Locofoco movement yesterday, in which the Whigs were so chawed up; and
the last Alabama gouging case; and the interesting Arizona dooel with
bowie knives; and all the political, commercial, and fashionable news.
Here they are! Here they are! Here's the papers! Here's the papers!
Here's the Sewer! Here's the New York Sewer! Here's some of the twelve
thousand of today's Sewer, with the best accounts of the markets, and
four whole columns of country correspondence, and a full account of the
ball at Mrs. White's last night, where all the beauty and fashion of New
York was assembled; with the Sewer's own particulars of the private
lives of all the ladies that were there. Here's the Sewer! Here's the
Sewer's exposure of the Wall Street gang, and the Sewer's exposure of
the Washington gang, and the Sewer's exclusive account of a flagrant
act of dishonesty committed by the Secretary of State when he was eight
years old; now communicated, at great expense, by his own nurse. Here's
the Sewer! Here's the New York Sewer in its twelfth thousand, with a
whole column of New Yorkers to be shown up, and all their names printed.
Here's the Sewer's article upon the judge that tried him, day afore
yesterday, for libel, and the Sewer's tribute to the independent jury
that didn't convict him, and the Sewer's account of what might have
happened if they had! Here's the Sewer, always on the lookout; the
leading journal of the United States!"
Such were the cries, according to the veracious account of Charles
Dickens, who had paid his first visit to us a short time before, that
greeted the ears of Martin Chuzzlewit upon his arrival in the gate city
of the western world. That amiable caricature reflects what the English
novelist thought or pretended to think, of the New York journalism of
the day. Exaggeration, of course: the bad manners of a young genius of
the British lower middle classes. But quite good-naturedly today we
concede that beneath bad manners and exaggeration there was a foundation
of truth. Into the making of Colonel Diver, the editor of the "Rowdy
Journal," may have gone a little of old Noah, of the "Star," or James
Watson Webb, of the "Courier and Enquirer," or Colonel Stone, of the
"Commercial." Can't you see those grim figures of an old world strutting
down Broadway, glaring about belligerently and suspiciously? Almost
every editor of that period had a theatre feud at one day or another. On
the luckless mummer who had incurre
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