ill news spreads apace

ill news spreads apace

1. (archaic) Bad news circulates quickly because people like to gossip.
   • 1812, The Scouge; or Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly, Vol IV, page 135:

     Aware of the too great proneness of his countrymen to ideas of despondency, knowing that ill news spreads apace, and that in an overgrown metropolis few have the opportunity of ocular demonstration of the state of the country's agriculture, this insidious letter has been written, that it might become the subject of conversation, and thus glide unawares into the ears of those who are inclined to view things on the gloomy side— If it only raise doubt, much of the writer's or his abettor's views are answered; but where it is received as fast, and thus propagated to others, every purpose he intended is fulfilled.

   • 1908, Norman Innes, My lady's kiss: a romance, page 127:

     Ill news spreads apace, nor was it long before the tale reached Ertha von Reuth.

   • 1915, Townsend Walsh, The Career of Dion Boucicault, page 146:

     Ill news spreads apace, and I found, on returning to the stage, Miss Foote and Mrs. Edmund Phelps crying bitterly, and waiting to descend with their condolences on the poor mother when she came out of her dressing-room; but I bundled both the ladies out of the theatre, for which, of course, I was put down as an unsympathetic brute!

• bad news travels fast