seem that not only was the inventor forced to uphold his rights
through a long series of lawsuits, but a great part of the press of the
country was hostile to him on the specious plea that they were attempting
to overthrow a baleful monopoly. In this connection the following extract
from a letter to J. Fenimore Cooper, written about this time, is
peculiarly apt:--

"It is not because I have not thought of you and your excellent family
that I have not long since written to you to know your personal welfare.
I hear of you often, it is true, through the papers. They praise you, as
usual, for it is praise to have the abuse of such as abuse you. In all
your libel suits against these degraded wretches I sympathize entirely
with you, and there are thousands who now thank you in their hearts for
the moral courage you display in bringing these licentious scamps to a
knowledge of their duty. Be assured the good sense, the intelligence, the
right feeling of the community at large are with you. The licentiousness
of the press needed the rebuke which you have given it, and it feels it
too despite its awkward attempts to brave it out.

"I will say nothing of your 'Home as Found.' I will use the frankness to
say that I wish you had not written it.... When in Paris last I several
times passed 59 Rue St. Dominique. The gate stood invitingly open and I
looked in, but did not see my old friends although everything else was
present. I felt as one might suppose another to feel on rising from his
grave after a lapse of a century."

An attack from another and an old quarter is referred to in a letter to
his brother Sidney of July 10, also another instance of the unfairness of
the press:--

"Dr. Jackson had the audacity to appear at Louisville by _affidavit_
against me. My _counter-affidavit_, with his original letters,
contradicting _in toto_ his statement, put him _hors de combat_. Mr.
Kendall says he was 'completely used up.' ... I have got a copy of
Jackson's affidavit which I should like to show you. There never was a
more finished specimen of wholesale lying than is contained in it. He is
certainly a monomaniac; no other conclusion could save him from an
indictment for perjury.

"By the Frankfort paper sent you last week, and the extract I now send
you, you can give a very effective shot to the 'Tribune.' It is, perhaps,
worthy of remark that, while all the papers in New York were so forward
in publishing a _false_ account of O'Rei