The History of Louisville, from the Earliest Settlement till the Year 1852Casseday, Ben
History
The History of Louisville, from the Earliest Settlement till the Year 1852
Casseday, Ben
Louisville (Ky.) -- Description and travel; Louisville (Ky.) -- History
The last circumstance to be noticed in this rapid sketch of the year 1830,
is the establishment of the Daily Journal by Prentice & Buxton, afterward
Prentice & Johnston, then Prentice & Weissinger, and finally Prentice &
Henderson. It was first published on an imperial sheet at $10 per annum.
Although commenced by an entire stranger, as Mr. Prentice then was, the
power of its articles and the exquisite vein of humor and irony displayed
in its columns, soon gave it such popularity, that, even before its union
with the Focus in 1832, it had risen to a firm and enviable position. In
December Mr. Edwin Bryant became an associate editor of the paper, but did
not remain in that position for more than six months. Soon after the
establishment of the Journal the newspaper war with the Advertiser, so
well remembered here and so widely known abroad as having given birth to a
fund of wit and of satire heretofore unparalleled in the annals of
newspapers, was commenced. Even the distant English journals had each
their column headed--"Prenticeana"--and the paper was sought after far
and near by every lover of fun or of humor in the land. It is to be
regretted that the shifting character of American politics has rendered so
many of the happiest of these allusions and witticisms obscure to the
unpolitical or to the distant reader; a collected volume of them would
else afford a delightful compendium for a leisure hour. To the older
resident of Louisville, it may be interesting to recall the commencement
of this long and hard-fought battle. Mr. Penn of the Advertiser, who had
deservedly maintained since 1819 the most prominent rank as an editor in
the West, was kind enough to furnish the Journal, at its commencement,
with all its exchanges. This favor is repeatedly acknowledged by the
Journal with great courtesy, but does not blind that paper to the fact
that it is about to be attacked by the opposite party. Whereupon, after
some time, the following article was published: "We assure the editor of
the Advertiser that we shall never under any circumstances covet a
personal controversy with him. We do not believe that his readers would be
willing to pay him $10 a year for dissertations upon our private
character, however bad it may be; and we are quite sure that ours would be
loth to pay that sum for daily disquisitions on him, whatever may be his
excellencies. We have due respect for the Jackson editors in the West, but
we trust to be believed when we say our respect is undebased by fear. We
prefer that they should accept our hand open and ungloved, but if they
would rather have it in the shape of a fist, it is still at their
service." The Advertiser, seeming to prefer it in the latter form,
hereupon commences anew its attack, when the war is opened in earnest by
the Journal, which, at the end of a somewhat long and rather tart
paragraph, let off in reply the following first _coup de canon_: "We
believe he (Mr.
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