of the brief, " No defence; abuse plaintiffs
attorney." The Oregonian suggested that
"Some charitable packer* had given him the
privilege of riding the 'Bell mare' and had
generously offered him a blanket to cover his
miserable carcase." The last I heard of this
unfortunate young man was the suggestion of
the Umatilla Tri-weekly Advertiser: " That
the flunkey must have lingered along the
road scouring knives and washing dishes.
That he never paid for a meal is evident from his
statement of the prices charged," &c., &c. Here
below is a piece of fine writing from an editorial
in a Californian mining paper: "Let vagabonds
howl and traitors hiss; let the breeders
of bloodhounds to track and tear Union
refugees bay like their own dogs; let the smitten
maniacs who cursed Johnson till he turned traitor,
also vomit new blasphemies against the holy
name of liberty; let foul lust, and lazy pride,
and insolent and testy spleen, and self-conscious
envy and gleaming hate, and blear-eyed prejudice,
and besotted ignorance, and porcine
brutality stir every cesspool with their assinine
vociferations till every club-room of
Democracy reeks like an omnium gatherum of
stenches!"
* Muleteer, who " packs" or carries goods to the
mines or elsewhere.

I regret to say that many of these gems of
far-western periodical literature are occasionally
not only scurrilous on the individual attacked,
but verge on the sacred precincts of the family
circle: holding up to public scorn the foibles
and weakness of the female members of the
family of the individual attacked, and even
occasionally being so openly coarse and indecent as
to preclude their being noticed in this place.
Probably, no one likes, when "running" for
the honourable office of congressman or supreme
state judge, to have it shown in a newspaper
how, in an early portion of his career, he
murdered his grandmother, and ignominiously
buried her in the back kitchen. Mr. " Artemus
Ward," himself a quondam "newspaper man,"
has exactly struck this nail on the head when
he represents in the " controversy about a plank
road," this attack upon the editor of the Eagle
of Freedom. The passage is worth quoting as
an epitome of a system:

"The road may be, as our contemporary says,
a humbug; but our aunt isn't baldheaded, and
we hav'nt got a one-eyed sister Sal! Wonder
if the editor of the Eagle of Freedom sees it.
This used up the Eagle of Freedom feller,
because his aunt's head does present a skinned
appearance, and his sister Sarah is very much
one-eyed. . . . . We have recently put up in
our office an entirely new sink, of unique
construction, with two holes, through which the
soiled water may pass to the new bucket
underneath. What will the Hell hounds of the
Advertiser say to this? We shall continue to
make improvements as fast as our rapidly
increasing business may warrant. Wonder whether
a certain editor's wife thinks she can palm off
a brass watch-chain on the community for a gold
one."

A paper in Vancouver Island used to style its
evening contemporary " the night cart."

Though a vast portion of a western
newspaper might, without a very great stretch of
adverse criticism, be styled personal, yet, by
emphasis, in the " local item" column, you can
see every now and then paragraphs entitled
"Personal." These paragraphs refer to the
business of private individuals in contradistinction
to others relating to the public weal.
What they are, may be judged by the following
"personal" welcoming home of a prominent
citizen:

"Mr. Joe Tritch arrived home last night with
the stage. He has on a new suit of State
clothes, including a fine plug hat. He looks
the dogondest cuss ever since Jim Ford left;
but, nevertheless, we are glad to see him, and
hope he will settle down, and behave himself."

The following is peculiarly national in its
curiosity:

"Nathan E. Wallace and Charlie Henry went
up to Fort Langely last night—business
unknown."

As might be expected, such personalities
occasionally lead to hostile encounters between
rival editors and their readers. Most frequently
these consist only in a thrashing on either side,
and I fancy very few western editors have
missed having a difficulty of that sort at one
time or another on their hands. I possess a
scrap-book kept by Mr. B. Griffin, of Victoria,
in the earlier years of California, and such
items as the following are not unfrequent:
"Collision between H. A. De Courcey, Esq.,
editor of the Calaveras Chronicle, and Mr.
W. H. Carter;" "Affair of honour between
W. H. Jones and Salucius T. Slingsby;"
"Editorial Difficulty down at Santa Clara—Man
Shot," &c. John King, of William, editor of
the San Francisco Herald, was shot by a rowdy,
whom he had attacked in his paper. His
death may be said to have been the origin
of the Vigilance Committee, which, with a
lawless justice, created comparative peace and
order where anarchy and villany had reigned. I
heard a story about a new editor who had
come to a place which was infested with
a gang of ruffians. Before his face was
generally known, he attacked those men most
violently in his paper. One day, as he was sitting
in his office after having published a particularly
severe article, a stalwart individual, brandishing
a whip in his hand, rushed in and inquired
for the editor. Suspecting evil, he asked the
visitor to be seated, and he would call the
editor, who had just stepped out for a minute.
On his way down-stairs he met a second
individual carrying a bludgeon, and likewise
inquiring vigorously for the editor. " Oh, sir, he
is sitting in his office up-stairs. You'll find
him there." When he next peeped into the
office, the two were belabouring each other
thoroughly, rolling over and over, and each
fancying that he had the editor in hand. I