The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-12-14
STREET BATTLES.
Scenes in San Francisco Twenty
Years Ago.
CHARLES DE YOUNG'S STORMY
JOURNALISTIC CAREER.
Two Noted Fusillades, Murder and a
Double Tragedy.

The literature of dueling is having
quite renaissance in the publications
Of the day. One can hardly pick up q
paper or a magazine that does not con-
tain some account of noted duel Of the
past, while the records of the libraries
| show that this class Of reading is always
in demand. Now that dueling in real
life is thing of the past, it is but natural
| that interest should attach to the history
of such bloody encounters, but, after all,
there is a sameness about tt is kind of
| literature which often makes it monoto-
nous.
II would q good deal rather read about
an old-fashioned street fight any day"
said a former San Francisco mining man
the other day, as he sat in his office in
the Merchants Exchange, ''and we had
lot of them, too at one time in San
Francisco" he continued. 81 don't mean
commonplace affairs, such as rows be-
tween toughs and hoodlums. but real
bang-up fights between what might be
called our best citizens Why, at one
time, we had an affair of that kind hap
sometimes oftener. 1t was along in the
early '70s that we had a series of such en-
counters, and they kept the people and
the newspaper reporters hopping about.
can tell you. The way San Francisco got
to going about with it's hand in its hip
pocket was like this: After the Broder-
iok- Terry duel, that form of satisfaction
among gentlemen fell under ban. There
were few challenges and few meet
ings, but scarcely any of these are now
remem bered. Then came the first Com
stock mining excitement, and that car
ried away from San Francisco large part
of the fighting population; instead OF
wrangling and quarreling, people went
to hunting goldsand silver.
81 am afraid that Charles De Young.
who founded the San Francisco Chroni-
Gle, was directly and indirectly response
BILE for much of the turbulence of the
next few years. He introduced new
kind of journalism in San Francisco, and
the people were not used to it. He start
ed redhot sensational paper, attacking
every body right and left, and especially
did he make things interesting for all
classes of public men, including judges
and lawyers of the highest standing.
! There was great deal of crooked work
in the courts in those days, and De
Young set out to expose it. There had
been jury bribing. and even the bench
was under strong suspicion of taint One
of the first rows that De Young got into
was with Judge McKinstry, of the Superb
or Court, big, powerful man, and noted
for his physical courage, though, withal,
| a dignified and honored citizen. For
several weeks De Young had been ham
mating in almost unmistakable terms
| that the Judge had been guilty of cor
rupt practices, when finally some of the
| latter's friends warned the editor that he
had better call halt or there might be
trouble. By this time, of course, De
Young. by his methods, had piled up as
promising lot Of enemies as ever fell to
the share of rising young journalist.
and public sentiment therefore ran high
in MIX instry's favor.
ONE STEP TOO FAR.
1
1Like many an ther newspaper reformer
De Young carried his fight on Judge Nc
Kinstry little too far. He one morning
printed base insinuation against a
| female members of McKinstry's family,
and then everybody knew the battle was
on. People we're out of their houses
bright and early that morning, and so,
it may be said, was Judge McKinstry.
1t was In the air that there was to be a
fight. and the whole public was on the
qui viye. The Judge learned that the
ditor did not come down town till late
in the morning, so he went to his court,
heard some motions, and then adjourned
court for the day. Meantime DeYoung
had been appraised of danger and came
out prepared. De Young was cool and
courageous man-had what you call lots
of sand-but he knew nothing about fire.
arms. He could not shoot, and could not
handle pistol at all. He believed firmly
in the justice of his cause and trusted in