existed : the privileged beggar for the country people for towns
folk , the caddies." 18 Not only were the caddies the criers who sold newspapers but they were also " news-providers and gossip mongers on their own account.” 14 At the close of the seventeenth century , they were incorporated in Edinburgh with a constitu
tion that made them in a sense a benefit society and among other clauses was one providing that authorized news-carriers should be
identified by a badge. The society quickly became a nuisance and was dissolved in 1710 , reappearing in 1771 as “ The Running Stationers of Edinburgh " and finally disappearing prior to 1806 . Contemporaneously with all these substitutes for the press ,
there grew up and still continues the broadside, in all of its pro tean forms of poster,15 placard, circular, handbill, dodger and other " wall " or hand literature. Its name coming from the simultaneous discharge of guns on one side of a ship of war, the broadside focuses attention on a single item of news or informa
tion and it conveys it in impressive form . Royal mandates,
church manifestoes, political agitation, party information , charitable appeals, poetry and art all have been or are the sub ject of the broadside. In times of political crises, in places where no newspaper press has been available , the broadside has reason ably well met the need. Immediately preceding the English Reform Bill of 1832, no newspaper was published in Arbroath , .but its place was taken fairly well by the broadsides and posters that came from the local press.18 The place of the broadside in affecting as well as in recording public opinion in Massachusetts
during the Civil War has been convincingly shown .17 These are but illustrations showing that even though the broadside may be 13 Cited by Couper from R . Chambers, Traditions of Edinburgh , p . 194. 14 W . J. Couper, in The Edinburgh Periodical Press, I, chap. XII, gives an important account of the paper criers.
16 “ Affiches just then and afterwards, played as large a part in the life of Brussels as had newspapers before the war. They might not always provide news but they could provide sensation.” — B . Whitlock , Belgium , I , 247 .
16 . M . M 'Bain , Bibliography of Arbroath Periodical Literature and Political Broadsides, p . 59. — This has an account of an important collection
of political and municipal broadsides preserved in Arbroath in 1888 .
17 E . E . Ware, Political Opinion in Massachusetts during CivilWar and Reconstruction , passim . Two collections are described, pp. 215 - 216. W . C . Ford has edited an important check list of broadsides. 1922.
