The story of the Sun, New York: 1833-1928 / by Frank M. O'Brien ; with an introduction by Edward Page Mitchell ...

THE FIELD OF THE LITTLE "SUN"

31

Yankees-Nahmceoke trembled-Guy of Godaluwn
turned on his heel, and Metamora coolly shouldered
his tomahawk and walked off the stage.
The management announced that Farren was discharged. The Mayor of New York and Edwin Forrest
made conciliatory speeches, and the crowd went away.
The attacks of Colonel Stone, editor of the six-cent
Commercial, aroused the Sun to retaliate in kind. A
column about the colonel ended thus:
He was then again cowskinned by Mr. Bryant of
the Post, and was most unpoetically flogged near the
American Hotel. He has always been the slave of
avarice, cowardice, and meanness.... The next
time he sees fit to attack the penny press we hope he
will confine himself to facts.
It must be said of Colonel Stone that he was a man
of literary and political attainments. He was editor of
the Commercial Advertiser for more than twenty years.
The colonel did not reform to the Sun's liking at once,
but the feud lessened, and presently it was the Transcript-a penny paper which sprang up when the Sun's
success was assured-to which the Sun took its biggest
cudgels. One of the Transcript's editors, it said, had
passed a bogus three-dollar bill on the Bank of Troy.
Another walked "on both sides of the street, like a twopenny postman." But, added the Sun, "we never let personalities creep in."
The New York Times-not the present Times-had
also started up, and it dared to boast of a circulation
"greater than any in the city except the Courier." Said
the Sun: