Dear Orwell Today,

The meaning of the penultimate verse of the Little Poem, with its priest and commissar, is surely perfectly clear to anyone who has read Orwell's work.

What is the problem expressed in the web page shown below?

Reader John asks for an explanation of "the little poem" in Orwell's essay "Why I Write"

The easiest bit is the phrase, "Duggie always pays". Wasn't Duggie (Douglas Stuart) a household name as a bookmaker at that time?

But that's hardly the start of an attempt to answer this little question. What is puzzling about any of it anyway?

The bit I had to look up was the reference to Eugene Aram. On returning to this poem recently, I had forgotten all about the mysterious Mr Aram.

Kind regards,
Tony Dron

Greetings Tony,

Although I appreciate your clearing up the question of who "Duggie" is in the second-to last verse in Orwell's "little poem" that he mentions in his essay WHY I WRITE - as transcribed in my article ORWELL THE HAPPY VICAR - I don't understand why you're puzzled that I didn't know who "Duggie" was.

You say it should be "perfectly clear to anyone who has read Orwell's work" but, in fact, it wasn't perfectly clear to me, and I've read almost ALL of Orwell's work (except for some of his letters and diary entries). Nowhere, that I recall, does Orwell reference a "bookmaker" or "Duggie" in any of his other writings.

Nor do you go on to explain who the "commissar" and "priest" are, and yet you imply that I should know that too, when, as I said to the previous reader, I DO NOT KNOW (and I wasn't around in 1935 when Orwell wrote the poem, so to me Duggie isn't "a household name").

At least you admit you didn't know who Eugene Aram was (nor did I, but no reader had ever asked and I had never wondered).

In any event, I've now done a search on Douglas Stuart and Eugene Aram. I found the 1938 "Duggie" ad, scanned at the top of the page, at a website devoted to vintage collectibles:

1938 Douglas Stuart Ltd Ad, Ruby Lane (...an old large ad for a London betting/gaming/gambling establishment...)

I asked my husband (who's English and goes to the horse-races whenever we're back in Jolly-Old) what "Duggie always pays" would mean (once I'd told him who 'Duggie' was) and he said that in the old days some bookmakers were disreputable and didn't pay winners what they were owed, but that "Duggie" must have (according to Orwell in the poem).

Regarding Eugene Aram, who Orwell also mentions in the little 'happy vicar' poem, it turns out he was a famous linquist who, in 1759, was convicted of murdering his best friend and was hanged. Then, seventy-five years later, in 1830, a poem (excerpts at top of page) and a book were written about him. Then, in 1989, a lawyer from the same Yorkshire town as Aram conjectured that he was innocent.

The Dream of Eugene Aram, Old Poetry