Times Index Compiler Found to Have Filed Headlines Instead of Subjects

LONDON, ENGLAND — According to Futility Closet, the index to the London Times in the 19th century was compiled by one Samuel Palmer, a man of what the site calls an unusual method of working. The peculiarity apparently escaped general notice until 1890, when a reader named Corrie Thompson wrote to the journal Notes and Queries to complain.

Thompson supplied several examples. A report on a boy sentenced for stealing a twopenny pie, the post says, was indexed under "Atrocious Criminal." A floating chapel that broke loose from its moorings was filed under "Disgraceful Act," while a storm at Saône-et-Loire appeared as "Fatal Storm." A spell of dry weather became "Present Dry Season."

Two women imprisoned, one for stealing a mare and the other for shooting at a man, were reportedly entered under the heading "Rather uncommon for Females." Other entries cited include "Extraordinary Escape of Boy at Erith Station, From a Bull Being on the Line" and "Extraordinary Marriage Adventure."

The explanation offered by Futility Closet is that Palmer had simply been compiling headlines without reading the articles beneath them. Thompson, for his part, observed that such a system might be expected in a table of contents, but was surely out of place in an index.

The post notes one wonderful exception, which Palmer apparently composed himself: an entry recording the death of one Jane Thomas in her mother's arms in Holborn, from joy at seeing her parent at the stage door. The entry runs to a length that no headline writer would have permitted.