lle 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-milk
journalism 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 him
for two days. He will be up now right away."

He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment afterward with
a dragoon revolver in his hand.

He said, "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who edits this
mangy sheet?"

"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs is
gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar, Colonel
Blatherskite Tecumseh?"

"Right, Sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are at
leisure we will begin."

"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and Intellectual
Development in America' to finish, but there is 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. The Colonel's left shoulder was clipped a
little. They fired again. Both missed their men this time, but I got my
share, a shot in the a