Broadside regarding the confession of Robert Emond

Commentary

This broadside begins: 'Confession of EMOND / In the Jail, on the day after he received sentence of death.' The confession has been sourced from a newspaper entitled the 'North Briton'.

The National Library of Scotland's collection includes a number of other broadsides detailing the high profile case of Robert Emond. As is so common with broadsides, the information supplied here has been copied from a newspaper. With no copyright laws in place to restrict such practices, broadside printers used such means not only to keep costs down, but to acquire information 'hot off the press' which could then be sold on for less. The heavy taxation on newspapers and subsequent high prices, meant that most newspapers had a relatively small circulation.

Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.

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