The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-09-16

port of the case the american is careful to credit
the Court with the remark which is applied to us,
and because we quite sure that there Is no one
in this community, but Judge STUMP or the Prose-
cutting Attorney, who would be willing to assert that
this paper is anonymous Those gentlemen
either believe what they have said in regard THE
EXCHANGE, Or they do not. If they do not-the
fact is its own comment IF they do, it is but
characteristic of their official vigilance and eff
ciency that journal which they have declared, in
their places, to be public libeller, should have
continued to exist for six months within a square
of the Court House, without their being able or
willing to find out the criminals who conduct it.
But our business is not with Mr.. WHITNEY or his
superior officer. 1t is with our virtuous and indie
pendent contemporary. Since the establishment of
THE EXCHANGE, scarce a reference has been made
to it by the -4merican which has not been dispar-
aging. Our facts and COMMUNICATIONS
truthfulness and our motives-have been denounced
alike Our independence has been likened to that of
sans cuzotes, and our 'scurrty'' handled with in
dignation. When we have attacked an official de-
linquent, it has been set down to partisan malevo-
lence or personal hate. When we have called at
tention to public evil, it has been charged to a
thirst for notoriety, which has made US careless of
individual character and public peace. To attempt
our lives and destroy our property was but to give
us our 'deserts miserable ''Police Gazette that
we were! Surely one would have thought that
this journal would have been the last resource of
neighbor in its emergencies. But not so. The
american one day became fired with the spirit of
JUNIUs 1t would be a retailer of price currents and
deaths and marriages no longer. 1t would immo-
late somebody and be immortal Jud re STUMP
was marked as the victim, and the walls were
emptied upon his head. Meelly the sufferer pro-
ceeded to neighbours counter and Sin polite
manner" as is his won't 'inquired where they
got the information What did ''the person
at the couner'-no less person than the rejected
Grand Juror himself-reply? Did he shoulder
his responsibility and take his stand? Not he
''1e supposed the information came from THE EX
CHANGE" Now the fact happens to be, in the first
place, that the information never appeared
in THE EXCHANGE at al-and so the SUPPOSE
ton, even if it had been an honest one, had
no foundation whatever in fact. But words would
scarce suffice, and decorum does not permit us to
express the opinion which should be entertained
of journal, which when called to account for
the first time in its existence for having spoken
manful truth, was not only afraid to avow it, but
was mean enough to fling the responsibility of its
orignation upon contemporary, whom it was
every day denouncing to the world us unworthy
of credit and respect. 1t was not ashamed to
skuk behind Journal which it affected to de-
spise. 1t was willing to copy in private from a
journal which it pronounced in public to be
libeer. 1t was not above asking appreciation
and pay from the community for its daring and
virtuous exposure of an official delinquent, while
in the same breath, 1t vili6ed those whom it ''sup
posed TO have discovered the delinquency
After this, we trust that we shall hear no more
about ''respectability' in that quarter. We hope
that the public can now comprehend what the
independence of the 1maican is worth. When it
lectures again upon the duties of journalism, and
the blessed freedom of the press, trust that its
readers will remember the gentleman Eat the
counter" who magnanimously approprates the
coppers, and ''supposes' his neghbors to be enti-
tied to the kicks.