The Littlehampton libels were a series of letters sent to numerous residents of Littlehampton, in southern England, over a three-year period between 1920 and 1923. The letters, which contained obscenities and false accusations, were written by Edith Swan, a thirty-year-old laundress; she tried to incriminate her neighbour, Rose Gooding, a thirty-year-old married woman. Swan and Gooding (both pictured) had once been friends, but after Swan made a false report to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children accusing Gooding of maltreating one of her sister's children, the letters started arriving. Many of them were signed as if from Gooding. Swan brought a private prosecution against Gooding for libel. Gooding was imprisoned twice, but Scotland Yard investigated and cleared her. Swan was prosecuted in December 1921. A similar case of letters being sent over several years was reported in 2024, in the village of Shiptonthorpe, East Yorkshire. (Full article...).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlehampton_libels> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1850: Settlers of the Canterbury Association aboard Randolph and Charlotte Jane arrived to establish a colony at Christchurch, New Zealand. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canterbury_Association> 1922: Gabriel Narutowicz, the first president of Poland, was assassinated only five days after having taken office. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Gabriel_Narutowicz> 1930: German-American gangster Herman Lamm killed himself during a botched robbery attempt in Clinton, Indiana, to avoid being captured by police. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Lamm> 1997: "Dennō Senshi Porygon", an episode of the Japanese television series Pokémon, induced epileptic seizures in 685 children. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Senshi_Porygon> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: sensibility: 1. (countable, uncountable, often in the plural) Emotions or feelings arising from or relating to aesthetic or moral standards, especially those which are sensitive and thus likely to be hurt or offended. 2. (uncountable) The ability to feel, perceive, or sense; responsiveness to sensory stimuli; sensitivity; also, the degree to which someone or something (especially a sensory organ or tissue) is able to respond to sensory stimuli. 3. (uncountable) The quality of being easily affected by external forces or stimuli; also, of a measuring instrument: the quality of being able to detect small changes in the environment. 4. (uncountable) Keen sensitivity to matters of creative expression or feeling; artistic or emotional awareness. 5. (specifically, archaic) Affected or excessive artistic or emotional awareness; the fact or quality of being overemotional; overemotionality. 6. (uncountable, archaic) 7. Awareness; also, understanding. 8. The capacity of something to be perceived by the senses; perceptibility. 9. (botany) Of a plant or one of its parts: the ability to move in response to a stimulus. 10. (uncountable, philosophy) The ability to perceive or sense as opposed to the ability to understand; also, in the philosophy of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): emotion or feeling as opposed to the will. 11. (countable, obsolete) 12. An emotional sense or understanding of something. 13. A sign or token of appreciation or gratitude. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sensibility> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: As you get older, all those dumb clichés, they’re all true. You only have a certain amount of time left, and you should only spend it doing the things that you want to do. --Rob Reiner <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rob_Reiner> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe write to: [email protected] Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
