Figure 1.--Here is one of the most famous photogrphs of London newsboys with headline sheets. "East End Murder. Police Hunt." A reader tells us it is one of the Jack the Ripper killings in 1888. But it does not look to us like a 1880s image, more like the 1900s. Our British reader tells us, "Let me assure you, as a world-reknowned Ripper expert and historian, this image is most definitely from 1888!" Notice that this was the 12:00 noon edition. Before rafio and television, not to mention the internet, newspapers published different daily editions.

To help sell newspapers, the street sellers were given headline sheets by the newspapers. These selling aids may have been called broadsheets, although I am not sure about that. They were to picque the interest of people on the street so tht they would buy a paper to read the details. Some of these broad sheets photographs are quite famous. Probably the most famous was the one for the Titanic disaster. The Titanic newsboy is an iconic image, "Great Loss Of Life ..." (1912). There was another tragedy associated with that photograph, The newsboy went into the Army a few years later when World War I broke out (1914). He with many others of his generation was killed on the Western front. Another famous news boy image is the one for the Jack the Ripper killings. It's an East End (London) newsboy during Autumn 1888.

Created: 5:29 PM 2/25/2007
Last updated: 5:29 PM 2/25/2007