The National Police Gazette
tcbev...@yahoo.com
As we all know, Joyce's magnum opi Ulysse and Finnegans Wake are
commonly thought difficult and obscure. It seems to me that a major
factor in this is simply that they are now the beter part of a century
old and many jokes and allusions referenced therein, which were
perfectly clear to contemporary readers, have grown distant from the
common knowledge of today's reader. We see this even more clearly in
Shakespeare; college students must labor assiduously to grasp what any
illiterate groundling in the Globe would have got right off. Another
famous work which requires a concordance is Don Quixote, which
satirizes a bookshelf's worth of chivalric romances most modern
readers have never heard of. In Cervantes' day these books were best-
sellers, the airport pulp of yore.
Which brings me to the National Police Gazette. Joyce mentions this
American periodical in Ulysses; but it is not adequate to our
appreciation that we know merely that it was a magazine. We can gain
some sense of its character from Joyce's description in the 'Cyclops'
episode:
--And here she is, says Alf, hat was giggling over the Police Gazette
with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint.
--Give us a squint at her, says I.
And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows
oaf Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts.
Misconduct of society belle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago
contractor, finds pretty but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor.
Belle in her bloomers misconducting herself, and her fancyman feeling
for her tickles and Norman W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter
just in tine to be late after she doing the trick of the loop with
officer Taylor.
--O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is]
--There's hair, lot: says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef
off of that one, what? (Ulysses 12: 1165-77)
But to see with your own eyes, ah, that clears things up nicely! Jaime
Morrison over at The Nonist ran a delicious post of illustrations from
the Police Gazette. Go at once! and see! you won't be disappointed at
all, at all. http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/sins_of_america/
I found the quote quickly by googling, and by referencing this
interesting essay: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3643/is_199510/ai_n8719630/pg_2
Tom Buckner