Dearest gentle reader: Is there a “Bridgerton"-shaped hole in your heart after bingeing the popular TV show’s latest season? If yes, consider filling it with a peruse of Indy’s original gossip newspaper, “The Locomotive.”
“The Locomotive” ran intermittently between 1845 and 1860. It was the first local paper to do “society reporting,” staying away from politics and focusing instead on gossip, original stories, and poems.
Enjoy these excerpts from the August 23, 1845 edition:
- “Shakespeare who lived in a middle age, has something about a woman’s voice: ‘Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman.’ This might have been good-breeding in his day, but not in ours, when young ladies feel themselves called upon to ‘lift up their voice like a trumpet.’ To be heard above a whole company in conversation, to attract attention by loud talking out of windows, or vociferation in the streets — who will dare say that this is not good breeding? We think we could instance the cases of a dozen fine ladies to prove that it is.”
- “A paragraph has been going the round of the papers hereabouts, under the head, ‘A genuine compliment,’ which tells us of a coal-heaver asking a very beautiful lady to allow him to light his pipe in her eyes. It is a matter of little consequence to us who the parties were, or when or where the compliment was paid; as it is an incident connected with history, we should not be the worse for knowing something about it. It was sometime about the year 1790, when the celebrated Charles James Fox was a candidate for the representation of Westminster, in the British House of Commons, that the Duchess of Devonshire, of whose personal charms, accomplishments, and what is more, of whose patriotism, too much cannot be said in praise, took an exceedingly active part in his behalf. She used to canvass for his election with a zeal and ardor which shewed that she had the interest of the people more at heart than ladies of her rank are commonly known to have. On one of her canvassing excursions she happened to pass by an Irish coal-heaver, who was sitting somewhere above a coal wharf, and had just filled his pipe with genuine short cut. As Her Grace was passing him he looked up in her face and exclaimed ‘Arrah Madam, I wish you would just let me light my pipe at your eye.’ The Duchess used to relate this anecdote, and declared that she looked upon it as the most genuine compliment that she had ever received.”
- “Our prospect is brilliant beyond conception. Our success thus far, is without a parallel in the annals of Indianapolis papers. Our advent was hailed with delight by all classes of the community. The young received “The Locomotive” with shouts and greetings, and an innumerable volley of chapeaus rose high in the ethereal blue, amid the glad paeans of ‘Long live The Locomotive’ — ‘Success to the enterprise.’”
Learn more about “The Locomotive.”
