Historical newspapers often remind me of Hartley's 'the past is a foreign country' phrase, but the editorial choices of this particular paper seem positively bizarre, even for the period.
It's a curious 'local' paper, with large sections given over to international news, gardening, cooking recipes, sport results (none related to Ireland), the serialisation of a book, and randomly shoe-horned jokes, none of which has survived the passage of time with rib-tickling humour intact.
Taking the 15 January 1903 edition as an example, a huge proportion is given up to what I can only describe as 'oddities' from around the world. These unexpected stories include details of a Spanish toreador who, with only a bruise on his leg to show for his efforts, had made a £12,000 profit in the previous season by killing 133 bulls; the transformation of the Royal Aquarium in Westminster into a Methodist Church House; a row of corn 25 miles long planted in Kansas, and the execution of a murderer, dragged kicking and screaming to the guillotine, in the French city of Lille. The story below – Lunatic's Telepathy – is from the same issue.
Meanwhile, just one line – 'There was a great flood in the Ballinderry River last Tuesday' – is the only mention of an event affecting a local rural community on the Tyrone/Derry border.
At least there are reports of the Quarter Sessions at Dungannon, Cookstown and Moneymore!
