— The —
Daily Prophet
Daily Prophet
Price One Knut
July 22nd, 1892
The Irvingly Lockdown
Letters From Our Readers
With the Irvingly lockdown now behind us but the tragic events still fresh in our mind, The Daily Prophet wished to give our readership an opportunity to share their thoughts. The following are letters from our readership, unedited and in full.
To the Editor of the Daily Prophet,
Despite the lifting of the lockdown this morning I cannot help but ask myself whether we are truly safe in this small part of the country given that we here in Irvingly have been repeatedly, and flagrantly, ignored by the rest of Wizarding society. Perhaps we are seen as pariahs because we offer the hand of friendship to muggles or perhaps, even more concerningly, because many of the residents are muggles? It is our God-given duty to care for those less able to protect themselves and yet time and time again we are left abandoned by the Ministry in the face of calamity. The Ministry claim to be confident the danger has passed but they so rarely show their faces in Irvingly it's a wonder that they can find the place.
There is an insidious disregard for us at the heart of Wizarding society, one that allows smugglers to bring dangerous beasts into a quiet, peaceful village, and has now resulted in a terrible tragedy. I am a nurse so such sights are no shock to me but for the muggles in our vicinity and, it goes without saying, in our care, such horrors could break their souls apart.
The Ministry needs to do better for the sake of all God's children.
Yours Faithfully,
Miss T. Fairchild
To the Editor of the Daily Prophet,
I write to you with grave concern over the matter of the acromantula in Irvingly. However, I first wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the Tuttle and Brennan families for their loss, if they truly are the only families who lost someone to this tragedy. That being said, I now turn to the issue of the Ministry of Magic's role in all this. Not to the lockdown itself or the dispatching of aurors and the Beast Division to Irvingly. In fact, I find very little to criticize in the swift action to contain the beast and ensure there were no others. What I do question is why such actions became necessary at all.
Based on your reporting, are we to believe that a man-eating arachnid around the size of a stagecoach has been rampaging through the outskirts of Irvingly undetected for a week? Frankly, it would be alarming if such things happened anywhere. But Irvingly especially should be the last place where such things happen. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, if I might quote from Clause 73 of the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy, "will be responsible for the concealment, care, and control of all magical beasts, beings, and spirits dwelling within its territory's borders." Irvingly, having a muggle population less able to defend themselves from magical threats, is in most dire need of regular patrol to ensure that all manners of magical beasts do not enter. To allow such disasters to occur on our watch has certainly not earned any praise in the international community of wizardry.
Why then, is the Prophet not more concerned with pressing the Ministry to explain itself? Nothing I have read suggests that you are concerned with anything beyond parroting the advisories of the Ministry without so much as an ounce of critique. Is it perhaps that Mr. Archibald Skeeter is not eager to speak ill of the department headed by one Ms. Morwenna Skeeter? I can certainly sympathize with the impulse not to speak poorly of a family member's performance. Unfortunately, the presence of this beast represents a colossal failure of the Department for the Control of Magical Creatures in its core mission. Perhaps a reporter willing to place the Ministry's performance under closer scrutiny should handle such a story. And perhaps the Ministry will take this as a learning opportunity and keep a closer watch on what fantastical threats are roaming just outside the town of Irvingly. I hopefully need not remind anyone reading that we are not on the most solid of ground when it comes to our relationship with the muggle world. Mistakes like these could jeopardize all the progress made in the last five years.
Sincerely,
Ambrose Chambers
To the Editor of the Daily Prophet,
1 galleon an hour. That’s how much our business lost every hour this lockdown endured. As a humble reminder to the high and mighty upperclass sitting posh in their London estates, 3 galleons pay for a man’s full week of honest hard work. How would you then handle the matter of addressing two-dozen of these men, to say they are out of work for an indefinite period of time? These men I sent home to hungry children and bereft wives day and day again?
The Changs take great pride in being among the first wizarding families to settle this new territory ten years ago. And we are not alone. The Magical Commerce Board Members of Irvingly together employ more than 80% of Irvingly’s wizarding workforce, and another 10% of the town’s muggles! Our economy is the living embodiment of what peaceful mutual beneficence can look like when wizards and muggles are required to coexist. And yet, every one of us had the wool pulled over our eyes with no right to know the true extent of what was the matter!
I stress this to the public, at no point in time were we consulted about the devastating economic consequences such a lockdown would wreak. We were not asked how to manage the muggles, though many of us work with them in harmony every day. Our own men could have helped to defeat the acromantula sooner, we have sailors in the wetlands of Beijing trained for such encounters! Time and time again the Ministry shows callous disregard for Wizarding society in Irvingly, and turns a blind eye to the community fabric we’ve created stitch by stitch. They are quick to throw everything to disarray, and just as quick to dispatch, leaving our own to pick up the shattered pieces and tame back the Muggles.
A word of caution for our elected officials: we wizards of Irvingly have a long memory. Forget to serve us today, and you can forget to serve at all in the future.
Respectfully,
Mister and Mister Chang, Owners of Chang Imports of the Orient
To the Editor of the Daily Prophet,
Despite the lifting of the lockdown this morning I cannot help but ask myself whether we are truly safe in this small part of the country given that we here in Irvingly have been repeatedly, and flagrantly, ignored by the rest of Wizarding society. Perhaps we are seen as pariahs because we offer the hand of friendship to muggles or perhaps, even more concerningly, because many of the residents are muggles? It is our God-given duty to care for those less able to protect themselves and yet time and time again we are left abandoned by the Ministry in the face of calamity. The Ministry claim to be confident the danger has passed but they so rarely show their faces in Irvingly it's a wonder that they can find the place.
There is an insidious disregard for us at the heart of Wizarding society, one that allows smugglers to bring dangerous beasts into a quiet, peaceful village, and has now resulted in a terrible tragedy. I am a nurse so such sights are no shock to me but for the muggles in our vicinity and, it goes without saying, in our care, such horrors could break their souls apart.
The Ministry needs to do better for the sake of all God's children.
Yours Faithfully,
Miss T. Fairchild
To the Editor of the Daily Prophet,
I write to you with grave concern over the matter of the acromantula in Irvingly. However, I first wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the Tuttle and Brennan families for their loss, if they truly are the only families who lost someone to this tragedy. That being said, I now turn to the issue of the Ministry of Magic's role in all this. Not to the lockdown itself or the dispatching of aurors and the Beast Division to Irvingly. In fact, I find very little to criticize in the swift action to contain the beast and ensure there were no others. What I do question is why such actions became necessary at all.
Based on your reporting, are we to believe that a man-eating arachnid around the size of a stagecoach has been rampaging through the outskirts of Irvingly undetected for a week? Frankly, it would be alarming if such things happened anywhere. But Irvingly especially should be the last place where such things happen. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, if I might quote from Clause 73 of the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy, "will be responsible for the concealment, care, and control of all magical beasts, beings, and spirits dwelling within its territory's borders." Irvingly, having a muggle population less able to defend themselves from magical threats, is in most dire need of regular patrol to ensure that all manners of magical beasts do not enter. To allow such disasters to occur on our watch has certainly not earned any praise in the international community of wizardry.
Why then, is the Prophet not more concerned with pressing the Ministry to explain itself? Nothing I have read suggests that you are concerned with anything beyond parroting the advisories of the Ministry without so much as an ounce of critique. Is it perhaps that Mr. Archibald Skeeter is not eager to speak ill of the department headed by one Ms. Morwenna Skeeter? I can certainly sympathize with the impulse not to speak poorly of a family member's performance. Unfortunately, the presence of this beast represents a colossal failure of the Department for the Control of Magical Creatures in its core mission. Perhaps a reporter willing to place the Ministry's performance under closer scrutiny should handle such a story. And perhaps the Ministry will take this as a learning opportunity and keep a closer watch on what fantastical threats are roaming just outside the town of Irvingly. I hopefully need not remind anyone reading that we are not on the most solid of ground when it comes to our relationship with the muggle world. Mistakes like these could jeopardize all the progress made in the last five years.
Sincerely,
Ambrose Chambers
To the Editor of the Daily Prophet,
1 galleon an hour. That’s how much our business lost every hour this lockdown endured. As a humble reminder to the high and mighty upperclass sitting posh in their London estates, 3 galleons pay for a man’s full week of honest hard work. How would you then handle the matter of addressing two-dozen of these men, to say they are out of work for an indefinite period of time? These men I sent home to hungry children and bereft wives day and day again?
The Changs take great pride in being among the first wizarding families to settle this new territory ten years ago. And we are not alone. The Magical Commerce Board Members of Irvingly together employ more than 80% of Irvingly’s wizarding workforce, and another 10% of the town’s muggles! Our economy is the living embodiment of what peaceful mutual beneficence can look like when wizards and muggles are required to coexist. And yet, every one of us had the wool pulled over our eyes with no right to know the true extent of what was the matter!
I stress this to the public, at no point in time were we consulted about the devastating economic consequences such a lockdown would wreak. We were not asked how to manage the muggles, though many of us work with them in harmony every day. Our own men could have helped to defeat the acromantula sooner, we have sailors in the wetlands of Beijing trained for such encounters! Time and time again the Ministry shows callous disregard for Wizarding society in Irvingly, and turns a blind eye to the community fabric we’ve created stitch by stitch. They are quick to throw everything to disarray, and just as quick to dispatch, leaving our own to pick up the shattered pieces and tame back the Muggles.
A word of caution for our elected officials: we wizards of Irvingly have a long memory. Forget to serve us today, and you can forget to serve at all in the future.
Respectfully,
Mister and Mister Chang, Owners of Chang Imports of the Orient
Gulliver Doran