’ and ‘cheap clothing’ – the government wisely interfered to prevent huge and sometimes revolving structures of timber, pasteboard and papier mache, from being drawn through the streets  by horses, to the obstruction of roadways and the danger of Her Majesty’s subjects. The class of which the present writer is one – the nervous, the hypochondriac, the irritable portion of the London public – may I add that portion of the public possessing a refined organization and a high sense of moral responsibility? – these, I say, were very grateful for this;  but what the better are we off at this moment, when the entire street architecture of this great metropolis is emblazoned with garish posters – when every blank wall smells of printers’ ink, and all London seems to have entered into a conspiracy to shout emphatic falsehoods in letters two feet long?

If anything could add to the horror occasioned by this state of things, it would be the miserable want of appropriateness which characterizes the mode of advertizing. There was once the chance of an obnoxious ‘bill’ exhibited on a builders hoarding, being overlaid by another less repulsive; but now that the ‘bill posters’ have themselves become capitalists, and buy up acres of dead wall and temporary fence for their exclusive use, the public is entirely at their mercy; and while the palings enclosing the site for a new chapel flame with dramatic sensations, - the exterior walls of harmonic retreats contain parochial announcements or appeals to the working classes.

Why should an individual with the physical and moral organization above alluded to be physically startled by the impertinent questions, and the still more impertinent assertions that stare upon him from every side? There is at least some redress for us if we are suddenly assaulted, or if we are knocked down and run over by a careless driver in the public streets; and it may be well maintained that these verbal assaults are even more brutal, - the shameless insults to our sensibilities more flagrant than any more physical violence. It is true that I have known of very severe personal accidents resulting from a strong north-east wind, and its effects upon the itinerant advertisers who carry great placards upon wooden frames; but these are nothing to the injuries of which I complain.

For what reason, let me ask, am I to be haunted, even in the seclusion of my own house, with enquiries from the opposite wall, - why I pay more than I do pay for all sorts of articles of domestic use? – why I do not double up my bedsteads? – whether I know where to go for the commonest necessaries of life? Why does some persistent child (I have no family) continually address me as papa and ask me to take it to some terrible bazaar or toy shop? Why, above all, am I (not advised) but absolutely commanded to eat and drink all sorts of things which would disagree with me; - to read half a dozen newspapers and periodicals (lying publications), each of which has a considerably larger circulation than any other? Why, above all, am I insulted by being made to speak for myself: and after having seen quite enough of sensation dramas to last a lifetime, to declare that I want to see any of them again?

Some of the questions are, on the face of them, grossly immoral. I remember having seen quite an eruption of little black bills on a fence near my house, enquiring if I wanted a cheap funeral; while in some others, addressed to the working classes, the question was artfully insinuated, ‘Why pay rent?’ there was an attempt to explain this shameful question away by some allusion to a building society I admit, but that is very little to the purpose.

The suburbs of London are distinguished, either by a more glaring display of colour in the bills which adorn the walls, or by a mere reliance upon size as regards the letters. The inhabitants must, many of them, be reduced to the last stage of indignation at the impudent meddling with their affairs which many of these remarks display; or at all events at the assumption of confidential smartness with which they appeal to vulgar readers. I referred the origin of the advertising mania to the monstre concerts and the cheap clothiers, but, in reality, the actual parents of the funny and confidential, and therefore inexpressibly vulgar announcements were the itinerant vendor of ginger beer and the marine store dealer.

Who cannot remember that painted board which adorned the red and blue ginger beer truck, once seen in the streets, but now seldom to  be found, except at fairs  and  on the road side, by commons and open pleasure-grounds?  The design was singularly infelicitous, inasmuch as on a broiling July day it depended for effect solely on recollections of the Christmas pantomime. There was clown, who, speaking from a long inflated bladder protruding from his mouth, was supposed to say, 'Here we are, try our ginger pop;' while to add force to his illustration of its merit, he had just discharged the cork from a bottle into the eye of pantaloon. Meanwhile, a short-waisted lady, with a large parasol, and a gentleman in a light blue body coat, recorded their conviction ‘that that was the shop for ginger-pop.'

The present style of theatrical advertisement is so obviously borrowed from the marine store dealer, that there can be no other proof required of the decay of the British drama.

That there may be many unenlightened, shall I say miserably misguided people, over the border of London, to whom slangy appeals are not offensive, I am afraid must be conceded, else why did I have thrust  into my hand the other day a bill  which, emanating from a tailor's shop in Whitechapel, spoke of the proprietor as 'a kicksies builder,' and made known the fact that as he had 'just made his escape from America, not forgetting to put his mauleys on some of the right sort  of stuff,' he was in a position, having 'some ready in his kick, to grab the chance' of buying some material for his business? After reading this, I was scarcely surprised to learn that 'Upper Benjamins' were 'built on a downy plan,'  that 'Moleskins built hanky panky,' and 'with artful buttons at bottom,' were quoted at  'half a monarch,' or that some other articles of wearing apparel were generally disposed of as 'mud pipes,' 'knee caps,' and 'trotter cases.'  Beyond the suburbs themselves the advertisements extend as they decrease in size; but still on park walls, railway arches, and canal bridges the weary public are enjoined to 'try' everything, from gin to soothing syrup, and are furthermore conjured to 'COUGH NO MORE.'

Our public conveyances are but traps in which the tired wayfarer is forced to seek some distraction from the wretched accommodation afforded him by perpetually repeating to himself the form of words from which he fancies he has found a temporary refuge. Almost in despair, and at the suggestion of a friend, I was recently induced to engage that description of cab known as ‘a Hansom’ to take me to ‘The West End’. There, at least, I believed I should be free from torment. But with a refinement of ingenuity little less than diabolical, an oval announcement of cheap cutlery had been placed on the splash-board, there to stare me mercilessly in the face.

'The West End' itself is of course a saturnalia of advertisements. Announcements that 'He is coming' vie in intensity of colour with blatant injunctions to eat, buy, and see everything; till in a wild jumble of The Duke's Motto, elastic garters, Revalenta Arabica,  food for cattle, Morison's pills, the Cure, anti-garotters, and the Original Nerves, the afflicted observer seeks a refuge in the nearest tavern, where he is fortunate if he doesn't find the very pipe-lights to be mere cardboard slips printed with some sensational recommendation; and will, perhaps, afterwards discover that a circular playbill has been pasted inside his hat by some unseen agent of an enterprising manager.

Of those poor decrepit and suffering creatures, the wretched heralds of every novelty in turn, the wearers of those ghastly tabards which sometimes shock humanity by the strange want of harmony between their inscriptions and the appearance of those who are clothed by them, much might be said. To have seen a procession of old, greasy, and napless men, each of whom was labeled 'The Angel of Midnight,' was startling. To see a poor fainting creature sink from starvation under the burden of announcing 'good and cheap dinners,' was painful; but it was left to one of the representative men of Mr. George Cruikshank to achieve the sublime in this sort of illustration. It was no fault of Mr. Cruickshank, of course; the moral of is great picture was and is obvious – was and is striking: that too convivial herald, faithfully represented by the artist, had never had an opportunity of taking the lesson to his soul.

Wasn't the thing almost a public scandal? Imagine the inveterate toper – the humble worshipper of Bacchus, proposing the health of Mr. Cruikshank with the usual sentiment, 'May he ne'er want a friend nor a bottle to give him!'

I have scarcely been able to walk the West End streets since this last occurrence. Not altogether in consequence of that, however, but because of a very extraordinary accident which befel me recently on my return to town after a short excursion. I was coming home by an evening train on the Blank Dashton Railway, and as we stayed three minutes and a quarter for refreshments, contrived to swallow a cup of hot coffee, and to scramble in a very inflated condition into a carriage just as the train was starting. I had entered a second or third class carriage by mistake, and after a hurried glance round imagined it to be empty; until I was seized with a violent and disagreeable hiccough, the result, I believe, of the coffee. It was at that moment that, looking up over the newspaper over which I had been glancing by the uncertain light, I saw a large burly man who held in his hand a great pill-box. This he extended towards my face, until I read, printed on the lid, 'If this should meet the eye of anyone troubled with --.' I was about to thank him, when I was conscious of a dark solemn gentleman at my elbow who whispered in a sepulchral tone, 'Look to your legs.' To hear was to obey. I glanced, not without misgiving, at those limbs. 'Do your trousers fit you?' said a third dapper-looking traveller, who at that moment appeared on the opposite seat and spoke reproachfully. 'To those who have tender feet,' murmured a voice in the corner. 'Let those who are troubled with gout or rheumatism take these pills,' interrupted a sonorous passenger who held in his hand a box similar to the last. ‘No more pills, nor any other kind of medicine,' retorted an unseen voice. 'It was observed by Dr. Johnson,' resumed the former speaker, persistently. 'Thirty-seven port and matchless sherry,' murmured somebody in the corner. 'Pure and invigorating  essence, – bloom of roses and  indelible hair dye; – waterproof leggings – invisible wigs – self-fastening stays –repressible crinolines – surely the prettiest dress worn by boys this hundred years,' said all the passengers, at once plunging into general remarks, but evidently referring to me as the object of conversation. Suddenly I felt some ligature bound tightly round my body. I knew it in an instant; it was a strangely­ formed metal band for the cure of goodness knows what; I'd seen its portrait as adjusted to the human figure hundreds of times. Sharp throbs shot through my chest and penetrated every limb 'Compose yourself,' said a calmly cruel voice at my elbow; 'no pain will be felt in removing either decayed teeth or stumps.' I saw the glitter of the dental instruments, and as they flashed before my eyes, made a desperate effort to throw off my assailant.

'Hallo, guv'nor! wake up, and don't go knockin' your head agin the lantern that way:- we’re a goin to shunt off the carriages: lucky I happened to look in; an' you all by yourself too. Where are we! Why, London.'

            .

There were no other passengers in the carriage, but the hideous tokens of their presence were blankly staring at me from the wooden panels in the shape of numerous advertisements.

-          London Society, August 1863

You need only look at certain examples of street photography to see what the above observer meant. Here are a few examples of Victorian advertising:

The Alhambra, 1899

The Aldgate Pump

Saturday Bridge, Birmingham, 1901

Agent provocateur advert on Marble Arch

By the 1880’s there were very few empty walls in major cities, especially London, and whilst the problem is probably not quite as ugly today – insamuch as you wont find many buildings covered in handbills – advertising has encroached upon almost every aspect of our lives. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, carrier bags, trains, taxi’s, busses, football kits, websites, billboards and even beamed by light onto famous landmarks (remember the agent provocateur advert on Marble Arch a few years ago? Or Nokia beaming an advert onto Millbank tower?) But, it seems like it is simply a part of our culture now, and has been pervading it for the last one hundred and fifty years.

Now, I’ll take one Wenlock and Mandeville tea-towel please…

“Give Life and Animation to Those Noble Games!” Or: The 1896 Olympics – Part Two:

Last week we looked at the origins of the modern Olympics, and learned that we owe their return to the sporting calendar in 1896 after a 1,500 year hiatus to Pierre de Coubertin. This week, we shall explore the actual games. What happened? Who won what? And what were the Olympics like then, as opposed to now?

First of all, we all know that the Olympics begin with an opening ceremony. Who can forget the archer in the wheelchair at Barcelona in 1992, or the drummers at Beijing in 2008? So, what did Athens in 1896 do to herald this new era of international sport?

Well, an estimated eighty thousand people made their way into the Panathinaiko Stadium, (to put that in a little context, that’s five thousand more people than it takes to fill Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium) including the Greek Royal Family, one member of which, Prince Constantine, had been instrumental in drumming up enthusiasm and funds for the games. As president of the IOC, he made a speech, after which his father, King George I declared the games officially open. The ceremony itself consisted mostly of music. There was no Olympic Flame here, that didn’t appear until 1928 (Neither were the famous Olympic rings present, they were not designed until 1912). So instead, there were nine bands and a hundred and fifty choir singers, who performed Spyridon Samaras and Kostis Palamas’s Olympic Hymn;

Immortal spirit of antiquity,
Father of the true, beautiful and good,
Descend, appear, shed over us thy light
Upon this ground and under this sky
Which has first witnessed thy unperishable fame.
Give life and animation to those noble games!
Throw wreaths of fadeless flowers to the victors
In the race and in strife!
Create in our breasts, hearts of steel!
Shine in a roseate hue and form a vast temple
To which all nations throng to adore thee.

Opening Ceremony in the Panathinaiko Stadium

In 1957, the IOC declared this hymn the official Olympic anthem. The Pall Mall Gazette covered the Olympics quite extensively, and printed results of the events. They also did a short write-up about on opening ceremony:

THE OLYMPIC GAMES AT ATHENS:

The spectators of yesterday's events were calculated to number eighty thousand. The Royal party arrived at three o'clock. They were met in the centre of the arena by the Crown Prince, surrounded by the members of the organizing committee. His Highness in a short speech then formally begged the King to take over the Stadion, the restoration of which had been rendered possible by the generosity of a wealthy Greek. His Majesty, in reply, expressed his admiration for the incomparable beauty of the structure. He also cordially welcomed the athletic youth who had come from all parts of the world to lend additional brilliance to the festival. His Majesty finally took formal possession of the Stadion in the name of Greece. The King and the other members of the Royal party then proceeded to their allotted seats. The united bands then performed the special Olympic anthem, composed by M. Samara, which was conducted by the composer himself. The games commenced immediately afterwards.

            - Pall Mall Gazette, April 7th 1896

So what exactly were the events in which the athletes took part? There were nine sports at the Olympics back then (in contrast with the 28 at the 2008 games in Beijing) They were:

Gymnastics

Athletics

Cycling

Fencing

Shooting

Swimming

Tennis

Weightlifting

Wrestling

The first event to take place was the hundred metres, which was won by Francis Lane of USA, and his victory, and the subsequent impressive medal-haul of the USA team would become a stalwart of all future Olympics.

The greatest joy for the home support was to see one of their athletes, Spyridion Louis, win the marathon by a huge seven minutes. The marathon is an event of great historical importance to Greece, as – so the legend goes – the first marathon ever to take place was in 490 BC, when Pheidippides, a soldier from Athens, ran 26 miles from battle in Marathon, in which the Greeks defeated their Persian invaders, in order to tell his fellow Athenians that they had been victorious. After relaying his message, he died from exhaustion.

Spyridion Louis (Left) being cheered as he nears the marathon finish line in the stadium

The Greeks then, were overjoyed when messengers outside the Panathinaiko stadium (where the marathon finishing line was situated) relayed the chant of ‘Hellene! Hellene!’ (A Greek! A Greek!) as Louis approached well-clear of his rivals to become a national hero and emulate the success of Pheidippides over two thousand years before him on Athenian soil. Even more satisfying was that Louis was not a professional athlete, and turned down riches and fame to go back to his simple as a shepherd in a small village after his success at the games.

The swimming sounds like a rather more dangerous event than we know today. Hungarian swimmer Alfred Hajos won both the 100 metre and 1,200 metre races, the second of which involved the athletes being ferried out 1,200 metres to sea on a boat before jumping into the water and swimming back to land. Hajos went on to say that his; “…will to live completely overcame the desire to win”. Which is not a surprise.

Alfred Hajos

My favourite story of the Olympics, though, concerns Tennis and the MP John Boland. Boland was in Athens during the Olympics to visit his friend, Thrasyvoulos Manos. Manos was a member of the Athens Lawn Tennis sub-committee of the IOC, and had struggled to attract athletes to compete in the tennis. With the numbers a little short, Manos entered Boland, and the MP went on to win the singles tournament, defeating the Egyptian Dionysios Kasdaglis in the final. Even more impressive, Boland was also entered into the doubles competition, pairing up with Friedrich Traun (whom Boland had defeated in the first round of the singles competition) and the pair went on to win the event, giving Boland his second gold medal and making him the most successful Brit at the games, despite travelling to Athens with no intention of even competing in them. After the Olympics, the Pall Mall Gazette gave a rather waspish account of the inadequacy of the Greeks, and poked a bit of fun at their famous historical figures:

John Boland

The Olympic Games are over. It is to be hoped that the resurgent glory of Greece is not overshadowed by the victory of Mr. Boland (Dublin) over Mr. Themistocles (Athens) at the gentle game lawn tennis, and by the swimming performance of Mr. Hajos (Hungary), who easily defeated Mr. Nicias, Mr. Eschylus, Mr. AlcIbiades, and other members of the best-known Greek families…
               - Pall Mall Gazette 16th April 1896

The closing ceremony took place on 15th April, with, once again, the Royal Family present. The Greek national anthem opened the ceremony before the King distributed the prizes to the winners. In 1896, first placed athletes received a silver medal, an olive branch and a diploma, and second placed athletes received a copper medal, olive branch and diploma, whilst third placed athletes received nothing.

After this, marathon winner and new Greek hero Spyridion Louis lead the athletes on a lap of honour around the stadium whilst the Olympic hymn was played, before King George pronounced the games officially at an end.

Awarding the Prizes

So what was the final result of the 1896 games? Medal-wise, host nation Greece fittingly won the most medals overall, with a total of 46, but the USA were not far behind.

When the Olympics came to an end, the officials were full of praise for Athens, and suggested the games should be held there every four years. The American team even sent a letter to King George I to suggest as much, but Coubertin preferred the idea of the Olympics being an international event, and that the host city could be changed every year in order to bring the joy of sport to as many different parts of the world as possible. Athens would have to wait another 108 years until the Olympics returned in 2004.

The Olympics that followed the Athenian games were held in Paris in 1900, but were a bit of an anti-climax since the Parisians decided to incorporate the games in the World’s Fair they were hosting, meaning that the sporting events took a back seat to the technological exhibits, such as the first escalators, Rudolf Diesel’s engine, and the star attraction, the Great Exposition refractor – the largest refracting telescope ever seen. The shame about the lack of interest in the Paris Olympics is that Paris was Coubertin’s home town, and I imagine that he would have been overjoyed had the Olympics been a success there. He would go on to see eight more Olympic games take place before his death in 1937, however – and happily – the 1924 Olympics returned to Paris, beating competition from Los Angeles, Rio and Rome. This time around the city got it right, and Coubertin, at the age of 61, got to see his Olympic dream take place in his home town.

The London Olympics has had its naysayers and doom-mongers, and some of their objections I agree with, but there can be little doubt that the Olympics is an event of global and historical significance, as well as, of course, a great showcase for the world’s greatest athletes, and London should be proud to be hosting for the third time.

I just hope the swimmers a grateful they’re not being ferried out to the English Channel and dropped overboard for their event...

"I declare the opening of the first international Olympic Games in Athens. Long live the Nation. Long live the Greek people." Or: The 1896 Olympics – Part One:

This is a big year for sport in the UK, with the Olympics and Paralympics set to descend upon us in the summer after a seven year wait, and make London the first city to stage the event three times, after previously hosting in 1908 and 1948.

Naturally, I was interested to see how the Victorians got on with the Olympics (the games having been revived for the modern age five years before Victoria’s death after a 1,500 year Hiatus) and so I set about looking at details of the 1896 and 1900 games.

The Olympics were – and still are – associated with Greece. The oldest Olympics for which records still exist are the games of 776 B.C, and during this era the sporting event was held every four years in Olympia, Greece, in honour of the God Zeus. This carried on until the Olympics were abolished in 393 A.D by the Roman Emperor Theodosius.

1,503 years later, the Olympics returned; but why?

It all began with a young Frenchman, Pierre de Coubertin, who, in 1870, experienced his country being overrun by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war when he was only seven years old. This event, and what Coubertin saw as the weakness of his country, would play a major role in the birth of the modern Olympics. So who was this Coubertin?

Coubertin

He was born into an aristocratic family, and so, when he became an adult, had the typical choices ahead of him, such as a military career, or one in politics. Coubertin, though, chose a different path, and became an intellectual. He studied a wide range of topics, from history to sociology, but the one that caught his imagination the most was education.

Coubertin’s studies in education soon led him to focus on physical education, and the significance of schools teaching competitive sports to their pupils. He came to England in 1883, when he was twenty, and studied the physical education system in English schools, (in particular, Rugby School in Warwickshire, where the great educator, Thomas Arnold put physical education systems in place in the late 1820’s) Coubertin saw a direct link between the standard of physical education in schools and the expansion of the British Empire, stating that “Organised sport can create moral and social strength.” In short, he believed that men who were well-practiced at sport would be better prepared mentally as well as physically, to fight in wars. Coubertin was thinking of the ease with which France – a country which practiced very little physical education in schools – was subjected to a humiliating defeat in 1870.

Being an intellectual historian, also, Coubertin knew of the Olympics of ancient Greece, and decided that an event such as the Olympics, if revived, could be key in stimulating not only physical, but intellectual improvements in men. In 1890 he founded Union des Sociétés Francaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA) a sports organization which he hoped would be able to drum up support for physical education in schools. His ideas were met with apathy. In 1892, he decided to make public his ideas for reviving the Olympics. In Paris, speaking at a meeting of the Union des Sports Athlétiques, he said:

“Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced into Europe the cause of Peace will have received a new and strong ally. It inspires me to touch upon another step I now propose and in it I shall ask that the help you have given me hitherto you will extend again, so that together we may attempt to realise, upon a basis suitable to the conditions of our modern life, the splendid and beneficent task of reviving the Olympic Games…”

Again, he was met with inaction and apathy. However, he persisted, and a further two years later he managed to organize a meeting made up of delegates of nine different countries at the Sorbonne Congress of 1894. At this meeting he made further passionate pleas and reasons why, in his mind, the Olympic Games should be revived for the benefit of the whole of Europe. This time, he garnered some interest, and the delegates present voted for a return of the ancient Olympic Games. Coubertin formed the international Olympic Committee (IOC) and set about organizing the first Olympics in over 1,500 years.

The obvious and most romantic choice for the first modern Olympics was, of course, Greece. The 1896 Olympics were awarded to Athens, and the city enthusiastically welcomed the impending festival of sport, but the Greek politicians were not so keen, and, according to some reports, asked to be relieved of their duty to host the games. Coubertin, along with the President of the newly formed IOC, Demetrios Vikelas, managed to convince the Athenian politicians to accept the games, and after much consideration, and the backing of the Crown Prince Constantine, who threw his weight behind the return of the games, the minds of the politicians were changed, and the organizing began.

Vikelas

The man charged with organizing the 1896 Olympics was the aforementioned president of the IOC, Demetrios Vikelas. The problem that faced him most immediately was, funnily enough, the fact that Greece was in a financially poor state, and politically very unstable (The country actually had two Prime Ministers at the time, who alternated the job of running the country between them) so the first thing Vikelas had to do was raise funds – and the Royal seal of approval from the enthusiastic Prince certainly helped his cause. Perhaps his biggest contribution was to persuade businessman George Averoff to fund a restoration of the Panathinaiko stadium, which had been built around 500BC to host athletics during the Panathenaic games in ancient Greece. Averoff donated 920,000 Drachma’s to the project, which saw the stadium rebuilt using marble from Mount Penteli. The stadium is – perhaps unsurprisingly – the only one in the world made of marble. A statue of Averoff still stands outside the stadium today.

The Greek public, having caught the wave of enthusiasm from the Prince, donated generously, raising 330,000 Drachma’s, the sale of commemorative stamps raised an impressive 400,000 Drachma’s, and along with successful ticket sales, these funds allowed everything to be put into place, and the first modern Olympic Games could begin.

The opening ceremony took place on 6th April 1896 (Unless you were Greek, and were using the Julian Calendar, in which case the opening ceremony was on 25th March) and the final address was made by Prince Constantine’s father, King George I, who proclaimed:

"I declare the opening of the first international Olympic Games in Athens. Long live the Nation. Long live the Greek people."

Next week…Part Two: In which we will explore the events that took place at the 1896 Olympics, the successful countries, the star athletes and the aftermath of the games.

“…It is Not Nor Does it Pretend to be Anything Else than a Vicious Hotch-Potch of the Vilest Slang, a Mockery of all that is Decent and Virtuous…” Or: What Were Penny Dreadfuls?

Everyone who has picked up a newspaper in the last twenty years will be familiar with the hardy perennial opinion that children are turned into thugs and killers by violent films and video games.

Whilst I don’t think that is true as a catch-all term, I can understand why people think that children may attempt to copy what they see on their various screens, but as a rule, my opinion is that watching a violent film does not make a child violent.

This story – which seems to be dusted off and rolled out every time someone under the age of sixteen slaps one of their friends – is not so new as to have only been thought of in the last two decades, though. The Victorians had similar concerns with certain literature having a negative effect on the nation’s youth.

Penny dreadfuls, penny bloods, penny awfuls, or penny numbers, as they were known, were shocking, violent short stories, usually about the antics of criminals such as highwaymen, grave-robbers and murderers, aimed at the barely literate lower classes of society. The publication of penny dreadfuls began in the 1830’s, when the success of Dickens’ ‘The Pickwick Papers’ demonstrated that books sold as serials – that is, sold in monthly installments – were more appealing to the greater populous, since the lower classes had not the time nor attention span to sit and read an entire novel, but could easily digest a whole book in short, ‘bite-size’ and dramatic chunks.

The penny dreadfuls were extremely cheap to produce, and being printed on the cheapest of pulp papers, could be sold at a price that the target audience could afford, and since they were sold as serials, once the reader had purchased the first installment, he would certainly have to purchase the rest to see how the story progressed.

The penny papers proved so addictive, that even those who could not afford it still purchased them by forming groups who would each put money in and buy a single paper to read between them.

Whilst the working classes devoured the ghoulish crime stories with relish, there were, of course, more upstanding members of society who frowned upon and dismissed the penny bloods as vulgar and coarse. One of their most vehement critics was the great James Greenwood, who wrote an article in St. Paul’s Magazine in 1873 condemning them and their affect on society’s youth. The article is below. As you read it, think of similar articles that have appeared in the present-day pres with regards to violent films and video games, and you will see that the problem of modern media corrupting the youth of today is not new at all;

 "It would be an excellent and profitable arrangement if the London School Board were empowered not only to insist that all boys and girls of tender years shall be instructed in the art of reading, but also to root up and for ever banish from the paths of its pupils those dangerous weeds of literature that crop up in such rank luxuriance on every side to tempt them. Until this is done, it must always be heavy and uphill work with those whose laudable aim it is to promote education and popular enlightenment.

To teach a girl or boy how to read is not a very difficult task; the trouble is to guide them to a wholesome and profitable exercise of the acquirement. This, doubtless, would be hard enough, were our population of juveniles left to follow the dictates of their docile or rebellious natures; but this they are not suffered to do. At the very outset, as soon indeed as they have mastered words of two and three syllables, and by skipping the hard words are able somehow to stumble through a page in reading fashion, the enemy is at hand to enlist them in his service. And never was a poor recruit so dazzled and bewildered by the wily sergeant whose business it is to angle for, and hook men to serve as soldiers as is the foolish lad who is beset by the host of candidates of the Penny Awful tribe for his patronage.

There is Dick Turpin bestriding his fleet steed, and with a brace of magnificently mounted pistols stuck in his belt, beckoning him to an expedition of midnight marauding on the Queen’s highway; there is gentlemanly Claude Duval, with his gold-laced coat and elegantly curled periwig, who raises his three-cornered hat politely to the highly-flattered schoolboy and begs the pleasure of his company through six months or so - at the ridiculously small cost of a penny a week, that, he, the gallant captain, may initiate our young friend in the ways of bloodshed and villainy; there is sleek-cropped, bullet-headed Jack Sheppard, who steps boldly forth with his crowbar, offering to instruct the amazed youth in the ways of crime as illustrated by his own brilliant career, and to supply him with a few useful hints as to the best way of escaping from Newgate.

Besides these worthies there are the Robbers of the Heath, and the Knights of the Road, and the Skeleton Crew, and Wildfire Dick and Hell-fire Jack, and Dare-devil Tom, and Blueskin, and Cut-throat Ned, and twenty other choice spirits of an equally respectable type, one and all appealing to him, and wheedling and coaxing him to make himself acquainted with their delectable lives and adventures at the insignificant expense of one penny weekly.

It is not difficult to trace back the evil in question to its origin. At least a quarter of a century ago it occurred to some enterprising individual to reprint and issue in “penny weekly numbers” the matter contained in the “Newgate Calendar,” and the publication was financially a great success. This excited the cupidity of other speculators, in whose eyes money loses none of its value though ever so begrimed with nastiness, and they set their wits to work to produce printed weekly “pen’orths” that should be as savoury to the morbid tastes of the young and the ignorant as was the renowned Old Bailey Chronicle itself.

The task was by no means a difficult one when once was found the spirit to set about it. The Newgate Calendar was after all but a dry and legal record of the trials of rogues and murderers, for this or that particular offence, with at most, in addition, a brief sketch of the convicted one’s previous career, and a few observations on his most remarkable exploits. After all, there was really no romance in the thing; and what persons of limited education and intellect love in a book is romance. Here then was a grand field! What could be easier than to take the common-place Newgate raw material, and re-dip it in the most vivid scarlet, and weave into it the rainbow hues of fiction? What was there that “came out” at the trials of Jack Sheppard and Claude Duval and Mr. Richard Turpin and which the calendar readers so greedily devoured, compared with what might be made to “come out” concerning these same heroes when the professional romance-monger, with the victim’s skull for an inkstand, gore for ink, and the assassin's dagger for a pen, sat down to write their histories?

The great thing was to show what the Newgate Calendar had failed to show. It was all very well to demonstrate that at times there existed honour among thieves; the thing to do was to make it clear that stealing was an honourable business, and that all thieves were persons to be respected on account at least of the risks they ran and the perils they so daringly faced in the pursuit of their ordinary calling. Again, in recording the achievements of robbers of a superior grade, the Calendar gave but the merest glimpse of the glories of a highway villain’s existence, whereas, as was well known to the romancist of the Penny Awful school, the life of a person like Mr. Turpin or any other Knight of the Road is just one endless round of daring, dashing adventure, and of rollicking and roystering, or tender, blissful enjoyments of the fruits thereof. Likewise, according to the same authority, it was a well-known fact, and one that could not be too generally known, that rogues and robbers are the only “brave” that deserve the “fair,” and that no sweethearts are so true to each other, and enjoy such unalloyed felicity, as gentlemen of the stamp of Captain Firebrand (who wears lace truffles and affects a horror for the low operation of cutting a throat, but regards it as quite the gentlemanly and “professional” thing to send a bullet whizzing into a human skull ) and buxom, fascinating Molly Cutpurse.

But after all, if the unscrupulous hatchers of Penny Awfuls (this term is no invention of mine, but one conferred on the class of literature in question by the owners thereof ) had been content to stick to Newgate heroes and Knights of the Road, perhaps no very great harm would have been done. At all events, the nuisance must soon have died out. Popular interest in the British Highwayman has for many years been on the wane. There are no longer any mail coaches to rob, and the descendants of the rare old heroes of Bagshot and Hounslow have brought the profession into disgust and contempt by taking to the cowardly game of garroting. Every boy may read of the pitiful behaviour of these modern Knights of the Road when they are triced up, bare-backed, in the press-room at Newgate, and a stout prison warden makes a cat-o’-nine-tails whistle across their shoulders. How they squeal and wriggle and supplicate!

  “Oh! Sir, kind sir! O-o-o-oh-h, pray spare me; I’ll never do it again!”

There is not the least spark of dash or bravado about this kind of thing, and the cleverest penman of the Penny Awful tribe would fail to excite feelings of emulation in the minds of his most devoted readers.

The Penny Awful trade, however, has not been brought to a standstill on this account. Cleverer men than those who paraded Dick Turpin and Claude Duval as model heroes have of late years come into the garbage market. Quick-witted, neat-handed fellows, who have studied the matter and made themselves acquainted with it at all points. It has been discovered by these sharp ones that the business has been unnecessarily restricted; that even supposing that there are still a goodly number of simpletons who take delight in the romance that hangs on those magic words, “Your money or your life,” there are still a much larger number who take no interest at all in gallows heroes, but who might easily be tempted to take to another kind of bait, provided it were judiciously adjusted on the hook.

As for instance, there were doubtless to be found in London and the large manufacturing towns of England, hundreds of boys out of whom constant drudgery and bad living had ground all that spirit of dare-devilism so essential to the enjoyment of the exploits of the heroes of the Turpin type, but who still possessed an appetite for vices of a sort that were milder and more easy of digestion. It was a task of no great difficulty when once the happy idea was conceived. All that was necessary was to show that the faculty for successfully defying law and order and the ordinations of virtue might be cultivated by boys as well as men, and that as rogues and rascals the same brilliant rewards attended the former as the latter. The result may be seen in the shop window of every cheap newsvendor in London - The Boy Thieves of London, The Life of a Fast Boy, The Boy Bandits, The Wild Boys of London, The Boy Detective, Charley Wag, The Lively Adventures of a Young Rascal, and I can’t say how many more.

This much is true of each and everyone, however - that it is not nor does it pretend to be anything else than a vicious hotch-potch of the vilest slang, a mockery of all that is decent and virtuous, an incentive to all that is mean, base, and immoral, and a certain guide to a prison or a reformatory if sedulously followed. If these precious weekly pen’orths do not openly advocate crime and robbery, they at least go so far as to make it appear that, although to obtain the means requisite to set up as a Fast Boy, or a Young Rascal, it is found necessary to make free with a master’s goods, or to force his till or run off with his cash-box, still the immense amount of frolic and awful jollity to be obtained at music halls, at dancing rooms, - where “young rascals” of the opposite sex may be met, - at theatres, and low gambling and drinking dens, if one has “only got the money,” fully compensates for any penalty a boy of the “fast” school may be called on to pay in the event of his petty larcenies being discovered.

  “What’s the good o’ being honest?” is the moral sentiment that the Penny Awful author puts into the mouth of his hero, Joe the Ferret, in his delectable story “The Boy Thieves of the Slums.”

  “What’s the good of being honest?” says Joe, who is presiding at a banquet consisting of the “richest meats,” and hot brandy and water;

  “Where’s the pull? It is all canting and humbug. The honest cove is the one who slaves from morning till night for half a bellyfull of grub, and a ragged jacket and a pair of trotter cases (shoes), that don’t keep his toes out of the mud, and all that he may be called a good boy and have a “clear conscience” ’ (loud laughter and cries of “Hear, hear,” by the Weasel’s “pals”).

  “I ain’t got no conscience, and I don’t want one. If I felt one a-growing in me I’d pisen the blessed thing” (more laughter).

  “Ours is the game, my lads. Light come, light go. Plenty of tin, plenty of pleasure, plenty of sweethearts and that kind of fun, and all got by making a dip in a pocket, or sneaking a till. I’ll tell you what it is, my hearties,” continued the Weasel, raising his glass in his hand (on a finger of which there sparkled a valuable ring, part of the produce of the night’s work),

  “I’ll tell you what it is, it’s quite as well that them curs and milksops, the ‘honest boys’ of London, do not know what a jolly, easy, devil-may-care life we lead compared with theirs, or we should have so many of ‘em takin’ to our line that it would be bad for the trade.”

It is not invariably, however, that the Penny Awful author indulges in such a barefaced enunciation of his principles. The old-fashioned method was to clap the representatives of all manner of vices before the reader, and boldly swear by them as jolly roystering blades whose manner of enjoying life was after all the best, despite the grim end. The modern way is to paint the picture not coarsely, but with skill and anatomical minuteness; to continue it page after page, and point out and linger over the most flagrant indecencies and immoral teachings of the pretty story, and then, in the brief interval of putting that picture aside and producing another, to “patter” (if I may be excused using an expression so shockingly vulgar) a few sentences concerning the unprofitableness of vice, and of honesty being the best policy. And having cut this irksome, though for obvious reasons necessary, part of the business as short as possible, the “author” again plunges the pen of nastiness into his inkpot, and proceeds with renewed vigour to execute the real work in hand.

Writing on this subject it is impossible for me to forget a vivid instance of the pernicious influence of literature of the Penny Awful kind as revealed by the victim himself. It was at a meeting of a society, the laudable aim of which is the rescue of juvenile criminals from the paths of vice, and there were present a considerable number of the lads themselves. In the course of the evening, as a test, I suppose of the amount of confidence reposed by the lads in their well-wishers and teachers, it was suggested that any one among them who had courage enough might rise in his place and give a brief account of his first theft, and what tempted him to it. It was some time before their was any response, although from the many wistful faces changing rapidly from red to white, and the general uneasiness manifested by the youths appealed to, and who were seated on forms in the middle of the hall, it was evident that many were of a great good mind to accept the invitation.

At last a lad of thirteen or so, whose good-conduct stripes told of how bravely he was raising himself out of the slough in which the Society had discovered him, rose, and burning red to his very ears, and speaking rapidly and with much stumbling and stammering - evidences one and all, in my opinion, of his speaking the truth - delivered himself as follows:-

“It’s a goodish many years ago now, more’n six I dessay, and I used to go to the ragged-school down by Hatton-garden. It was Tyburn Dick that did it, leastways the story what they call Tyburn Dick.

Well, my brother Bill was a bit older than me, and he used to have to stay at home and mind my young brother and sister, while father was out jobbing about at the docks and them places. We didn’t have no mother. Well, father he used to leave us as much grub as he could, and Bill used to have the sharin’ of it out. Bill couldn’t read a bit, but he knowed boys that could, and he used to hear ‘em reading about Knights of the Road, and Claude Duval, and Skeleton Crews, till I suppose his head got regler stuffed with it. He never had no money to buy a pen’orth when it came out, so he used to lay wait for me, carrying my young sister over his shoulder, when I came out of school at dinner time, and gammon me over to come along with him to a shop at the corner of Rosamond Street in Clerkenwell, where there used to be a whole lot of the penny numbers in the window.

They was all of a row, Wildfire Jack, the Boy Highwayman, Dick Turpin, and ever so many others - just the first page, don’t you know, and the picture. Well, I liked it too, and I used to go along o’ Bill and read to him all the reading on the front pages, and look at the pictures until - ‘specially on Mondays when there was altogether a new lot - Bill would get so worked up with the aggravatin’ little bits, which always left off where you wanted to turn over and see what was on the next leaf, that he was very nigh off his head about it.

He used to bribe me with his grub to go with him to Rosamond Street. He used to go there regler every mornin’ carryin’ my young sister, and if he found only one that was fresh, he’d be at the school coaxin’ and wigglin’ (inveigling or wheedling), and sometimes bringin’ me half his bread and butter, or the lump of cold pudden what was his share of the dinner. He got the little bits of the tales and the pictures so jumbled up together that it used to prey on him awful.

I was bad enough but Bill was forty times worse. He used to lay awake of nights talkin’ and wonderin’ and wonderin’ what was over leaf, and then he’d drop off and talk about it in his sleep. Well, one day he come to the school, and says he,

  “Charley, there’s somethin’ real stunnin’ at the corner shop this mornin’. It’s Tyburn Dick, and they’ve got him in a cart under the gallows, and there’s Jack Ketch smoking his pipe, and a whole lot of the mob a rushing to rescue him wot’s going to be hung, and the soldiers are there beatin’ of ‘em back, and I’m blowed,” says Bill, “if I can tell how it will end. I should like to know,” says he. “Perhaps it tells you in the little bit of print at bottom; come along, Charley.”

Well, I wanted to know too, so we went, and there was the picture just as Bill said, but the print underneath didn’t throw no light on it - it was only just on the point of throwin’ a light on it, and of course we couldn’t turn over. I never saw Bill in such a way. He wasn’t a swearin’ boy, take him altogether, but this time he did let out, he was so savage at not being able to turn over. He was like a mad cove, and without any reason punched me about till I run away from him and went to school again. Well, although I didn’t expect it when I come out at half-past four, there was Bill again. His face looked so queer that I thought I was going to get some more punching, but it wasn’t that. He come up speakin’ quite kind, though there seemed something the matter with his voice, it was so shaky.

  “Come on, Charley,” he said, “come on home quick. I’ve got it,” and opening his jacket, he showed it me - the penny number where the picture of the gallows was, tucked in atwixt the buttonings of his shirt.

  “But how did you come by the penny?” I asked him.

  “Come on home and read about Jack Ketch and that, and then I’ll tell you all about it.” Bill replied. So we went home; and I read out the penny number to him all through, and then he up and told me that he had nicked (stolen) a hammer off a second-hand tool stall in Leather Lane, and sold it for a penny at a rag-shop. That’s how the ice was broke. It seemed a mere nothing to nail a paltry pen’orth or so after reading of the wholesale robbery of jewels, and diamond necklaces, and that, that Tyburn Dick did every night of his life a’most. It was getting that whole pen’orth about him that showed us what a tremenjus chap he was. Next week it was my turn to get a penny to buy the number - we felt that we couldn’t do without it nohow; and finding the chance, I stole one of the metal inkstands at the school. That was the commencement of it; and so it went on and growed bigger; but it’s out and true, that for a good many weeks we only stole to buy the number just out of Tyburn Dick.”

A question likely to occur to the reader of these pages is - what sort of persons are these who are so ignoble and utterly lost to all feelings of shame that they can consent to make money by a means that is more detestable than that resorted to by the common gutter-raker or the common pickpocket ? How do such individuals comport themselves in society? Are they men well dressed and decently behaved, and have they any pretensions to respectability? The bookselling and publishing trade is a worthy trade: do the members of it generally recognise these base corruptors of the morals of little boys and girls? Or do they shun them and give them a wide berth when they are compelled to tread the same pavement with them?

My dear reader, I assure you that whether they are shunned or recognised by those who know them is not of the least moment to the blackguardly crew who pull the strings that keep the delusive puppets going. Well dressed they are - they can well afford to be so, for they make a deal of money, and in many cases keep fine houses and servants and send their children to boarding-school. They dine well in the city, and bluster, and swagger, and swear, and wear diamonds on their unsullied hands, and chains of gold adorn their manly bosoms. As for any idea of moral responsibility as regards those whose young souls and bodies they grind to make their bread, they have no more than had Simon Legree on his Red River slave plantation. They are labouring under no delusion as to the quality of the stuff they circulate. In their own choice language, it is “rot,” “rubbish,” “hog-wash,” but “what odds so long as it sells?”

They would laugh in your face were you so rash as to attempt to argue the matter with them. They would tell you that they “go in” for this kind of thing, not out of any respect or even liking they have for it, but simply because it is a good “dodge” for making money, and their only regret is that the law forbids them “spicing” their poison pages and serving them as hot and strong as they would like to. I speak from my own knowledge of these men, and am glad to make their real character known, in order to show how little injustice would be done if their nefarious trade were put a stop to with the utmost rigour of any law that might be brought to bear against them.

Again, it may be asked, who are the “authors,” the talented gentlemen who find it a labour of love to discourse week after week to a juvenile audience of the doings of lewd women and “fast” men, and of the delights of debauchery, and the exercise of low cunning, and the victimising of the innocent and unsuspecting? Ay, who are they? Few things would afford me greater satisfaction than to gather together a hundred thousand or so of those who waste their time and money in the purchase and perusal of Penny Awfuls, and exhibit to them the sort of man it is to whose hands is entrusted the preparation of the precious hashes. Before such an exhibition could take place however, for decency’s sake, I should be compelled to induce him to wash his face and shave his neglected muzzle; likewise I should probably have to find him a coat to wear, and very possibly a pair of shoes. His master, the Penny Awful proprietor, does not treat him at all liberally. To be sure he is not worthy of a great amount of consideration, being, as a rule, a dissipated, gin-soddened, poor wretch, who has been brought to his present degraded state by his own misdoings.

As for talent, he has none at all; never had; nothing more than a mere accidental literary twist in his wrist - just as one frequently sees a dog that is nothing but a cur, except for some unaccountable gift it has for catching rats, or doing tricks of conjuring. He works to order, does this obliging writer. Either he has lodgings in some dirty court close at hand, or he is stowed away in a dim, upstairs back room of the Penny Awful office, and there the proprietor visits him, and they have a pot of ale and pipes together - the one in his splendid attire, and the other in his tattered old coat and dirty shirt - and talk over the “next” number of Selina the Seduced; and very often there is heard violent language in that dim little den, the proprietor insisting on their being “more flavour” in the next batch of copy than the last, and the meek author beseeching a little respect for Lord Campbell and his Act.

But the noble owner of Selina generally has his way.

  “Do as you like about it,” says he; “only bear this in mind. I know what goes down best with ‘em and what’s most relished, and if I don’t find that you warm up a bit in the next number, I’ll knock off half-a-crown, and make the tip for the week seventeen-and-six instead of a pound.”

-          James Greenwood, St Paul’s Magazine, 1873.

In the kind of circles of society Greenwood would have moved in, the condemnation of penny papers was widespread, but not all literary figures were critics; in 1901 the great essayist G.K Chesterton wrote ‘A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls’

‘Varney the Vampire’, ‘The String of Pearls’ (AKA Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street ((No, he was never a real person))) and Reynolds’ ‘Mysteries of London’ were a few of the most popular penny titles.

Alfred Harmsworth, a well-meaning publisher, decided to go to war with the penny papers by releasing half-penny papers filled with moral tales. He thought that the cheaper price would encourage readers of the penny dreadfuls to abandon the corrupting tales of murder and crime and read his uplifting tales instead, but such was the influence and popularity of the stories of horror that after a short time, the half-penny-papers began to run similar garish stories in order to compete with the penny bloods.

I suspect that if we could glimpse a hundred years into the future we would discover that our descendants have some form of corrupting media they are vociferously claiming is damaging the youth of the day, but surely, indulging in the reading, watching, doing or playing of something frowned upon by moralists and / or adults is a mainstay of our culture, and every generation frowns upon something its offspring gets up to?

Those who today frown upon violent video games must have watched the occasional video nasty in the eighties, and their parents may have been involved somehow in the punk scene of the seventies, who would have been jeered at by their parents who lived through the swinging sixties, who would have been parented by people there for the birth of rock and roll, and the children of today will, no doubt, in fifteen years or so be raising a finger of complaint to some other movement or cult, thus proving that little has, and will, change in our society since the days of the Victorian moralists and their objections to penny dreadfuls.

“Pause, Young Man, Before you Marry an Irreligious Wife”: Or: Advice on Choosing a Partner in the 1850’s:

Marriage advice for young men:

In the choice of a wife, excellence of moral and religious character must be the first great essential. – your own religious interests on Earth are deeply involved in marriage. What comfort, what piece of mind can the husband have, where there is inconstancy, irreligion and infidelity on part of the wife? Marry an irreligious woman, and you will have no domestic resource to flee to in the hour of religious need. There will be none to admonish you when you neglect your religious duties. An irreligious wife can not counsel you when you are under the influence of deep temptation, neither can she assist to resolve your doubts in cases of conscience. To all matters of religious experience the friend of your bosom will be a stranger and an alien. She cannot help you, she cannot understand you, she cannot sympathise with you.

1 Cor. ii. 14: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Sad must be the condition of the husband whose griefs his spouse cannot relieve, and whose trials she cannot share. Many young men have great difficulty in maintaining their hold of religion and in discharging its duties even when single. How will that difficulty be increased if they marry irreligious wives! If now you find it hard work to keep the commands of your maker, if you now make such indifferent progress in religion, what will you do when united with one who has no religion, one who has never even sought it with success?

Women: Immoral

Religion is worth more than beauty, accomplishments and talent. “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will do him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.”

It frequently happens that an ungodly wife uses her husband’s profession of religion as the instrument of persecution. Unchristianising him for the least provocation, and often, without any cause whatsoever, she shakes his faith and harrows his heart. You may demur to this and say, although the female I should like to marry is not religious, she is mild and gentle, and therefore will not put a stumbling block in my path. The scriptures tell us that “the carnal mind in enmity against God.” You must either deny the Scripture doctrine, or grant that your quiet intended may one day turn upon you.

Pause, young man, before you marry an irreligious wife. Men have been more than conquerors through the blood of the Lamb, and gone home safe to heaven, although their wives did not serve God. But are you equal to such a task? Can you roll the stone of Sisyphus? Let your own unfaithfulness answer the question. Let your meager religious attainments answer it. Let the frequency with which you have gone astray from God, and brought yourself into condemnation, answer the question. You have no grace to spare. Be honest with yourself, and you will feel that, so far from needing one to hinder you in the way to heaven, you require one to assist you in your progress.

This earth is not the only world in which you will be religiously influenced by your marriage. Its results will make you happier among the spirits of just men made perfect, or more miserable in the unknown regions of the lost. The influences of marriage go beyond earth’s narrow confines, and cleave to the disembodied spirit throughout the mighty cycle of the eternal years. The wife on earth that best deserves the name of angel is she who

“Tries each art, reproves each dull delay, allures to brighter worlds, and leads the way.”

Good health is too important a matter to be overlooked in choosing a partner for life. – Health is next to piety in the scale of ascertained value of blessings. It is more than fortune. Fortunes have been wasted in vain to supply its lack of service. Continual sickness is a continual calamity.

- Leisure Hour, Thursday August 9, 1855