SIR:—Permit me the privilege of making a few brief passing remarks,
asking a few questions, and respectfully suggesting a few hints as to
your weekly publication, the ALLIGATOR. Please to attribute any
intrusive errors in this communication as emanating from an inefficient
method of expressing my sentiments, as my heart is with you whole and
entire in spirit, and, with a few exceptions, to the very letter, in
your laudable endeavor to bring to light before the open day the hidden
villainies of the many detestable tyrants that have risen from the very
scum of poverty and criminal degradation, and who now so unaccountably
hold despotic sway _under the garb of honorable industry_ in every
branch of society, to the unjust injury and oppression of the poor,
humble, but honest man.
I am rejoiced to find the ALLIGATOR creeping its way to the literary
tables of almost every respectable News Depot in this and the adjacent
cities, piercing its deadly fangs into the very vitals of every
influential thief and scoundrel, and that the business public are now
availing themselves of the opportunity in patronising it as an
advertising medium, and I sincerely wish you every success.
Wherever I have an opportunity, I endeavor, indirectly, to pave the way,
to introduce the merits of the ALLIGATOR, and, as a matter of course,
have to give and take in the various opinions expressed as to the
carniverous propensities of that astonishing animal, and the choice
objects it pitches into for its daily food. The opinions and ideas
expressed on the subject are as varied as the colors in the rainbow. Any
man whose past misdeeds trouble his conscience, dreads the animal, as he
would a drawn sword, lest its brutal tusks should tear open to public
gaze what he had secretly hoped was unknown to mortal being.
If the crawling reptiles you select to satisfy the craving appetite of
that amphibious animal (with such extended jaws continually gaping) are
really of such an abhorrent and loathsome nature as represented by you
in such bold relief, I should never cease lashing their diseased and
ulcerated carcases with whips of poisoned scorpions, till I purged and
purified their polluted system with wholesome antidotes. It strikes me
that your gormandising hydra-headed monster can never be satisfied with
common carrion: it seeks for something more nutritious for its
sustenance. It appears he is like Pharoah’s lean kine—the more he
devours, the thinner he gets, and his rapacity increases, and what seems
so singular is, that he has abundance of choice prey for ever at his
side, which he selects indiscriminately, and an untold amount laid up in
his store houses for ages to come.
Nothing do I admire more than the free use of strong and emphatic
language to express our approbation or disapprobation of men’s actions
public or private, and from the general tenor of your style, and the
peculiar advantages you possess as a scholar, and the unlimited
information you have treasured up as a man of experience, with regard to
public characters and measures, I feel confident that you can convert
every tooth of the Alligator into a poisoned arrow that will deal death
and destruction into every particle of air whereever it wings its
flight, and you can more effectively hit your mark with surer certainty
by avoiding the use of such terms and phrases as would be looked upon by
the general class of readers, as rather coarse or vulgar; although I
myself consider your style as purely hieroglyphic, and that your
sarcastic way merely emanates from a proud, manly, straightforward, bold
and independent above board kind of a spirit than that of malice, with
the view to convey the sentiments of your mind, in order to express your
strong feeling of detestation and abhorrence of every unprincipled
scoundrel, against whom your fiery shafts of indignation may happen to
be turned, cutting to the very heart’s core like a two edged sword.
The body of the ALLIGATOR is too small by a long shot. It would greatly
enhance its usefulness by being more liberal. Increase its pages, extend
its columns, devote a space to correspondents, and, if need be, stretch
its stomach so as to afford an opportunity to others to open their
store-houses, and contribute their quota of similar wholesome food to
the hungry cannibal, in order the better to assist in the process of
digestion.
Yours Respectfuly,