Thanks to Excoriator…
I have, in the past, tried to interest Thelies in the joys of newspaper research but I suppose it is an acquired taste. However, a wonderful, new resource might interest the more stay-at-home type of researcher. All that is required is your internet connection and you too can impress your friends with interesting discoveries. I found this photograph of another amusing hat with A.C. under it. This was on the occasion of his so-called expulsion from France in 1929.
At NewspaperArchive.com many newspapers, going back to the 19th century, are now available to be searched for free; at least for a two-day, introductory, period. In just a few days of searching I have managed to find about half as many articles about, or mentioning, A.C. as are presently in the Lashtal collection; which, as I understand it, has taken many years to amass.There are many items of interest for the newspaper-spotter. One article, in the Washington Post, was published prior to WWI; about A.C.'s doings in London. Also, a few of the articles seem to have been written by A.C. himself; or, at least, he had a heavy hand in their production. And one, from the North American period, shows that he did actually lose at chess occasionally. (And who said that the “Chess Notes” were of interest only to the terminally-sad Crowley-o-phile?! I, for one, had been wondering about how to get them – right before Lashtal supplied them, as if it was a genie responding to my command! Hip hip hooray for Lashtal!) What's more: Who knew that Pirate Bridge kicked on as late as the 1960's? I shall make my finds available to Lashtal for inclusion in its collection; but the pick of them is this beauty, published in Ohio in 1934, soon after the “Laughing Torso” case; in that esteemed journal of record: “The Lima Sunday News”:
The search engine is OCR-based so it frequently doesn't recognise words and there are probably more articles to be found with the right search-terms. The earnest newspaper-hound must use a variety of terms which might be read correctly in that particular article as one never knows which words are corrupted. I saw a number of cases where “Aleister” was read as “Meister”; which is sort of appropriate, one might say – at least for some. Also, there are outright mispellings in the original articles, such as “Alister”, to keep one amused. And, for the truly-keen history-tragic there are, no doubt, many articles relating to associates of A.C.'s. One may start with the Red Flame articles and just keep on going. Fun for all the family!! For instance, I saw that there are quite a few about Eva Tanguay. Unfortuanately, I found none mentioning Leila Waddell – but more papers are being added all the time and one never knows one's luck on the world-wide web.