Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1884-08-30

. oaA 80 ~ DcDAA
was boomable. and to sneer at the lack
of enterprise Of our adversary. We got
specials by mail, press reports by slow
freight and showed a style OF fearless en-.
.terprisea that was the envy and the ad-
miration of many large metropolitan
journals. We thought that u adver-
sary wouldn't last more than o month
after election, but Thanksgiving came
and found the Evening Squawker still
on deck. The editor would come and
borrow print paper OF us and then use it
TO call lis the slime -bedecked and putrid
exponent Of a still more baneful political
faction. We would borrow a font of
BREWER OF him and characterize his pa
per AZ the walling founding, dying IN
the poisonous vapors OF the deadly
swamp Of political filth, wherein it had
chosen it's bed, edited by the bitter foe
Of the laundress and Llndley Murray, a
man who had evaded justice for forty
years, and, not contcnt with the outrage
Of all moral sense, had declared war on
the spelling book.
Thus we kept mp n spirited contest for
n long time. Sometimes we couldn't get
our paper out Of the freight Office and
sometimes he couldn't, but We would
loan Zach other the last quire we had
and keep friendly, while through the
columns of u respective papers we
spoke Of each other i'll language which
might have beer construed as reproach-
ful to some people.
1t was an exciting time. One day the
Squawker would offend a subscriber and
he would come over to us, and the next
day we would unwittingly tread on the
toes Of one of our great army Of sub
scribers and he would go over to the
enemy.
The editor OF the other paper and my
self saw that it was going to be a war of
determination. We ground Our teeth
and our shears and sailed in. At the
end of the first year he had discharged
his servant girl and my paper owed me
$500 salary. At the end of the second
year he had blown in his fine brick resi-
dence and l had taken my salary as
Police Justice and thrown it INTO the
rapacious NAV of my little hungry long
felt want.
One day the little, muddy, measly,
long-suffering features of the Evening
Sqnawker failed to appear. We kept
asking the Office boy why the Squaw-
ker didn't come. He didn't know.
Finally he went to the publication
Office. The door was locked. A map
Of Dakota was hung over one window
and n printers towel over the other.
The Office boy raised the map and stole
in. The uncertain light here and there
broke in struggling rays through the
th%readbare places in the towel. On the
desk lay a letter from the advertiser OF
n Collie Eraser in which he offered to
take a column in the Squawker q year,
following pure reading matter and with
1000 lines OF reading notices to be
strung along through editorials from
day to day, i'll bold-faced type, and in
consideration therefor to furnish for
two veors IN tho editor ~ b;s r1x
6ftv hotties of tho Collie Eraeor ~ ~,
lsher's nr;ce daliverad or boord ~
cars.
Everything about the Office showed
that the work had been going brayelv
on when the came. Tn fac,
the summons }av there on the desk
among other papers, along with a writ
nf attachment for S253. 81. This shows
what n hold a paper gets on its sub.
%scriicrs and also what n hold the sub.
scrihrr gets ON the paper. The Sheriff
had been ~ Subscriber to the S1uawke,
ever sinrc i: started, but we didn't know
hrs attachment for the paper was sc
e'','.
we Won the day, but at what sacrifice.
~, smoke q conflict cleared away am
Sno"o' 'h"' tue Victory was NOT worth.
I" me carnage we had survived ou