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Publick Occurrences 2.0

March 12, 2008

Eliot Spitzer pop quiz

Filed under: Political culture — Jeffrey L. Pasley @ 6:03 pm

Quick. What other major New York politician was suspected by investigators of profiting from government service, but turned out to be just paying for sex? Here’s a hint. The stories ended a lot differently, in very telling ways.

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5 Comments »

  1. Very cool! Thanks for that.

    I knew of this event, of course, but had never seen a copy of the original mea culpa/not really. Boy, Hamilton could really crank it out!

    Since it’s there to look at, a comment and a question: My comment is that the language and style of Hamilton (and I suppose his peers?) is quite modern, almost contemporary. And the (rather trivial) question is, What’s the deal with all those “f”s for s? It’s not like the typesetter didn’t have an s, because they show up every so often–sometimes with an f and an s together for ss. But other times, two f’s for an s. Upon a most cursory inspection, no convention governing f or s appeared to me. So what’s that all about?

    Comment by Rod Bell — March 13, 2008 @ 5:21 pm

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    PS: I posted this comment in the wrong place, so I copied it here. Now I’ll try to expunge it from the other place.

    Comment by Rod Bell — March 13, 2008 @ 5:24 pm

  2. I can expunge! I tried to answer your question in a post above. By the way, I only posted part of that pamphlet, which also included all the relative correspondence involved. It would be as if Eliot Spitzer had released audiotapes of phone calls to the “Emperor’s Club” and room service bills from the Mayflower just make sure everyone knew exactly what was going on.

    Comment by Jeff Pasley — March 14, 2008 @ 12:00 am

  3. [...] answer to Rod Bell’s question below, the “f”-like “s” was standard in 18th-century type. The actual [...]

    Pingback by Publick Occurrences » Typographic question answered — March 14, 2008 @ 12:21 am

  4. Thanks, Jeff. And, yes, I noticed, with mild regret, that the post didn’t include the correspondence referenced by Hamilton. I say “mild regret” because I feared the volume might be considerable, and keen as my interest is, I admit that it’s a teense time-consuming to wade through a) the verbosity of that period in b) the slightly exotic typeset of same. Good anlogy to Spitzer and audiotapes. Hamilton did a much better job of coming clean.

    Comment by Rod Bell — March 14, 2008 @ 11:17 am

  5. Hi there, just wanted to mention, I loved this blog post.

    It was inspiring. Keep on posting!

    Comment by Tracy G. Hall — January 19, 2013 @ 11:12 pm

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