Sketches New and Old
Page 5
JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE--[Written about 1871.]
The editor of the Memphis Avalanche swoops thus mildly down upon a correspondent who posted him as a Radical:--"While he was writing the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood."--Exchange.
I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve myhealth, and so I went down to Tennessee, and got a berth on the MorningGlory and Johnson County War-Whoop as associate editor. When I went onduty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in a three-legged chairwith his feet on a pine table. There was another pine table in the roomand another afflicted chair, and both were half buried under newspapersand scraps and sheets of manuscript. There was a wooden box of sand,sprinkled with cigar stubs and "old soldiers," and a stove with a doorhanging by its upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed blackcloth frock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small andneatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal-ring, a standingcollar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief with the endshanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was smoking a cigar, andtrying to think of a word, and in pawing his hair he had rumpled hislocks a good deal. He was scowling fearfully, and I judged that he wasconcocting a particularly knotty editorial. He told me to take theexchanges and skim through them and write up the "Spirit of the TennesseePress," condensing into the article all of their contents that seemed ofinterest.
I wrote as follows:
SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS
The editors of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake evidently labor under a misapprehension with regard to the Ballyhack railroad. It is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to slight it. The gentlemen of the Earthquake will, of course, take pleasure in making the correction.
John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, arrived in the city yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House.
We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs Morning Howl has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election returns.
It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is endeavoring to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its well-nigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The Daily Hurrah urges the measure with ability, and seems confident of ultimate success.
I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance,alteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded. Heran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous. It waseasy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up and said:
"Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of thosecattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand suchgruel as that? Give me the pen!"
I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or plowthrough another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. While he wasin the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through the open window,and marred the symmetry of my ear.
"Ah," said he, "that is that scoundrel Smith, of the Moral Volcano--hewas due yesterday." And he snatched a navy revolver from his belt andfired--Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot spoiled Smith's aim,who was just taking a second chance and he crippled a stranger. It wasme. Merely a finger shot off.
Then the chief editor went on with his erasure; and interlineations.Just as he finished them a hand grenade came down the stove-pipe, and theexplosion shivered the stove into a thousand fragments. However, it didno further damage, except that a vagrant piece knocked a couple of myteeth out.
"That stove is utterly ruined," said the chief editor.
I said I believed it was.
"Well, no matter--don't want it this kind of weather. I know the manthat did it. I'll get him. Now, here is the way this stuff ought to bewritten."
I took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and interlineationstill its mother wouldn't have known it if it had had one. It now read asfollows:
SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS
The inveterate liars of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake are evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off at one side originated in their own fulsome brains--or rather in the settlings which they regard as brains. They had better swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve.
That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, is down here again sponging at the Van Buren.
We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs Morning Howl is giving out, with his usual propensity for lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of journalism is to disseminate truth; to eradicate error; to educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier; and yet this blackhearted scoundrel degrades his great office persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny, vituperation, and vulgarity.
Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement--it wants a jail and a poorhouse more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith shop, and that mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the Daily Hurrah! The crawling insect, Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is braying about his business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is talking sense.
"Now that is the way to write--peppery and to the point. Mush-and-milkjournalism gives me the fan-tods."
About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering crash,and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved out of range--I began to feel in the way.
The chief said, "That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting himfor two days. He will be up now right away."
He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment afterward witha dragoon revolver in his hand.
He said, "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who edits thismangy sheet?"
"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs isgone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar, ColonelBlatherskite Tecumseh?"
"Right, Sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are atleisure we will begin."
"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and IntellectualDevelopment in America' to finish, but there is no hurry. Begin."
Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The chieflost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its career in thefleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder was clipped alittle. They fired again. Both missed their men this time, but I got myshare, a shot in the arm. At the third fire both gentlemen were woundedslightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I then said, I believed I wouldgo out and take a walk, as this was a private matter, and I had adelicacy about participating in it further. But both gentlemen begged meto keep my seat, and assured me that I was not in the way.
They then talked about the elections and the crops while they reloaded,and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they opened fire againwith animation, and every shot took effect--but it is proper to remarkthat five out of the six fell to my share. The sixth one mortallywounded the Colon
el, who remarked, with fine humor, that he would have tosay good morning now, as he had business uptown. He then inquired theway to the undertaker's and left.
The chief turned to me and said, "I am expecting company to dinner, andshall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will read proofand attend to the customers."
I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I wastoo bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my ears tothink of anything to say.
He continued, "Jones will be here at three--cowhide him. Gillespie willcall earlier, perhaps--throw him out of the window. Ferguson will bealong about four--kill him. That is all for today, I believe. If youhave any odd time, you may write a blistering article on the police--givethe chief inspector rats. The cowhides are under the table; weapons inthe drawer--ammunition there in the corner--lint and bandages up there inthe pigeonholes. In case of accident, go to Lancet, the surgeon,downstairs. He advertises--we take it out in trade."
He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I had beenthrough perils so awful that all peace of mind and all cheerfulness weregone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown me out of the window.Jones arrived promptly, and when I got ready to do the cowhiding he tookthe job off my hands. In an encounter with a stranger, not in the billof fare, I had lost my scalp. Another stranger, by the name of Thompson,left me a mere wreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay inthe corner, and beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs,politicians, and desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished theirweapons about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes ofsteel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the chiefarrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic friends. Thenensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human pen, or steel oneeither, could describe. People were shot, probed, dismembered, blown up,thrown out of the window. There was a brief tornado of murky blasphemy,with a confused and frantic war-dance glimmering through it, and then allwas over. In five minutes there was silence, and the gory chief and Isat alone and surveyed the sanguinary ruin that strewed the floor aroundus.
He said, "You'll like this place when you get used to it."
I said, "I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I might writeto suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some practice and learnedthe language I am confident I could. But, to speak the plain truth, thatsort of energy of expression has its inconveniences, and a man is liableto interruption.
"You see that yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate thepublic, no doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention asit calls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so muchas I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I don't liketo be left here to wait on the customers. The experiences are novel,I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a fashion, but they are notjudiciously distributed. A gentleman shoots at you through the windowand cripples me; a bombshell comes down the stove-pipe for yourgratification and sends the stove door down my throat; a friend drops into swap compliments with you, and freckles me with bullet-holes till myskin won't hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with hiscowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all myclothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy freedomof an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all the blackguardsin the country arrive in their war-paint, and proceed to scare the restof me to death with their tomahawks. Take it altogether, I never hadsuch a spirited time in all my life as I have had to-day. No; I likeyou, and I like your calm unruffled way of explaining things to thecustomers, but you see I am not used to it. The Southern heart is tooimpulsive; Southern hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. Theparagraphs which I have written to-day, and into whose cold sentencesyour masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennesseeanjournalism, will wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob ofeditors will come--and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody forbreakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present atthese festivities. I came South for my health, I will go back on thesame errand, and suddenly. Tennesseean journalism is too stirring forme."
After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at thehospital.