The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1891-11-07
A Very Foolish Thing.

The prize fight in the penitentiary has
turned out to be nothing but set-to with
soft gloves IN the prison gymnasium, in
which one convict drew the claret from
his contestants nose. How the sensation
was started is interesting, and again
shows the meanness resOrted to by Du-
bois to get rid of an official that declines
to be his AFFECT slave. It seems tina,
Warden Mack was friend of Dubois
and as such was given the position. But
he promised to fill the place according to
his own ideas, even if they did not ex-
actly coincide with those Of the gang. II
so happened that Warden Mack dis
charged guard for good and sufficient
reasons, who held his position by virtue
of his friendship for Dubois, and in his
place put a man who had all the
qualifications except the backing of the
ring. The discharged employe was sore
and his desire for revenge led him to
magnify the friendly sparring match into
bloody prize fight, which he gave to the
Statesman and which in turn was tele-
graphed to the world. These are the
facts obtained from a reliable source
Ceur d'Alene Miner.
1t is always very foolish thing
to publish a statement for the truth
without some degree of informa-
ton in regard to it. It is also a
very bad policy, because the public
will sooner or later learn the truth,
and when it does the newspaper that
has so offended will be despised by
people who love the truth and de-
sire truthful information. In pub
fishing the above excerpt the Ceur
d'Alene Miner has done foolish
thing, because it had no positive
information on the subject; it has
pursued a bad policy, and thereby
laid itself liable to be distrusted
when it speaks the truth, and has
offended against good journalistic
morals by publishing an absolute
untruth as true; and it has done
this, evidently, with the hope and
for the purpose of bolstering up the
rapidly waning credit and reputa-
ton of it's party. 1t will fail of
its purpose. The facts of the case
are-and they are within the reach
of every intelligent and enterpris-
ing newspaper in the state-that
both fights were to finish; at least
one of them was fought on Sunday /;
both were witnessed by officers and
guards of the prison; both were
fought for money, which money
was bet by officers, guards and con-
victs; both combatants in each Of
the fights were more or less injured !;
both battles were fought with four
ounce gloves; the loser in each one
of the fights was badly bruised and
used up; McCreary who was beaten
in the first fight was so badly pun
ished that he was seriously sick for
sometime afterwards, and vomited
very freely at the time. Dunlap,
who was beaten in the second fight
was also badly used up, so much so
that his trainer had to assist him
into the carpenter shop. His gloves
were covered with blood. Alexan-
der Roberts, son of Attorney-Gen-
eral Roberts, was present and a
time-keeper at this fight, and al
though he said Dunlap was knocked
out several times, he refused to
call time in the hope that he might
still win money he had bet on the
fight. These facts are established
by af1idavits enough to delight the
heart of a patent medicine vender,
which affidavits we have copies OF
in our possession; and we think the
wisest policy the republican press
could pursue would be to admit
the facts as they exist, and disown
the men who are responsible for
them, as the Malad Enterprise has
done. The course of denial and
concealment pursued by the Ceur
d'Alene Miner and the Montpelier
Observer, as we'll as the policy OF
silence adopted by the Statesman,
amounts, in the minds of sensible
men, to an endorsement of the
whole disgraceful proceedings.