Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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805

Press Agents

When Lord Salisbury asked the Russian Minister of the Interior how many agents the Tsar had in India, the reply came as a shock.

Throughout the nineteenth century, London was afraid that the Russian Empire would invade India through Afghanistan. Russian reassurances fell on deaf ears, leading to war in Afghanistan in 1838-42 and again in 1878-80. Lord Lytton, the Viceroy of India, issued a press crackdown, and Russophobia in the home press spiked.

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Picture: By E.O.S. and Company of employees of the Times of India, Bombay. Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

806

Playing with Fire

William Stead warned his fellow-journalists to take care that their bellicose rhetoric did not end in a real war with Russia.

After witnessing a Russian village burn to the ground because a boy played with matches in a barn, journalist William Stead (1849-1912) was moved to be severe on those other ‘boys with matches’ — the hawkish British press, whose incendiary words could spark the powder kegs of European politics.

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Picture: By Egbert van der Poel, (16621-1664). Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

807

Androcles and the Lion

Gaius Caesar is disappointed with the quality of the entertainment on offer in Rome’s Circus Maximus.

The well-known story of Androcles and the lion goes back to an eyewitness account written down by Apion (?30 BC - AD ?48), a learned Egyptian whose works are, sadly, entirely lost. Fortunately, passages survive in the work of Aulus Gellius (AD ?125–?180+), and what follows here is based on his ‘Attic Nights’.

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Picture: By Gorgo, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain image.. Source.

808

The Man who Made the Headlines

William Stead conceived modern print journalism in the belief that newspapers could change the world.

Driven by a sense of moral crusade, William Stead (1849-1912) transformed newspaper journalism from simple reporting into political activism, pioneering now familiar techniques from headlines, illustrations, interviews and editorial comment to the plain speech and lurid storylines of the tabloids.

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Picture: By A. D. Lewis, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

809

Criminal Justice

A man unjustly condemned to transportation finds that thieves thieve, but sometimes decency shines through too.

In a July 1852 issue of Charles Dickens’s ‘Household Words’, readers heard the true story of an innocent man sentenced to transportation. Even though the guilty party had now confessed, the life sentence stood, and on day two of his four-month voyage to Australia the nightmare had already taken a turn for the worse.

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Picture: © Wellcome Images, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

810

The Miracle of El Alamein

Under a moonlit sky in October 1942, Allied and Axis forces met in battle on the sands of the Egyptian desert.

The Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942 was a turning point in the Second World War. A German and Italian army was overwhelmed by British, Indian and Commonwealth forces, supported by the US from the air. Also fighting for the Allies was a British-trained brigade of Free Greeks, and (so it was said) an ancient Roman cavalryman.

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Picture: From the Athens War Museum collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.