Jim Bradshaw: Franklin editor's 'bed-bugs' sparked a feud

In the spring 1850, Daniel Dennett, editor of The Planters’ Banner in Franklin, took the steamboat Rio Grande to New Orleans and afterwards paid it a complement in his newspaper.
“The Rio Grande is well regulated, well managed, and those who go on her are well fed,” he wrote.
That was OK, and he should have stopped right there.
His mistake was that he inserted what he considered a bit of levity: “We have not a word of fault to find with her; but we intend to brand with infamy a few interloping bed-bugs that are allowed to take passage on her, without paying for it. As they are the only nuisances that we discovered on that excellent boat, we think they should be taxed ... or invited to quit the premises.”
That raised a howl from J. J. Laburthe, the boat’s captain, who threatened a lawsuit, and also a response signed by 22 Rio Grande passengers who testified that “this boat commanded our entire approbation, both in respect to the conduct of the officers, and to the general condition of the cabins” and that “as to the bed-bugs lately alluded to by the editor of the ‘Planters’ Banner,’ we can safely assert that none disturbed our repose, nor did we discover the traces of any whatsoever.”
That was their mistake. They should have let sleeping bed-bugs slumber.
An old adage reminds us that in those days it was seldom profitable to argue with someone who bought ink by the barrel-full, especially someone like Dennett who knew how to have fun with his pen and printing press.
“We were not aware that a few interloping bed-bugs were more derogatory to the character of a steamboat than the same number of fleas or cockroaches,” he responded in the next edition of his paper. “As to the Rio Grande, we did not complain that it was at all serious, but even a pair of bed-bugs on these waters are so great a curiosity that an editor would be inexcusable were he not to give them a respectful notice.
“Besides, one would think that one might make an attack upon the character of one of these hide nippers without being blamed, for no jury could estimate the character of a bed-bug at more than a dime or two, and that, if recovered, would hardly be worth the trouble of a law suit.”
Pity the poor editor, he said. “He is expected to notice and publish almost all passing events, and still if he treats even a whiskey barrel or a pair of imported bed-bugs with levity, he is woefully grumbled at.”
The gentlemen who signed on to the defense of the boat “may be good judges of law, medicine, or dry goods,” he continued, “but with all due deference ... we must insist that they are not judges of bed-bugs, for if ... they searched their state rooms in quest of these little intruders, it shows that they don’t understand the nature of the animals. Had they been raised in a bed-bug country, they would have known that the little fellows in the daytime are already stowed away in the crevices, and never show their peepers in daylight.”
Dennett wished “the captain and his boat well,” but said he was “unable to retract one word of what we said in the article referred to by the Committee on Nippers.”
“We took passage on [the Rio Grande] once, and should be pleased to do so again,” he wrote. “We [still] insist that the Rio Grande is a first-rate boat, and in our opinion the officers perform their duty admirably. So for the present we bid the Rio Grande adieu.”
The boat’s advertisement disappeared from the newspaper for a month or two, but there seemed to have been no legal action.
If the editor rode the Rio Grande again on one of his regular trips to the city, he made no mention of it, in jest or otherwise. Bed-bugs probably continued to get a free ride on Laburthe’s boat and every other steamer that plied Louisiana’s bayous and rivers.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters," is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.