PRESS LIFE IN KENTUCKY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 220, 27 November 1875, Page 22

PRESS LIFE IN KENTUCKY.

(From Harper's New Monthly.)

During his career as editor of the Louisville (Kentucky) Journal, George D. Prentice had at least half-a-dozen combats, in some of which he had very narrow escapes and in two or three he was slightly wounded. He was a good marksman, and what is more, entirely cool and intrepid in the presence of danger ; so that he had the advantage over excitable, not to say somewhat timorous men. A willingness almost an alacrity to fight when put upon, spared him many conflicts ; and ho often declared if he had not shown a decided disposition to resent insults, and to stand by his own words, that he would have had to wear a false nose to gratify his enemies’ inclination to pull it. He was not in the least considerate of the feelings and sensibilities of those persons he had reason to dislike. His opponents did not forbear him, nor did he forbear them. He gave as good as be received, usually a little better. His mode of treating, what is named in tile South the private quarrels of gentlemen may be judged by this (his) account of an affray in Lexington (July, 1835) among several members of his craft “ Mr. Trotter, without provocation, attempted to shoot Mr. Clark in the street ; the parties exchanged shots twice without effect. Mr. O’Mara, a friend of Mr. Trotter, made an attack upon Mr. Bryant, the associate of Mr. Clark ; Mr. Bryant gave Dir. O’Hara an effectual cudgelling, and then laid his cane over the head and shouldersof Mr. Trotter till the latter cried for quarter. There the matter ended, Mr. Clark retiring to reload his pistols, Mr. Bryant to procure a new cane, and Messrs. Trotter and O’Hara to get their heads mended.”

Trotter (George James), then the editor of the Kentucky Gazette, retorted in his columns upon Prentice in a virulent article, closing with something like these words—-“ The infamy of George D. Prentice is notorious. He is shunned by all honorable men. The mark of Cain is on his brow.”

Prentice’s sole rejoinder in the Journal was :

“Mr. George Janies Trotter says the mark of Cain is on our brow. Wo don’t know that ;

but we do know that the mark of cane is on his back.”

Of course this made Trotter a theme of laughter, and, burning with rage, he went to Louisville with the deliberate intent to shoot Prentice on sight. Discovering the chief of the Journal on his way to the office, he pulled his pistol without notification, and fired upon Prentice, only a few feet distant, wounding him on the breast. Prentice, quick as thought, leaped at Trotter, caught him in liis arms, took away his weapon, threw him powerless to the ground, and drew a bowie-knife. Meanwhile a crowd that had gathered cried out, “ Kill the scoundrel ! Kill him on the spot.” Prentice simply said, “ I cannot take the life of a disarmed and helplesss man ;” and, releasing his hold, put up his knife, and walked away amidst enthusiastic cheers, evoked by his magnanimity. There were always one or two, sometimes three, newspapers in Louisville opposed to the Journal. Hardly any of them had long life or assured success, and the result was that they hated Prentice with a feminine intensity. The rival editors were unremittingly at war, generally with their pens, sometimes with their pistols.

William E. Hughes, of the Democrat, now gathered to the shades, having wasted all the ink he could afford in a bitter controvery, waited upon his antagonist, and sent up his card.

“Tell Mr. Hughes,” said Prentice, “That I will meet him in front of the office as soon as I load my pistols.” In two minutes he was in the street; the journalists exchaged four shots without effect. The police, by some unaccountable accident interfered, and hostilities were at an end —until the next time.

Colonel R. T. Durrett, the editor of the Courier in IS3B, now President of the Public Library of Kentucky, had printed, in five or six successive issues, a paragraph intimating that the conductor of the Journal had fallen into the river from the gangplank of a steamboat while copiously intoxicated. Though not at all remarkable that any Louisvillian should be tremulent —for in those days Bourbon was drunk with the fullest and fiercest freedom—Prentice took exception to the publication, and informed Durrett that if the thing were repeated, he should hold him personally responsible.

A threat, even implied, is, to a man of spirit, not pleasant to rest under, and the offensive paragraph again appeared. The editor of the Journal called promptly upon Durrett. The latter was told to defend himself, and the two simultaneously produced revolvers. Two barrels were discharged on each side, and two wounds, not serious, were received by the combatants, which adjusted the trouble temporarily to the gratification of the parties immediately concerned. Prentice always held himself in readiness for encounters. One afternoon a Frankfort journalist went into his sanctum, and as he had a controversy with the resident of the capitol, he rose from his desk pistol in hand, saying “You see I am prepared for you, sir.” The Frankforter, who was a good-natured, sensible disputant, laughingly replied, “My pistol is a pocket pistol,” and, producing the same, invited Prentice to take a drink. The invitation was accepted, and tradition has it that the imbibation was often repeated before midnight.

Previous to the war, an adage in New Orleans was that it required three men in the city to start a newspaper—one to die of the yellow fever, another to be killed in a duel, and the third to sell out the effects.

In Louisville, during the same period, each journal would seem to have needed two editors, one to write, the other to fight; but the double office was usually filled by the same person. In Prentice’s case it assuredly was. He both prepared and carried leaded matter, and no printer was more familiar with shooting-sticks or knew better how to use them. It used to be said when a stranger visited Prentice in his sanctum that he was told to take a seat, that the editor was in the street amusing himself with a little shooting match, but that he would be back in a few minutes to attend to regular business.

Another story was that he invariably spent three hours in the morning in answering hostile correspondence before sending any copy to the composing room. Still another idle tale was that, “ wheu there was a knock at the door, he answered it with “come in,” while looking down the barrels of a shot gun.