“We must apologise to our readers for again polluting our columns with an allusion to the reckless traducer, whose journal of yesterday came forth reeking with slanders against ourselves. It would be charitable, perhaps, to attribute to a diseased intellect, rather than a malicious temper, these ebullitions of mendacity, but the motive is too obviously bad. We can assure this poor creature, this beggarly reprobate and unwashed scribbler, that mere declamation is not proof, and that assertion carries no weight when unsustained by evidence. If he can keep sober long enough, let him reply to the question which we once more reiterate, ‘where are your proofs?’” It was with intense anxiety that the citizens of Tattletown looked for the next number of the “Free and Independent.” Never before had Snobb been so severe, so savage. Fobb’s rejoinder excited public interest in the quarrel, to a painful degree. It was as follows: “The guilty fugitive from justice, whom it is with shame we acknowledge as our contemporary, attempts to invalidate our charges by clamoring for proofs. We beg him to reflect a moment before he repeats his call. If he has sincerely striven to make reparation for past misdemeanors, by a life comparatively guiltless—if there be any hope or prospect of reformation in his case—most reluctantly would we be instrumental in re-consigning him to the States-prison or the gallows. Before, therefore, we come out with any statements, that shall be universally admitted as final and conclusive as to the character of this man, we will put a few questions which he will understand, however enigmatical they may be to others. Did Snobb ever make the acquaintance of Miss Amanda W——? Did he ever see a white crape scarf that used to belong to that ill-fated young lady? Does he remember the circumstance of an old pruning-knife being found beneath a cherry-tree? Has he still got _that red silk hankerchief_?” I must leave it for some more graphic pen—to the author of “Jack Sheppard” or “Barnaby Rudge,” to depict the consternation and horror produced among the Tattletonians by this publication. Could it be that Tattletown harbored a murderer? What other interpretation could be put upon the diabolical insinuations in Fobb’s paper? For a week and more nothing was talked of but this article. At the post office—the tinman’s shop—the grocer’s—on the steps of the meeting-houses, no other topic was broached. With unprecedented eagerness the next number of Snobb’s paper was looked for and purchased. The only allusion it contained to Fobb’s ferocious attack was in these simple lines: “As we shall make the insinuations contained in the last number of the Tattletown Free and Independent the subject of a judicial investigation, it is quite unnecessary for us to bestow any farther notice upon the miserable calumniator, who is striving to get into notice by means of the attention he may provoke from ourselves.”