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Broadside entitled 'Found' |
CommentaryThis political notice begins: 'The public are informed that a telegram was received this morning, at three o'clock in the afternoon, by a friend of the / YOUNG MAN / who has been missing from the neighbourhood of the High Street'. The sheet was published by L. MacArtney of the Poet's Box, 184 Overgate, Dundee. This sheet begins as a public notice but quickly turns into a list of veiled political comments, mainly about Communists, the French and the Suez Canal. The Poet's Box in Dundee was a prolific ballad publisher but this sheet illustrates the more serious side of their business. It also suggests the level of political awareness and interest prevalent in Scotland's towns. 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. It is not clear what the connection between the different Poet?s Boxes were. They almost certainly sold each other?s sheets. It is known that John Sanderson in Edinburgh often wrote to the Leitches in Glasgow for songs and that later his brother Charles obtained copies of songs from the Dundee Poet?s Box. There was also a Poet?s Box in Belfast from 1846 to 1856 at the address of the printer James Moore, and one at Paisley in the early 1850s, owned by William Anderson. 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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Probable date of publication:
1906- shelfmark: RB.m.143(116)
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