An editor is bound to avoid the meshes of the law, which are always
infinitely more costly to companies, or things, or institutions, than
they are to individuals. Of fighting with Chancery he had no notion;
but it should go hard with him if he did not have a fight with
Phineas Finn. And then there arose another cause for deep sorrow. A
paragraph was shown to him in a morning paper of that day which must,
he thought, refer to Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn. "A rumour has
reached us that a member of Parliament, calling yesterday afternoon
upon a right honourable gentleman, a member of a late Government, at
his hotel, was shot at by the latter in his sitting room. Whether
the rumour be true or not we have no means of saying, and therefore
abstain from publishing names. We are informed that the gentleman who
used the pistol was out of his mind. The bullet did not take effect."
How cruel it was that such information should have reached the hands
of a rival, and not fallen in the way of the _People's Banner_! And
what a pity that the bullet should have been wasted! The paragraph
must certainly refer to Phineas Finn and Kennedy.
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