30th September 2009 - Scottish Pigs

I'm hanging about the Library again. It's my only easy access to a printer, and I am expecting, momentarily (in the American usage) some documents I will need to print out and sign.
They have not arrived yet, however, so I decide I will take advantage of the Microfilm viewer to skim through the local papers of the time. The local history has provided quite precise dates, and also claims to have used the "Tuscarawas Chronicle" as a source. The Librarian shows me what she's got: no Tuscarawas Chronicle. She thinks it might be at another town further south.
I'm currently tied to my WiFi and printer, so I think I'll amuse myself with the "Ohio Democrat". And not only does it come up trumps, with a full report of the event, it reprints, a couple of weeks later, a report from the Tuscarawas Chronicle confessing that it missed the event altogether and printed the Democrat's version verbatim. The Democrat has a bit of a crow about this.
The opening ceremony not only featured the American flag and anthem, the factory was also bedecked with Union Jacks, and God was invoked to Save the Queen.
The report named the Scottish Chairman of the company. Given the rude judgement history has made of him, it might be fun to look him up when I get back. Since it was a group of investors in Glasgow, there is bound to be a Scottish incorporation of some kind.
It also gives a hint of why they went to Scotland. The story waxes eloquent for a bit about the history of iron making. If it was a modern report, we would sense a quick bit of internet research. But since it's 1874, we really have to conclude that the information came from a company source. And it mentions that the standard of the day was known as "Scottish Pig". So perhaps people looking for British investment in an iron-making operation would naturally have picked Scotland first.
And it looks like the Scots (consistently referred to as "Scotchmen" in the reports) fell for it, hook , line, and sinker, losing a fortune as a result. And leaving only the name "Glasgow" to mark the drain down which all that money poured.

Later that night, we had fun with the sort of stuff that newspapers carried as a matter of course in the 1870s. There was a long list of ladies divorcing husbands who had vanished without good cause (or so they asserted) more that three years before. There were the adverts for patent medicines which, if true, could solve this nation's health crisis. A snake-oil salesman trumpetting that another paper had no right to say that about him, and getting the signatures of local worthies to attest to his uprightness.
But the best story of all was about a local attorney, whom it named. He had (there was no "allegedly" anywhere) gone round to some young lady's house, when she was alone, locked himself in, and, not content with making "lewd and obscene suggestions", had proceeeded to make "improper advances". What made the story so startling was that it didn't end there. It reported further that when mother came back to town, she went round to the attorney's office, locked herself in, and proceeded to horsewhip him. Father went along to make sure the deed was done proper. Now, if a newspaper reported that today, who would get arrested?