Mineral Point Tribune

From the Milwaukee Sentinel.

THE BUCHANAN K. N. ELECTOR.

The Atlas of Saturday publishes the subjoined communication from a gentleman at Ripon, reiterating the charge that Henry G. Webb, who is on the Buchanan Electoral ticket for this State, is a member of the Know Nothing Lodge at Ripon. The letter is accompanied and vouched for by a responsible name, and a different one from our correspondent, who makes the same charge. We have now three witnesses against Mr. Webb, who assert positively that he is a K. N. in regular standing. Since the appearance of Mr. H. S. Orton (a leading K. N.) on the stump for Mr. Buchanan, it is no wonder that Know Nothings should be found on the Buchanan Electoral ticket:

Ripon, Aug. 11, 1856

Editor of Atlas:

Sir—Henry G. Webb, the Buchanan Know Nothing Elector of this town has issued his circulars and directed to a number of the papers of the State, not denying, nor intending to deny, but only feigning and sembling a denial, that he is a Know Nothing. Well, a Know Nothing "is a quare thing entirely," as Pat would say. You join and then you are a member; you are found and charged with it; stay away for an evening and then you are not a member; you return and make all right again; you get a general dispensation to say you are what you are not, and you are not what you are, and it is no lying—for have you not a dispensation?

"They wiggle in, and they wiggle out,

And you cannot tell when they turn about,

Whether the snake that made the track,

Was going South or coming back."

A Know Nothing, of all things on earth, resembles Paddy's flea—“you put your thumb on him, an' faith he isn't there." But in this particular case it is not precisely so. I have got my thumb on Mr. Henry G. Webb, Buchanan Elector aforesaid, and he is there. I say that Henry G. Webb IS a Know Nothing—that he joined the concern in this town in May last, and I challenge him to deny the charge—the whole charge. When he does so, then I will prove the charge, and prove it more explicitly than I made it; for I will prove the precise night on which he joined, and the subsequent nights on which he met with them. But Mr. Webb needn't undertake to get up any "feigned issue" about the matter. "Authorizing" this and the other editor to deny this and that and the other irrelevant thing. Denying that he is an Officer, perhaps, or something of that sort. No, no, Mr. Webb, you are a Know Nothing; you know it—this community know it, and if you wish the whole people to know it, just plead to the merits of this declaration. But you will not: that wouldn't be a Know Nothing proceeding at all. I suspect, indeed, that you won't plead at all; but if you do, it will be something entirely irrelevant—mere verbiage, "sound and fury signifying nothing." Will you, over your own signature, deny that you, Henry G. Webb, Elector, &c., did, in the month of May last, join the Know Nothing lodge in this village of Ripon? No—you will do nothing of the kind.

B.