Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1860 — Pryor on Bennett-The Resources of Billingsgate. [ARTICLE]

Pryor on Bennett-The Resources of Billingsgate.

[From the Congressional Globe, ‘.lst.

Air. Pryor —Mr. Clork, I am reluctant to ! solicit the.attention of the House, even lor a j moment, on a matter of personal privilege; 1 but the disagreeable duty is imposed upon : me by an article in the last issue of the Ne w I York Herald. I wish to protest at once, 1 .however, that I own no obligation to respond to anything that issue ; from the pen or tin inspiration of James Gordon Bennett. I should disparage the dignity of my position, and affront the feelings of honorable members, it I were to admit the propriety or the necessity of recognizing any utterence from that notorious individual a man who is conspicuous by the persistent and fi grant violation ot till the rights and virtuous instincts : of humanity; who has supplied hirnsell with money and the means of a pernicious influence by extorting contributions from the iears and innocence and levying subsidies

upon the gratitude of sympathetic and confederate villainy; a wretch who heard upon his back the scars of many a merited chastisement, and upon his soul the taint of every conceivable abomination; a miscreant who, in consenting to the dishonor of his family and the profanation of the most sacred relation of life has committed a crime for which no language furnishes a commensurate term of seorn and detestation; a foul and filthy creature, whose name is the execration of both continents, and from whose contact truth and virtue shrinks as from the touch of leprosy; u fiend who, denied the privileges of human fellowship and exiled from the courtesies and charities of the social circle, is condemned to wear out the small remnant of a guilty and miserable existence in a solitude for which the wages of a prostitute press can purchase no relief and no consolation. J repeat to the House, that I would not obtrude upon their presence the image of an individual whose unutterable and unapproachable infamy distinguishes and stigmatizes him as the shame and the approbriurn of humanity. But in candor, Mr. Clerk, I will not deny that he has some pretext of apology for bis attack on me. since, in the discharge »f rnv j

duty as a journalist, I had frequent occasion to lash him until his rhinoceros hide quivered with the pangs of execrated sensibility. Let him continue his assaults. No gentleman can desire more significant and satisfactory compliment than tne abuse of James Gordon Bennett. His applause is an arguinent of suspicion; his invective is a title of honor.