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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/
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Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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The Cicero Gazette
Thursday, 27 January 1876

         WANTS $5,000
         
         MELISSA CHEW, an impudent, iron-faced, watery-eyed,
       stupid-looking young woman has instituted suit against
       the editior of the Cicero Gazette for saying that she
       was suspicioned of having stolen $30 of the widow
       WILLIAMSON, and also for saying that she had often been
       suspicioned of appropriating things to a purpose dif-
       ferent from that which the proper owner intended. We
       will just say, for MISS CHEW'S and her very few friends'
       special benefit, that the Gazette proposes to be both
       able and willing to show up the blackened character of
       the young woman whenever she desires it to be done. 
       Talk about her character! Great God! when did she ever
       have a good character? Five thousand dollars! What an
       awful sum of money the poor thing wants for her charac-
       ter! MELISSA, can't you take a little less? We think
       that a woman who is not welcome in any house in Cicero,
       except among near relations, ought to be ashamed to 
       have the impudence to demand any money for such a
       character as she has. But some persons have no shame;
       and MISS CHEW is one of them.
         All people hate to have their meaness mentioned in
       the newspapers. The burglar don't like the idea of
       being published. The highway robber would rather have
       the editor say nothing about him. The horse thief des-
       pises to let people hear of him through the press. All
       the above-mentioned classes of persons object to allow-
       ing the press to say anything about their evil deeds.
       But the press will stand up for the right and cry out
       against the wrong, no matter how much it may hurt the
       feelings of those who bid open defiance to the laws of
       both God and man. We had no personal spite against
       MISS CHEW. We published what we believed to be the 
       facts in the case, and we have not changed our opinion.
       We do not intend to repent in sack cloth, neither do
       we intend to sprinkle any ashes on our head on account
       of having said what every person in Cicero knows to be
       the truth. We are not around taking things back, nor
       compromising with persons whom the respectable class
       of our citizens will not even allow in their houses.
       We expect to be able to show the young woman just what
       the respectable people of our town think of her, and
       that her character lacks a good deal of being worth
       one cent. Five thousand dollars! Oh, my! aint that
       lots of money?
       
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