Читать книгу The Story of the Sun: New York, 1833-1918 онлайн

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“No; skin for skin, behold, all that a man hath will he give for his life!”

The Sun beat the town on a great piece of news that spring. “Triumphant News from Texas! Santa Anna Captured!” the head-lines ran.

This appeared on May 18, four weeks after Sam Houston had taken the Mexican president; but it was the first intimation New York had had of the victory at San Jacinto.

During the investigation of the murder of Helen Jewett and the trial of Richard P. Robinson, the suspect, the Sun attacked Bennett for the manner in which the Herald handled the case. Bennett saw a good yellow story in the murder, for the house in which the murdered girl had lived could not be said to be questionable; there was no doubt about its character. Bennett’s interviewing of the victim’s associates did not please the Sun, which pictured the unfortunate women “mobbed by several hundred vagabonds of all sizes and ages—amongst whom the long, lank figure of the notorious Bennett was most conspicuous.”

When it was not Bennett, it was Colonel Webb or one of his men. The Sun went savagely after the proprietor of the Courier and Enquirer because he led the hissing at the Park Theatre against Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Wood, the English opera-singers. The offence of the Woods lay in giving a performance on an evening when a benefit was announced for Mrs. Conduit, another popular vocalist. The town was divided upon the row, but as the Woods and Mrs. Conduit were all English-born, it was not a racial feud like the Macready-Forrest affair. The Sun rebuked Colonel Webb particularly because, after booing at the Woods, he had refused Mr. Wood’s offer to have it out over pistols and coffee.