His flings at the United States Bank, of which Webb’s friend Biddle was president, and his stories of alleged stock speculations by the colonel himself, were the cause of Webb’s animosity toward his former associate. Bennett took Webb’s assault calmly, and even wrote it up in the _Herald_, suggesting at the end that Webb’s torn overcoat had suffered more damage than anything else. Day’s quarrel with Bennett, which never reached the physical stage, was the natural outcome of an intense rivalry among the most successful penny papers of that period--the _Sun_, the _Herald_, and the _Transcript_. Against the sixpenny respectables these three were one for all and all for one, but against one another they were as venomous as a young newspaper of that day felt that it had to be to show that it was alive. Day’s antagonism toward Webb was sporadic. Most of the time the young owner of the _Sun_ treated the fiery editor of the _Courier and Enquirer_ as flippantly as he could, knowing that Webb liked to be taken seriously. Day’s constant _bête noire_ was the commercial and foreign editor of Webb’s paper, Mr. Hoskin, an Englishman. On January 21, 1836, the _Sun_ charged that Webb and Hoskin had rigged a “diabolical plot” against it. The sixpenny papers had formed a combination for the purpose of sharing the expense of running horse-expresses from Philadelphia to New York, bringing the Washington news more quickly than the penny papers could get it by mail. The _Sun_ and the _Transcript_ then formed a combination of their own, and in this way saved themselves from being beaten on Jackson’s message, sent to Congress in December, 1835. In January, 1836, Jackson sent a special message to Congress. It was delivered on Monday, the 18th, and on Wednesday, the 20th, the _Sun_ published a column summary of it. Webb made the charge that his messenger from Washington had been lured into Day’s offices, and that the _Sun_ got its story by opening the package containing the message intended for the _Courier and Enquirer._ The _Sun_ replied that it received the message legitimately, and that the whole thing was a scheme to discredit Mr. Day and his bookkeeper, Moses Y. Beach: The insinuation of Webb that we violated the sanctity of a seal we hurl back in proud defiance to his own brow. Webb went to the police and to the grand jury, and for a few days it looked as if the hostile editors might reach for something of larger calibre than pens. Thus the _Sun_ of January 22: