She did not speak to him in the street, so she put it in the paper.
Transcribed from an 1881 collection of Times notices. Published by AseeksB.
A LADY who passed a Gentleman on Monday, the 17th of this month, in Hart-street, Bloomsbury, about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, without speaking to him, is anxious for an opportunity of seeing him again, any time after the 7th of January.
| Newspaper | The Times, London |
|---|---|
| Date | December 25, 1810 |
| Written by | A woman, unsigned |
| Addressed to | One man she passed in the street |
| Where | Not stated in the notice |
The Times printed short personal notices like this one; by the Victorian era its personal column was known as the agony column. In 1881 Alice Clay collected notices from 1800 to 1870 in a book, now free on Project Gutenberg, which is where this one is transcribed from.
It ran on Christmas Day. The notice gives no address for replies, only the street, the hour and a date after which she would like to see him again, so it depended on him reading the Times and recognizing himself.
Public domain: published in 1810, and reprinted in 1881.
Transcribed from Alice Clay’s 1881 collection, in its Project Gutenberg edition, and checked against it; spelling and punctuation are as printed there. We have not seen the original page of the Times.
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