Shock&surprise
unusual to see queues of women in Regent St waiting to drop coins into the caps of ex-officers, who are generally masked.’’ The men were actually living in luxury in hotels.
‘‘The scandal had become so glaring that the ex-officers’ association instituted a prosecution with a view of checking it.’’
In Palmerston North on September 13, 1904, deficient drainage at the local morgue in Ashley St was described as ‘‘a scandal’’ by Dr Arthur Martin. ‘‘The drainage washed from the concrete floor of the morgue ran on to the muddy soil, where it lay in pools round the building. It was a menace to the health of the immediate neighbourhood…. It is imperative that the scandal should not be permitted to continue.’’ The morgue was eventually re-sited at the Terrace End cemetery.
From Lithgow, New South Wales, on September 6, 1922, came ‘‘Women and Scandal’’, a diatribe on the evils of gossip – ‘‘the backyard parliaments of the women of Australia’’ – by the Reverend Father Doherty of St Patrick’s Church. ‘‘The gossip over the back fences is practically all scandal,’’ he declared. ‘‘An unbridled tongue is a woman’s worst enemy.’’
Royal scandals in print created intense interest. The English royal family were considered above reproach, but the courts of other European royalty, teeming with intrigue, provided constant titillation.
December 6, 1901: ‘‘At dinner, Queen Wilhelmina [of the Netherlands] rebuked her husband, Prince Henry of Mecklenburg-schwerin, for inattention. The prince, who had been on a shooting excursion, was slightly under the influence of drink, lost his temper and insulted the queen. One of her majesty’s aides-de-camp censured the prince for his behaviour, and duels with swords followed the dinner, the prince wounding his adversary dangerously.’’
July 23, 1904, from the court of Saxe-weimar: ‘‘A newly-married duchess has fled to Switzerland to escape the tyranny of her surroundings.’’
Berlin, March 11, 1922: Princess Eitel Frederich, wife of the ex-kaiser’s second son, was cited as co-respondent in the divorce of Baron and Baroness Plettenberg. The baroness stated plaintively that even straight after her marriage to the baron, ‘‘the princess had telephoned for her husband, who immediately left…’’
A popular touring JC Williamson play called Scandal was performed in Feilding and Palmerston North in mid-may 1922. The heroine, according to the play’s advance publicity, ‘‘does a thing that no girl brought up under the best conventions would ever do’’.
No doubt the ‘‘backyard parliaments’’ were sitting in the front row, ready to be deliciously shocked.