The New York herald., 1869-04-27
SprnauO and Abbott.

/ Spro8uO uu0 ADOVsss
In Washington they have had . terrible
time-a time that tries mems souls, spoils their
| appetites, puts their heads together on all the
corners and keeps the reporters up till four
A. M. There has been nothing like it in iour
generations of articulately- speaking men, as
Homer would say, for one naturally falls into
the manner of Homer in touching upon the
contention of heroes, the wrath, rancor and
wrangling of the chiefs of men, and the mighty
preparation for combat that fills the universe
we say the universe, for of course what is said
in Washington reverberates in the remotest
corners of the earth, and even has an echo in
North Carolina and another in Rhode Island
This echo travels by the telegraph at about ten
cents word. Washington has of course been
in fame, a fuss, fury, fret and fizzle oyer
the great doings. 1t recalls to mems minds
the times when the enemy was in the valley or
when the gyascuticus was reported to have
broken loose from Van Amburgh's menagerie--
only that Early was but fool to Abbott in
adventure, Stonewall Jackson a silly sheep to
Sprague in heroism, and the gyascuticus, the
hugag and the harp ofa thousand strings as
nothing to the two together.
1t began about Brown & Ives Brown q
Ives is something that grows In Rhode Island.
Rhode Island is the country to which the
United States is sort of backyard, the New
Dominion next-door heighbor and the mon
arches Of Europe the fellows over the way.
Sprague opened on Brown & Ives with the
Rhode Island thunder and Jersey lightning of
his eloquence. Brown & Ives called out sew
enty-fve thousand volunteers and gave the
command to General Burnside, who organized
the whole force as the First Rhode Island
regiment, every man Of whom was worth
million dollars to his lawyer. Burnside moved
on the enemy, got stuck in the mud, lost tre-
mendously and retired in good order-and all
Rhode Island came out to welcome him as a
conqueror and to cover the badness that he
shares with Julius Caesar with prettier laurel
(Iaurus mObilis) than the florists of Caesars
time knew how to make. In these days we
use the laurel more freely than they did in the
time of Caesar. 1t is the sweet bay We
which we flavor an article of commerce called
bay rum, which is poured over our heads
when they ache. Thus are we crowned with
laurel in solution in this practical age. Thus
was the ample brow of Ambrose crowned,
aching from his contest with Spraguey.
Abbott came in when Brown & Ives and
Ambrose went out, as o sort of rotation
rouser-the best dog not dead yet, or the next
fowl well heeled-tar-heeled, in fact, as they
say in his adaptive North Carolina. He came
in, not because he had anything to do with
it, but just in wanton exuberance of pug
nacity. He wanted to knock chip off some
body's shoulder, and had an idea that he
could not get glory cheaper at any other shop
than at Spraguey's. Spraguc, in the course
of his indiscriminate laundering, had said
''puppy." Abbott said to himself ''That
means me-that must mean me there is no
other person here whom the word so felici-
tously describes; and although don't care
button personally, North Carolina will expect
me to resent it," He accordingly resented it
at once by going home and sitting down in his
PaiioT uHu WaieihS ioi CpEaSuo " ecHu uitu
challenge They kept fighting it out on that
line for considerable time. The killed and
wounded were but few, and Sprague had the
best oft, because it was not possible for him
to go wrong unless he moved. At length, as
the country at large, and, it may be, other
countries also, remained on the tiptoe of
expectation as to the issue Of this dreadful
misunderstanding or ''almost fatal fray"
Senator Abbott initiated the interesting ex-
planatory correspondence with Senator
Sprague which we publish to-day, and which
terminated, most happily, in the disappearance
of both the ''mastiff" and puppy dogs" from
the scene, and the happy substitution Of the
nursery rhyme greeting between the old wo-
man and her pet dog Of ''the dame said good
morrow, the dog said bow bow" for ''pistols
and coffee for two," as between Messrs.
Sprague and Abbott.