Blue-grass blade., 1892-09-03

CuduOtIS uOcS HOS uiluh WHISKY all
he has to do is to go into his grocery
and smell his BREATH"
Mr.. Ficklen had come to my home
in the country on one occasion last
fall. In order to get to my house he
had to travel twenty miles on rail
road and then hire a buggy to come
eight miles into the country. He
had never been to my house before,
and did not recognize him when
saw him. He is rather a poor man.
He represented to me that a relative
of Chambers had paid his expenses
to come and see me. and ask me not
to publish in my paper that Cham
bers was drunk at the time alluded
TO. / do not believe that Ficklen, a
Prohibitionist, would pay his own
money and tell lie to defend Cham
bers, whisky selling Democrat. /
do not believe that any friend OF
Chambers would have paid Ficklen's s
expenses to come and see me for the
purpose that Ficklen said he came,
unless the friend of Chambers had
believed that Chambers had been
drunk at the time alluded to, and the
time alluded to was the same that
Ficklen's letter to me, written before
Ficklen came to see me, said Cham
bers had been drunk, and for the
writing of which letter to me and lis
publication by me, Ficklen was put
in Jail, and I, already in Jail for 9th
er charges against that church, was
again indicted.
The charge for which the church
put me in Jail, stripped of all unnec-
essary verbiage, was that / hal said
that that church was being conduct
ed by Republican preacher in col
lusion with whisky makers, sellers
and drinkers, and that such church
was "a engine for evil greater than
any bagnio Or saloon in Lexington.
My purpose. in writing the sentence,
had been to say Democratic whisky
makers, sellers and drinkers, so as, ,
by the antithesis, to show the collu-
sion between the Republican preach
er and the Democratic liqaor deal
ers to support the traffic but by an
accident, either on my part or that of
the printers, the word Democratic
was omitted, and the Democratic
county attorney that prosecuted me
laid emphasis on the fact that / had
alluded to the preacher as being a
Republican, because, as he seemed to
intimate, l had spite against the Re-
publican party.
a member of that religious body
wrote me letter from Paris, and,
wishout giving any name in it, re-
cited the crime and unhapplness
which for the last twenty years have
happened as consequence of the
liquor traffic, to persons in some way
connected with that church. Though
there were no names given and /
knew but little about Paris, / recog-
nized some of the cases from having
read about them in the newspapers,
and l think all ofthe cases had, from
time to time, as they occurred, been
reported in the Paris papers. So
readily recognized as true were these
accounts of my correspondent that
the Paris papers published the
names of the parties that were allud-
ed to, and the statements made by
my correspondent are recognized as
being accurate by nearly everybody
who has lived in Paris long enough
to remember the prominent things
that have occurred there in the last
twenty years. When they happened
and were published, one at at a time
only the individual family concern
ed was the sufferer from the publi-
cation, but when they were collated
for twenty years past and all pub
lished at once, and the point made
that it was all the result ofthe whis-
Ky business, as everybody knew to
be true, it made a fearful arraign-
ment of that church and ofthe whis-
ky business; and preacher Sweeney
and distiller White stood, as devot-
ell friends, on the same witness stand
equally interested to have me pun
ished; not that had published l.
lie, but as they expressed it, that l
had raked up family skeletons, and
opened afresh wounds that had heal
ed. To let bygones be bygones is
a rule that the papers of Lexington
have tried To force upon me. In the
first i'suc of the last series of my pa
per nearly two years ago lpublished
about civil officer, and leader OF
politics in KENTUCKY, just what the
Lexington newspapers had published
only Il one or or two years before, and
about the truth o: which noboiy inthe
country had any doubt. But, for my
doing this, the Lexington papers did
all they could to excite violence
against me.
The only question OF fact as to
what | said about that church that
| need t. SUSTAIN by demonstration
is rs to s. aether that church in col
lusion with the liquor tra'iio as I said
it was.
James i. Ford was the member Of
the church in whose name the
church brought the action against
me. Ford had been Il wholesale
whisky dealer, while a member OF
that church, and has continued in
that business until he had become
bankrupt not q great while before he
swore Out the warrants against me.
| was told that he owed his credit
ors $43,00000 above his assets.
1t was several times suggested to
me. by people in Paris, that Ford
had been selected to swear out the
warrants against me because he was
financially irresponsible in case
should want to sue for damages.
Chambers, the mayor was 3 wit
ness against me, and stated on the
witness stand, as L have said, that
he was a member of that church and
that he sold liquor by the quart.
Thompson Ware another witness
against Inc, said he was a deacon in
that church. He is 4 clerk in a dis
tillery.