In response to Mr. Deasy's request that Stephen place his
editorial letter in two newspapers, Stephen thinks of two
where he knows editors: "Telegraph. Irish
Homestead." Asked to name them, he gets out
one ("The Evening Telegraph...")
before Deasy rudely cuts him off. Most of Aeolus
takes place in the offices of the Telegraph, where
Stephen's errand from the headmaster brings him in search of
the editor, Myles Crawford. Bloom comes there a bit
later in search of the same man. Having started out in the
offices of the Freeman's Journal, where he discusses
the design of an ad with the newspaper's foreman, he walks
next door to talk to Crawford about placing "a little puff" for the
advertiser's business in the Telegraph.
In Proteus Stephen realizes that he lacks paper to
record his thoughts for a poem and turns to one of Deasy's two
letters: "Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old
Deasy's letter. Here. Thanking you for the
hospitality tear the blank end off. Turning
his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock
and scribbled words. That's twice I forgot to take slips from
the library counter." In the newspaper office in Aeolus,
he begins his overture to Myles Crawford by thinking of how he
has mutilated the letter he is about to hand over: "Bit
torn off." He says, "Mr Garrett Deasy," and the
mere mention of the name sends the editor off into a tirade of
abuse. "Good day, sir, Stephen answered, blushing. The letter
is not mine. Mr Garrett Deasy asked me to..." We never learn
if he gets farther into his appeal than this, but some time
later it does seem that Crawford has heard him and will
consider printing the letter: "Myles Crawford crammed
the sheets into a sidepocket. / — That'll be all right,
he said. I'll read the rest after. That'll be all right."
Two later chapters make clear that Crawford did
indeed include the letter in Thursday evening's edition of the
Telegraph. In Oxen of the Sun Lenehan comes
"to the feet of the table to say how the letter
was in that night's gazette and he made a show
to find it about him (for he swore with an oath that he had
been at pains about it) but on Stephen's persuasion he gave
over the search." In Eumaeus Bloom finds a copy
lying about in the cabman's shelter, and thinks of a mocking
Dublin pun: "The pink edition extra sporting of the
Telegraph tell a graphic lie lay, as luck would have it,
beside his elbow." He opens the paper, glances at
various articles, hands part of the paper to Stephen, and
reads part himself. Among the items recorded in his thoughts
is "Foot
and mouth." Recorded, also, is the fact that the funeral
for Patrick Dignam was attended by "Stephen Dedalus, B. A."—a
non-fact that amuses Bloom greatly.
Of greater significance in the evening's Telegraph,
however, is the announcement of the results of the Gold Cup
race of June 16. In Nausicaa, Bloom hears "a
shrill voice" hawking papers by promising news of the race
results: "Evening Telegraph, stop press edition!
Result of the Gold Cup race!" In the
cabman's shelter in Eumaeus he reads an account of
the race on page 3. The story can be seen here on page 3,
column 8, under "SPORTING." In Ithaca Bloom thinks
again about the race, "the official and definitive result of
which he had read in the Evening Telegraph,
late pink edition, in the cabman's
shelter, at Butt bridge."
Other things catch Bloom's attention when he looks at the
paper in Eumaeus, most of which actually appeared in
the Telegraph on this date. The "Gordon
Bennett" race is discussed at length on page 2. The
"New
York disaster, thousand lives lost" appears on page 2
and page 4. "Great battle Tokio" occupies the
last column of page 2 and the beginning of page 3. "Emigration
Swindle" from police court is reported on page 3. "Lovemaking
in Irish, £ 200 damages," a breach of promise case,
is covered on page 3. On some subjects, however, Joyce added
features of his own invention. No letter about foot and mouth
disease appears in the actual paper. Nor does the funeral of
the fictional Patrick Dignam.
The Telegraph makes one fantastic appearance in Circe,
when the newspaper-seller Davy
Stephens passes by "with a bevy of barefoot
newsboys" like the ones that mocked Bloom in Aeolus.
Stephens is hawking the "Messenger of the Sacred Heart
and Evening Telegraph with Saint
Patrick's Day supplement. Containing the new
addresses of all the cuckolds in Dublin."
