Stead and Mice!

One of the most extraordinary accounts of Stead comes from Aaron Watson, a journalist who had worked under Stead for a time at the Pall Mall Gazette.

“He lived in Wimbledon,” declares Watson, “and got into town by a train arriving at 8.20. By that time he new everything that was in the papers, down to the inquests, though he had been out on Wimbledon Common with his children, in a dressing gown, giving each of the young ones a ride on a little donkey that he owned. One morning, very early, he received important news, and arrived in town much in advance of the train, wearing the dressing gown, and riding on the donkey. He was insensible to ridicule, except, perhaps, in the sense that it pleased him more to be laughed at than not noticed at all.”

“When he was at the Consulate at Newcastle,” continues Watson, “he caught the office mice, cooked them with nice care, and served them up to himself on toast, as a means of understanding what sort of experience the besieged residents of Paris were passing through at that time. His companions jeered at him, and he went on catching mice as before.”

See Aaron Watson, A Newspaperman’s Memories (Hutchinson & Co, London, 1925) pp. 66-67