pen-battles are a little more truculent. There
is a well-known editor " out west," of the name
of Prentice. Prentice is never known to be
put out; and accordingly Mr. Smith (we shall
call him), of the Cleavland Plain Dealer, made
a fatal mistake when he penned the following:
"Prentice is a liar, and we shall tell him so
when we meet him!" Prentice thus replies
in his next paper: "Ah! Will you, Mr.
Smith? About that time there will be a funeral,
and the Smith family will be the principal
mourners!"

The following is more in the highly jocose
way, and coming from a village in the vicinity
of San Francisco, is characteristic enough.
"Wanted, a calaboose* M'Quillan, of the
Parajo Times, is earnestly petitioning the
board of supervisors for a calaboose, which
institution, he argues, is sadly wanted in the town
of Watsonville. We once spent a week in
Watsonville, and we have no hesitation in
saying that M'Quillan's head is quite level on the
calaboose question. A calaboose is sadly needed
in that locality." So says the Dramatic
Chronicle; to which the editor pointedly
referred to as " M'Quillan," replies in parenthesis
at the end of a reprint: [" Yes, we remember
your visit here, which suggested to us the necessity
of a calaboose."] My friend, the Hon. W.
P. H., is well known in North-West America as
the active superintendent of Indian affairs in
Oregon, and was at one time editor, and is still
proprietor, of the Oregon Statesman. On one
of his tours, he captured the wives of the great
war chief, Pahnine, of the Shoshones, who had
for eight years waged continual war against
the whites, accompanied with most merciless
outrages. These women were held as hostages,
and the result was that in the ensuing summer
the chief sued for peace, and Mr. H., with the
officers of the Indian department, and a party
of friends, of which the writer of these pages
formed one, journeyed along the region of the
Snake River to deliver them up in state. Our
astonishment was great, to find our doings
subsequently recorded in the opposition paper as
follows: " Bill H., editor of the Statesman,
went up Snake River, last week, with three
squaws," the notion evidently being to lead
those at a distance who did not know the official
character of the journey to suppose that " Bill
H." was a person of very immoral life, who
consorted in trigamic concubinage with
aboriginal ladies, and that the Statesman must be a
vile paper to have such an editor.
* Jail.

Some years ago I passed an evening at the
Dalles of the Columbia River: a locality well
known to all readers of early adventure beyond
the Rocky Mountains. It is now a little
village (" city," of course, they call it) on the
highway to the mines of Idaho. It was crowded
on this particular night with travellers. Among
the motley throng, were various newspaper men
bound to the mines, either to canvass for their
papers, correspond, or generally to look around.
Among others, I was introduced to an
exceedingly pleasant gentleman called Mr
Samuel Bowers, editor of a Portland paper.
He was an excellent fellow, affable and pleasant,
and, after the manners and customs of the
country, we had many " drinks" together. I
believe we engaged to correspond. What
was my delight when the Dalles
Mountaineer, the weekly paper, came out next
morning to find the following anent my
friend of the evening before, who was now
on his way up the Columbia River: " Miners
look out! Among other rogues, thieves, cut-
throats, rowdies, and blackguards generally,
whom we noticed in the city last night was
Sam Bowers, who has figured in the role of
newspaper editor, school-fund thief, etcetera.
We believe that he is on his way to the mines,
in which case the honest miners had better
look sharp, else Sam will bilk them—SURE!"
I expressed a little surprise to the friend who
had introduced me. " Oh," was the reply,
"that's nothing. Sam, perhaps, ain't much on
the pray, but still he's not such a bad coon;
but he differs in politics with the folks in this
quarter. Watch the Umatilla and other up-
river papers, and see what they say." I did
watch them, with this result, that the paper in
the next village on the river, above the Dalles
(after a fashion very common in the western
newspapers—I suppose for the sake of filling
up) copied out the item, with the commentary:
"Sam passed through here the other day
nothing missing!" To which the next weekly
adds, " Sam passed through here on Thursday,
but as far as we can learn without injury to the
portable property of any of our citizens. There
was talk about a child's rattle and a red-hot
stove, but we believe the rumour was without
foundation." So, another editor apologises to
another for calling him a miserable thing—he
meant a nothing; and the editor of the Solano
Press calls his brother of the Herald " an absurd
ass, a contemptible cur, a dirty dog, and a
liar." Equally parliamentary is the language
of the Oregon Statesman in reference to a
contemporary: " We republish to-day a vile,
degraded, infamous, and execrably atrocious lie
from the columns of the Daily Oregonian. Next
week, when time and space will permit, we shall
reply to it. For the present, suffice it for the
low, vulgar, foul-mouthed, and unrefined hound
to know that our eye is upon him, and he cannot
escape us." The Solano Press is apparently of
a " fierce nostril" and anxious for a fight. Woe
betide the unfortunate wight who diifers with
it in opinion—even though the opinion be not
political, but on the serious business of the best
route to a certain mining locality. I remember
a newspaper correspondent (as harmless a man
as need be, I well know) who ventured to
hint that there was a better route to the Idaho
mines than by passing up the Columbia. His
advice, if followed, would be to the detriment
of the Columbia River towns. With
what unanimity was he abused! No attempt
was made at argument: it was the old endorsement