JAY GOULD AND JAMES G. BENNETT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1740, 22 May 1888, Page 3

JAY GOULD AND JAMES G. BENNETT.

Sometime ago a telegram announced that Jay Gould, of New York had made charges against James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the New Tork Herald, which would result in excluding the latter from society. The following is the chief part of the letter adressed by Gould to Bennett “ As the Herald says Mr Bennett would not sit on the same hoard with me, it seems proper for me to state the objections I might have to such an association with the editor and proprietor of the Herald. Let me see. I have known you over 30 years and during all that time your life has been one of shame. Tour private life has been but a succession of debauches and scandals, so that your name is associated on every tongue as Bennett the libertine, and however gentlemen might meet you at clubs and hotels not a gentleman in New York would allow you to cross the threshold of his residence where virtue and family honour are held sacred. Your very touch in the social circle is contaminating, A few instances, such as decency permits to be put in print, will suffice to illustrate and confirm what I have to say on this head. A few years ago, while on one of your orgies the police came down on a house in this city. ‘You were among the victims bagged. "When you were arrainged past midnight at the police station you * screamed ’ * I am James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the iNew York Herald! Let me go!’ Do you remember the simple reply of the faithful officer, who said: You may be James Gordon Bennett or you may be George Washington—the case will take the usual course. Officer, lock the prisoner up,’ and you went behind the bars ? In the morning, when you had sobered down to a full realisation of your situation, you no longer screamed, ‘ I am James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the New York Herald,’ but you spent the whole day in trying to get the newspapers to suppress the sickening story, and with very good success. At a dinner party given by you at your residence, after your guests were about through, you took a revolver and began firing at the globes of a large chandelier- over the centre of the dinner table, sending the tbou?and pieces of bioken glass in the eyes and faces of your guests, who piled pellmell under the table. No scream was made over this insult to

your guests by James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald. Another incident in this shameful career will be enough to illustrate my present purpose. Some years ago I am told you invited some gentlemen to dine with you on your yacht, among them a noble lord. It soon became apparent to the gentlemen that you were on one of your wild orgies, and 1 they were anxious tojget ashore. You started to land them, and after rowing around in a circle for a while, you finally brought up to a landing without knowing whether it was New York, Brooklyn, or Williamsburg. You landed your guests at the Morgue, and as you were proceeding stumbled and fell into what afterwards turned out to be a box for the burial of the day’s victims. What a scene it would have made if, while you had been lying in the box, the dead victims had Been placed in and the box closed up and taken away for burial. As your senses gradually returned methinks I hear the same scream, ‘ I am James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the New York Herald. Let me out.’