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Myles Crawford: an editor with a “harsh voice,” “bold blue
eyes,” and “a scarlet beaked face, creased by a comb of
feathery hair” (Joyce, 1986: 104). Professor MacHugh calls
him “the sham squire” (104), in reference to Francis Higgins
(1746-1802), an infamous libeler and informer who rose from
an attorney’s clerk to eventually the ownership of the
Freeman’s Journal
by palming himself off as a country
gentleman and marrying a respectable woman (Gifford &
Seidman, 1988: 135). The allusion inadvertently relates the
Freeman
to “a rather shameful period” (Kershner, 2010: 99)
and associates Crawford with a notorious pressman
—
an
anti-Irish Irishman indeed. Repeated mentions of Crawford’s
“scarlet face” (Joyce, 1986: 105) are suggestive of his
alcoholism. Ned Lambert whispers to J. J. O’Molloy,
“Incipient jigs. Sad case” (105), and MacHugh makes the
remark that “He’s pretty well on” (107), respectively
suggesting advanced alcoholism and half drunkenness (Gifford
& Seidman, 1988: 135-136). Throughout the episode, it is
drinks, not work, for which Crawford shows greater
enthusiasm. So eager is he to go out for a drink that when
Bloom informs him of the Keyes advertisement, he responds
impatiently with an insult, “He can kiss my royal Irish arse”
(Joyce, 1986: 121), oblivious of his position as
the
editor in
charge of the office and responsible for the business of the
newspaper.
The alcoholic editor is also characterized by changeability.
His association with Aeolus inevitably gives him this attribute.
Bloom remarks that “Myles Crawford began on the
Independent
” (Joyce, 1986: 103), which was set up after the
Parnell scandal and devoted to championing the views of
Parnellites, but gradually veered from a radical policy to a
other papers (Gifford & Seidman, 1988: 129). As the evening version of the
Freeman’s Journal
, the
Evening Telegraph
is closely associated with its sister
publication. To discuss the one is thus to include the other.