Broadside regarding an apparition which appeared at Shotts, Lanarkshire, Scotland

Commentary

This amusing narrative begins: 'An ACCOUNT of / A most Horrid, BLOODY, and Terrible / APPARITION, / Which Lately Appeared in the Parish of SHOTTS / AND / A TRUE AND GENUINE ACCOUNT OF / A DISMAL AND SHOCKING MURDER'. There are no further details attached to this sheet.

A group of men meeting in Shotts, to talk about government reform, were 'accidentally' side-tracked into talking about overthrowing the government. At this point the ghost of Rochefoucault appeared, with the warning that overthrowing the establishment simply created unstable chaos. This probably refers to the French author and moralist François La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680).

This style of text, with its implicit political propaganda, would not only have made for compelling entertainment, but would also perhaps have stimulated political thought, reasoning and debate.

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