I put rude spread around front of Telegraph -- evil (9)
I believe the answer is:
turpitude
'evil' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'i put rude spread around front of telegraph' is the wordplay.
'spread' indicates anagramming the letters.
'around' is an insertion indicator.
'front of' indicates taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'telegraph' is 't'.
'i'+'put'+'rude'='iputrude'
'iputrude' anagrammed gives 'turpiude'.
'turpiude' placed around 't' is 'TURPITUDE'.
(Other definitions for turpitude that I've seen before include "Depravity, wickedness" , "corruption" , "Baseness, depravity" , "Depraved or wicked behaviour" .)