Broadside entitled 'Rioting'

Commentary

This crime report begins: 'A Full and Particular Accounnt of these Great Riots and Mobs that took place at Dundee, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last, the 6th, 7th and 8th July, 1830, when Three Men lost their Lives, and about 200 severely wounded! By an Eye-witness.' The sheet was published by William Robertson of Edinburgh. Illegible, handwritten dates have been scribbled on the sheets.

Sensational news always has and probably always will make for compelling entertainment, regardless of the location of the occurrence. Certainly, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, political meetings were highly dangerous and confrontation made exciting reading. There are other sheets held in the National Library of Scotland's collection which report on political meetings and demonstrations from all over Scotland.

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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