[J. W. Robertson Scott, journalist and author on rural affairs, founding editor of ‘The Countryman’.] Autograph Letter Signed to ‘Walters’ [John Cuming Walters (1863-1933], speculating whether the Birmingham Daily Gazette is ‘into Radical hands’.

An interesting letter casting light on the Victorian provincial press. Scott’s entry in the Oxford DNB states that, while he was living in Birmingham, ‘H. J. Palmer offered him a staff appointment on the Birmingham Gazette; but he had to leave when he stipulated that, as a Liberal, he should write nothing in support of the Conservative cause. He was working again as a freelance when, in 1887, he was invited by W. T. Stead to join him on the Pall Mall Gazette. He worked for six years on that paper under Stead and then Edward T. Cook.’ 4pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. The final page is smudged, including the signature, which clearly reads ‘J. W. Robertson-Scott’, with a hyphen. Begins: ‘My dear Walters. / I heard a few days ago in a prominent B’ham politician’s family that the Gazette was going into Radical hands! - of course the Rad. Unions was [mentioned?]. Are you able to put two and one together yet, to the manufacturing of an aquaferous (this word is original & patented) theory as to B[irmingha]. D[aily]. G[azette]. future? If you haven’t, I have but a poor opinion of you.’ He continues with reference to ‘H. J. P.’, i.e. H. J. Palmer (see above), The Times, plagiarism, Macaulay, Charles Blount, Milton’s Areopagitica and the Biographia Britannica’. Postscript begins: ‘The whole matter is pretty well settled if one knew whether H. J. P. was sacked or not.’