EDITORIAL LIFE IN THE FAR WEST.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 679, 2 July 1870, Page 2

EDITORIAL LIFE IN THE FAR WEST.

There are many who have got into wild places in America who would be glad to get out in almost any way ; failing in this, they write and publish grand accounts of their surroundings so as to divide their joys and sorrows with all who come. Fancy yourself, says the correspondent of au English paper, over in this country, and making headway in your vocation among bullets such as gentlemen of the press have to encounter, and you might begin to feel that though you have had a good tussle at the end of the week, it is perfect luxury when compared with the work of a vigorous daily issue such as is hinted at in the following extract:—

I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve my health, and so I went down to Tennessee and got a berth on the Morning Grlory and Johnson County War Whoop.asassociateeditor. When I went on duty I found the chief editor tilted back in a three-legged chair, with hia feet on a pine table. There was another pine table in the room, and another afflicted chair, and both were half buried under newspapers, and scraps, and sheets, and manuscripts. There was a wooden box of sand, sprinkled with cigar studs and " old soldiers," and a stove with its door hanging by the upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed black cloth frock coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small and neatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal ring, a stand, ing collar of obsolete pattern, and a checked handkerchief with the ends hanging down. Date of costume, about 1848. He was smoking a cigar and trying to think of a word. And in thinking of a word, and in pawing his hair for it, he had rumpled his hair a good deal. He was scowling fearfully, and I judged that he was concocting a particularly knotty editorial. He told me to take the exchanges and skim through them, and then write up the " Spirit of the Tennessee Press," condensing into the article all of their contents that seemed of interest. I wote the "Spirit of the Tennessee Press."

I passed the manuscript to the chief editor for acceptance, alteration, or destruction. He glanced his eye down the page, and his countenance grew portentous. It was easy to see that somethiug was wrong. Presently, he sprang up, and said,

" Thunder and lightning ! Do you suppose that I am going to speak o£ these cattle that way ? Do you suppose that my subscribers are going to stand such gruel as that ? Q-ive me the pen."

I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so vigorously,or plough through another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. Whilst he was in the midst of his work, some one shot at him through the open window, and marred the symmetry of his ear. "Ah," said he, " that is the scoundrel Smith of the Moral Volcano—he was due yesterday." He snatched a revolver from his belt, and fired. Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. This spoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a second chance, and be crippled a strange.r It was me. Merely a finger shot off.

Then the chief editor went on with his erasures and interlineations. Just as he finished .them, a hand-grenade came down the stove-pipe, and the explosion shivered the stove into a thousand fragments. However, it did no further damage, except that a vagrant piece of the stove knocked two of my teeth out. " The 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 man j who did it. I'll get him. Now, here is the way this stuff ought to be written." I took the manuscript. It was scored with erasures and interlineations till its mother wouldn't have known ft if it had one. It now read as follows:- " The spirit of the Tennessee Press." "That ass, Blossom, of the Higgu* ville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of j Freedom, is down here again, bumtain' his board at the Van Buren.

"We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Spring Morning Howl is giving out, with his usual propensity for lying, that Van "Werter is not elected. " Blathersville wants a Nicholson's pavement —it wants a gaol and a poorhouse more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town, with two grain mills and a blacksmith's shop in it, and that mustard-plaster of a newspaper the Daily Hurrah. " That degrading ruffian Bascon, of the Dying Shriek of Liberty fell down and broke his leg yesterday—pity it wasn't his neck. He says it was debility, caused by overwork and anxiety. It was debility, caused by trying to lug six gallons of forty-rod whisky around town when his hide is only gauged for four, and anxiety about where he was going to bum another six. He ' fainted from exertion of walking round too much in the sun !' And well he might say that—but if he walked straight he would get just as far, and not have to walk half as much. For years the pure air of this town has been rendered perilous by the deadly breath of this perambulating pestilence, this pulpy blot, this steaming animated tank af melancholy, gin and profanity, this Bascon ! Perish all such from out the sacred and majestic mission of journalism ?" "Now this is the way to write—peppery, and to the point. Mush-and-milk journalism gives me the fantods."

About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering crash, and gave me a considerable jolt in the back. I moved out of the range —I began to feel in the way. The chief said :

" That's the colonel, likely : I have been expecting bim for two days. He will be up now, right away." He was right. The ' colonel' appeared in the door a moment afterwards, with a dragoon revolver in each hand. He said:—

" Sir, I have the honor of addressing the white-livered poltroon who edits this mangy sheet?" " I believe I have the pleasure of addressing that blatant, black-hearted scoundrel, Colonel Blatherskite Tecumseh ?" " The same. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are at leisure, we will begin." " I have an article on ' Encouraging the Progress of Moral and Intellectual Development in America' to finish, but it is in no hurry.—Begin." Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The chief lost a lock of his hair, and the colonel's bullet ended its career in the fleshy part of my thigh. They fired again. Both missed their men this time, but I got my share—a shot in my arm. A.t the third fire both gentlemen were wounded slightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. 1 then said I believed I would go out and take a walk, as this was a private matter, and I had a delicacy about participating in it further. But both men begged of me to keep my seat, and assured me I was not in the way. I had thought differently up to this time. They then talked about the elections and the crops awhile, and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they opened fire again with animation, and every shot took effect; but it is proper to remark that five out of the six shots fell to my share. The sixth mortally wounded the Colonel, who remarked with humor that he had business up town. He then inquired the way to the undertaker's and left. The chief turned to me, and said. " I am expecting company to dinner, and shall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you would read proofs, and attend to the customers."

I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but was too bewildered by the fusilade that was ringing in my ears to think of anything to say. He then continued : " Jones will be here at three. Cowtide him. Gillespie will call early, perhaps—throw him out of the window. Ferguson will be along at four—kill Mm. That is all for to-day, I believe. You may write a blistering article on the police if you have time —give the Chief Inspector rats. The cowhides are under the table, weapons in the drawers, ammunition there in the corner, lint and bandages up there in the pigeon holes. In case of accident, goto Lancet, the surgeon, down stairs. He advertises: "We take it out in trade."