Raoul Moat and Nineteenth Century Newspapers

Nineteenth century newspapers

I spent Saturday searching through newspapers at the British Library branch up in Colindale. It’s an odd enough place with pale blue walls, stiff wooden doors and an atmosphere that is best described as a mix between a 1960’s comprehensive and an old village hall. It’s not too difficult to detect that the old building will be closed in 2012 and that – in the meantime – it is more lingering on than existing outright.

Still, the newspapers are what make the place and there are some fabulous collections stored there. I’ve always enjoyed reading 19^th century newspapers. They’ve a knack for savage clarity and pithy expression. Of course, they might be inaccurate, prim, judgemental and filled to the rafters with quack medical adverts, but nowadays, while browsing through them, these are things to enjoy rather than endure.

Best of all, of course, are the news snippets. Something like NIBS, I suppose, published weekly in a section usually titled ‘Home News.’ Here’s an imagined version of how they might have reported the Raoul Moat case. It’s a bit of a tonic from all today’s over-reporting.

–

Manhunt

Saturday evening last. In a most calamitous incident Raoul Moat, of Newcastle Upon Tyne, did shoot dead with a shotgun one Chris Brown of the same neighbourhood. Moat, aged 37, a known villain, did, by the same weapon, moments after, shoot a subsequent victim, Samantha Stobbart, through a window, causing near fatal bleeding. A terrific chase was made after Moat by the town magistrates until the wretched criminal was discovered some days afterwards near a river in the village of Rothbury, close to this city. Moat, who exhibited many signs of rough living, held a shotgun to his temple in the most violent and effecting manner for a period upwards of six hours, raging wildly at the magistrates and agents of the law who had beset him on all sides. At a little after one o’clock in the morning, the lamentable man, who demonstrated very many signs of the hardest sorrows and most deranged ravings of the mind, did launch himself forever into eternity with the aid of his gun. An inquest was held on the body the following day by Ms Sue Sim, JP, Coroner. Verdict – lunacy.

Image credit:Effervescing Elephant