It's a lucky dip of news as we look through the pages of the Manx Sun newspaper, in the edition for Saturday October 21, 1871. We've looked at pieces of history in and around that year, but we get a glimpse of what was exercising the minds of people in general, with the launch of Isle of Man Railways two years before its first line opened, an unflattering view of the harbour works which gave us the Victoria and Battery Piers in Douglas, and the perhaps surprising shopping hours in Castletown.

Our story in Manx is by David Barber, taking a wry look at the work of a jobbing author engaged in a 'vanity project' for a lottery winner.

As y kiaull ain -