DP22983.pdf

PDF

Download

Open document

Transcript (if available)

Content THE WESTERN DEVELOPMENT OF MARK TWAIN A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Department of English Language and Literature University of Southern California In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Ivan Benson April 1937 UMI Number: DP22983 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI DP22983 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 This dissertation, w ritten by IVAN BENSON under the guidance of AJLs _ Faculty Committee on Studies, and approved by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Council on Graduate Study and Research, in pa rtia l fu l fillm ent of requirements fo r the degree of D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y C om m ittee on Studies C hairm an PREFACE This study of the development of Mark Twain during his five and one-half years in Nevada and California has been made possible through the generous cooperation of many persons* Dr. Louis Wann of the University of Southern California has been especially helpful* I wish to express my appreciation to those who made available material in the Bancroft Library, the University of Nevada Library, the Nevada State Library, the University of California Library, the California State Library, the Clarke Library, and the Willard S. Morse collection. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTEK PAGE I. BEGINNINGS OF AUTHORSHIP..................... I II. IMPACT OF THE FRONTIER....................... 30 III. CAREER AS SILVER MINER....................... 50 IV. THE COMSTOCK L O D E .......................... 79 V. REPORTER ON THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE [AUGUST, 1862— OCTOBER, 1863] 102 VI. REPORTER ON THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE [NOVEMBER, 1863— MAT, 1864] 142 VII. BOHEMIA AND JACKASS HILL..................... 170 VIII. COVERING HIS FINAL STORY IN THE WEST......... 198 EC. THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE FRONTIER W E S T ........ 220 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................... 240 APPENDICES................................. 247 CHAPTER I BEGINNINGS OF AUTHORSHIP Although it was not until he had come to the Far West that Samuel Clemens adopted writing as a career, one may appropriately look back to the earlier years which he spent as a boy in Hannibal, Missouri, as an assistant editor, as a tramp printer, as a pilot on the Mississippi, and as a tem porary soldier. ?/hat background of authorship did he have when he arrived in Nevada in 1861? What previous writing had he done that would show the point which he had reached in his literary development when he departed for the frontier West? Going back to his print shop and journeyman printer days, and to the days of piloting on the Mississippi, one discovers an unusually meager output of writings for a young man who obviously had an aptitude for authorship and who certainly had more than ordinary opportunities for publica tion of his work. The fact is that Samuel Clemens* literary development was remarkably slow for one with his potential abilities. Paine comments on this, in discussing the clair voyant powers of a Madame Caprell whom Clemens had consulted in New Orleans early in 1861 and who predicted that Sam would one day be a great writer: If we may judge by those [letters] that have survived, her prophecy of literary distinction for him was hardly warranted by anything she could have known of his pa&t performance. These letters of his youth have a value 2 to-day only because they were written by the man who was later to become Mark Twain. The squibs and skits which he sometimes contributed to the New Orleans papers were bright, perhaps, and pleasing to his pilot associates, but they were without literary value. He was twenty-five years old. More than one author has achieved reputation at that age. Mark Twain was of slower growth; at that age he had not even developed a definite literary ambition.1 It was at this point in his career that Clemens came West. At twenty-five he had written nothing of literary distinction, and, as Paine says, had shown no signs of an ambition to become a writer. The development whereby he was to adopt writing as a life career was to come during his five and one-half years in the frontier ?/est. Yet, although Clemens* pre-Washoe writings are meager, it is of signifi cance to examine them to ascertain what was his author- equipment by the time he penned his first "Josh” letter in the mining camps of Esmeralda. Samuel Clemens* first contact with the profession of writing came when he began service as an apprentice printer under Joseph P. Ament, publisher of the Missouri Courier. Ament had bought the Missouri Courier in Palmyra in 1841. Later the paper was merged with the Hannibal Gazette, which Ament purchased in the latter part of May or the first of June, 1848, and publication took place in Hannibal. The merged papers went under the name of the Hannibal Gazette 1 Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain*s Letters, I, 51. 3 until October IE, 1848, when the title Missouri Courier was permanently adopted.^ Sam1s printing apprenticeship began about fifteen months after the death of his father, which occurred on March 24, 1847. The boy’s formal education ended then; he was through with school at a little more than eleven years of age. Circumstances of this early printing apprenticeship have been the subject matter of a variety of interpretations. Mark Twain himself gave three different versions of it in later years. Van Wyck Brooks sees-the cub printer beginning his long and tragic frustration; the artist in him was re ceiving its first rude assault. The first great incident of frustration occurred, ac cording to Brooks, at the scene of the death of Sam’s father. Paine’s account of these events is the basis of Brooks’ theory: The boy Sam was fairly broken down. Remorse, which always dealt with him unsparingly, laid a heavy hand on him now. Wildness, disobedience, indifference to his father’s wishes, all were remembered; a hundred things, in themselves trifling, became ghastly and heart-wringing in the knowledge that they would never be undone. Seeing his grief, his mother took him by the hand and led him into the room where his father lay. "It is all right, Sammy,” she said. "What’s done is done, and it does not matter to him any more; but here by the side of him now I want you to promise 2 Bernard De Voto, Mark Twain’s America, p. 85. 4 me— .” He turned, his eyes streaming with tears, and flung himself into her arms. nI will promise anything,” he sobbed, ”if you won’t make me go to schools Anythingl” His mother held him for a mo ment, thinking, then she said: ”No, Sammy, you need not go to school any more. Only promise me to be a better boy. Promise not to break my heart.” So he promised her to be a faithful and industrious man, and upright, like his father. His mother was satisfied with that. The sense of honor and justice was already strong within him. To him a promise was a serious matter at any time; made under conditions like these it would be held sacred. That night— it was after the funeral— his tendency to somnambulism manifested itself. His mother and sister, who were sleeping together, saw the door open and a form in white enter. Naturally nervous at such a time, and living in a day of almost universal superstition, they were terrified and covered their heads. Present ly a hand was laid on the coverlet, first at the feet, then at the head of the bed. A thought struck Mrs. Clemens: ”SamS” she said. He answered, but he was sound asleep and fell to the floor. He had risen and thrown a sheet around him in his dreams. He walked in his sleep several nights in succession after that. Then he slept more soundly.3 This is the version of the story as Paine gives it. That Mark Twain decisively contradicts this story, in at least one other version that he gave,4 did not deter Paine or Brooks. The scene is loaded with significance for Brooks: Who is sufficiently the master of signs and por tents to read this curious episode aright? One thing, however, we feel with certitude, that Mark Twain’s fate was in a sense decided in that moment. That hour by his father’s corpse, that solemn oath, that walking in his sleep— we must hazard some interpreta tion of it, and I think we are justified in hazarding as most likely that which explains the most numerous 3 Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, I, 74-75. 4 Infra, p. 5. 5 and the most significant phenomena of his later life. . • • His "wish” to be an artist, which had been so frowned upon and had encountered such an obstacle in the disapproval of his mother, was now repressed, more or less definitely, and another wish, that of winning approval, which inclined him to conform to public opinion, had supplanted it. The individual, in short, had given way to the type. The struggle between these two selves, these two tendencies, these two wishes or groups of wishes, was to continue through Mark Twain’s life, and the poet, the artist, the individual, was to make a brave effort to survive. From the death of his father onward, however, his will was definitely enlisted on the side opposed to his essential in stinct.5 Harnessing such a rigid life pattern on a boy of eleven who is feeling badly because his father died would seem a bit illogical. And yet, here the little fellow is supposedly doomed to a tragic life of frustration, because a story, which he himself contradicted and which possibly is not true in most of its details, got itself written into a biography. The whole, complex analysis is pretty dis couraging to little boys. Thus, in the "frustration” version, Sam is permitted to quit school, but he must go to work, be respectable, as sume responsibility. An apprenticeship will provide the proper channel. He becomes a cub printer. In Mark Twain’s Autobiography, another version of the circumstances leading up to the printing apprenticeship is told. This version concerns an attack of the measles which 5 Van Wyck Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain, pp. 60- 62. 6 Sam achieved by deliberately exposing himself. There was an epidemic of the disease in Hannibal, and everybody in the village, Mark Twain wrote in Harper*s Bazaar in 1910, was "paralyzed with fright, distress, despair," until Sam could not stand the agony of suspense any longer. He crept into bed with a playmate and acquired the disease. "Everybody believed I would die." But the illness was not fatal, for "on the fourteenth day a change came for the worse and they were disappointed." He calls this the turning-point of his life: For when I got well my mother closed my school career and apprenticed me to a printer. She was tired of trying to keep me out of mischief and the adventure of the measles decided her to put me in more masterful hands than hers. I became a printer and began to add one link after another to the chain which was to lead me into the literary profession.6 This is a different story, and one hardly knows what to think of it in relation to other versions. It is probably at least true in spirit, since it was written when Mark Twain was trying his very best to be serious, truthful, and sincere in writing the autobiographical facts of his life. At any rate, whatever the circumstances of the printing apprentice ship may have been, in becoming a cub printer Samuel Clemens was, in fact, making his first progress toward the literary profession. a Harper*s Bazaar, February, 1910. 7 Sam1s apprenticeship under Ament did not begin imme diately after his father’s death, as various accounts would lead one to believe, but fifteen months later, since Ament did not establish his paper until late in May or early in June, 1848, and there is no mention from direct and reliable sources that Sam served any previous apprenticeship. De Voto believes that the first employment was unquestionably under fi Ament. Miss Brashear, although admitting an uncertainty about the date of Sam’s first apprenticeship, feels that there is a possibility that he may have worked as a cub printer on the Journal or the Gazette before Ament came to Hannibal. It was so fixed a memory of Mark Twain’s, however, that he dropped out of school immediately after his father’s death and that his mother believed the best place where he could become self-supporting, and at the same time continue his education, to be in a news paper office, that the assumption seems justified that he worked either on the Journal or the Gazette from the spring of 1847 until the summer of 1848. The better theory is that he went to work on the Gazette and that after Mr. Ament bought it the boy proved to be so intelligent that he v/as formally taken on as an apprentice when the Courier and Gazette were con solidated.® Board and clothes were the terms of Sam’s apprentice ship. "More board than clothes, and not much of either.” There is no reason to believe that he was not as well treated by Mr. Ament as any apprenticed cub was treated in that day. ^ De Voto, op. cit•, p. 85. 8 Minnie M. Brashear, Mark Twain, Son of Missouri, p. 98. 8 Mark Twain’s account in later years was unquestionably some what unreasonable with respect to the man who gave him his first job. Both in Paine’s biography and in Mark Twain’s Autobiography, Ament is described as a niggardly character, but Miss Brashear quotes newspaper comments of the early days to show that even Sam and his brother Orion had respect for Ament in those days. In the Hannibal Journal of Novem ber 25, 1852, the Glemens paper, commenting on Ament’s sale "kke Courier, said that Ament’s ability had made him an efficient supporter of his party princi ples, while his courtesy, and uniformly manly course, procured him many friends among his opponents. We heartily wish him success wherever he may bend his steps, and in whatever business he may undertake— except making proselytes to his party.9 The friendly jibe at the end of the editorial concerns the political affiliations of the two newspapers, which had been political rivals. Ament had been interested in conduct ing his newspaper as a party organ, and the columns of his paper had shown the party loyalty suitable to the oldest Democratic newspaper in the state. Sam, in later years, criticised, though not too seri ously, the circumstances of his employment with Ament. "I was supposed to get two suits of clothes a year, like a nigger, but I didn’t get them,” [he said.] "I got one suit and took the rest out in Ament’s old garments, which didn’t fit me in any noticeable way. I was only about half as big as he was, and when I had on one of his shirts I felt as if I had 9 Ibid.. pp. 99-100. 9 on a circus tent. I had to turn the trousers up to my ears, to make them short enough."10 Sam seems to have got along very well at Ament’s. He was quick to learn, his intelligence was recognized, and the hoy was soon entrusted with more than the ordinary duties of a cub printer. Paine says: When he had been with Ament little more than a year Sam had become office favorite and chief standby. Whatever required intelligence and care and imagina tion was given to Sam Clemens.11 It was not long before the boy was a kind of a "sub editor" on the weekly paper, and the importance of his duties mounted. During the last year of the Mexican War, telegraph communication was completed to Hannibal, and news of the war came to the village. Sam was placed in charge of the extras containing the war news; that is, he was permitted to per form the task of circulating them. He gloried in it; "the burning importance of his mission, the bringing of news hot from the field of battle * spurred him to endeavors that won plaudits and success."1^ The young cub printer felt that now he was really becoming a newspaper man. Sam Clemens’ brother Orion established the Hannibal Western Union, printing the first number in September or 10 Paine, Biography, I, 76. 11 Ibid., pp. 77-78. 12 Ibid.. p. 78. 10 October, 1850.1$ Trom Ament*s paper, Sam went to become a printer on his brother’s new weekly Whig newspaper. Now he was definitely established in the printing trade, and he stayed on through a variety of changes in Orion’s publish ing ventures. The Western Union continued under that name until August^ 28, 1851. On 'September 4, 1851, the following week, it became the Hannibal Journal and Western Union. It became the Hannibal Journal on September 9, 1852, and re tained this title until the last issue under the ownership of Orion Clemens, dated September 21, 1853. Seven months of an erratic existence were enjoyed by Orion’s Hannibal Daily Journal, which was started in March, 1853, the weekly being continued along with the publication of the daily.14 Sam was a printer on each of these newspapers pub lished by his brother. However, three months after the Daily Journal began publication he left Hannibal, in June, 1853, for St. Louis, to begin his travels as a journeyman printer. Looking at this period of Sam Clemens’ eareer, when he was printer and subeditor of his brother’s Hannibal Jour nal, we discover the nature of his early writings. These 1® C. J. Armstrong, Hannibal authority on Mark Twain, has recovered what is believed to be the earliest extant number of Orion’s newspaper. The date is October 10, 1850. Miss Brashear places the establishment of the Western Union as September, 1850. 14 Qf# c. j# Armstrong, "Mark Twain’s Early Writings Discovered," Missouri Historical Review, July, 1930. 11 experiments in authorship are placed in four groups by Miss Brashear.The writings in the first group concern an edi torial altercation that Sam had with a rival Hannibal editor. The second group consists of some experiments in feature writing in which Sam used the pen name W. t Epaminondas Adrastus Blab. The third group centers around the poem, "To Miss Katie of H— I.”* * - 6 The fourth consists of three columns of miscellaneous short items under the heading, "Our Assis tant’s Column." In "My First Literary Venture," written about 1870, Mark Twain mentions the writings of the first, third, and fourth groups listed above. The events of the "week" men tioned in this autobiographical sketch, in the period of Sam Clemens’ editorship of the Hannibal Journal during his brother’s absence, occurred actually, according to Miss Brashear, during "two separate adventures in editorship, about eight months apart, and were apparently the first ex pressions of the youth’s restless energy becoming conscious of itself and impelled inevitably to break out of the narrow limits of its small-town routine."^-7 As assistant editor of the Journal, Clemens engaged 15 Brashear, 0£. cit., p. 107. 16 Paine refers to the poem as "To Mary in H— 1." Brashear, o£. cit., p. 108. 12 in his first editorial controversy and made his first ven ture into authorship# The local editor of the Tri-Weekly Messenger» rival Whig paper of Hannibal, was the butt of Sam*s satirical writing in this instance. This editor had written an item concerning mad dogs in the vicinity and had warned citizens against the danger# Mark Twain later told about the follow-up of this incident in the columns of the Journal: I was a printer*s "devil" and a progressive and aspiring one. My uncle [sic] had me on his paper (the Weekly Hannibal Journal, two dollars a year, in advance— five hundred subscribers, and they paid in cord-wood, cabbages, and unmarketable tur nips), and on a lucky summer’s day he left town to be gone a week, and asked me if I thought I could edit one issue of the paper judiciously# Aht didn’t I want to try! Higgins was the editor on the rival paper# He had lately been jilted, and one night a friend found an open note on the poor fellow’s bed, in which he stated that he could no longer endure life and had drowned himself in Bear Creek# The friend ran down there and discovered Higgins wading back to shore. He had concluded he wouldn’t# The village was full of it for several days, but Higgins did not suspect it# I thought this was a fine oppor tunity. I wrote an elaborately wretched account of the whole matter, and then illustrated it with vil lainous cuts engraved on the bottoms of wooden type with a jack-knife— one of them a picture of Higgins wading out into the creek in his shirt, with a lantern, sounding the depth of the water with a walking stick# I thought it was desperately funny and was densely unconscious that there was any moral obliquity about such a publication.18 Much of this account was apparently correct, but the origin of the editorial controversy had nothing to do with 18 Mark Twain, "My First Literary Venture," Sketches New and Old, pp. 95-96. 13 the romance of Higgins, Miss Brashear believes after a study of the files of the newspapers, but arose from the mad dog items published by the editor of the Messenger. Thus, Sam Clemens’ first editorial venture is con ducted as a writer signing himself ”A Dog-be-Deviled Citi zen. "20 several short items were apparently written, but the chief one— the earliest one extant— was published by Sam during the absence of Orion, who had gone to Tennessee on business in connection with a Clemens land tract in that state. In the issue of the Journal of September 16, 1852, the sixteen-year-old editor presented the item that he felt would make spicy material during his brother’s absence. Under the heading ’ ’’LOCAL’ RESOLVES TO COMMIT SUICIDE,” and with a car toon showing the rival editor, with the face of a dog and carrying a lantern and a cane, the following item appeared: ’Local,’ disconsolate from receiving no further notice from *A Dog-be-Deviled Citizen,* contemplates 19 Brashear, oj>. cit., p. 110. 20 franklin J. Meine of Chicago has identified an early sketch of Samuel Clemens in the Carpet-Bag, a humorous weekly published in Boston from 1852 to 1853. The sketch, which appeared in the issue of May 1, 1852, was entitled ”The Dandy Frightening the Squatter.” It was about Hannibal, and was‘signed ”S. L* C.” This is presumably the earliest extant literary work of Samuel Clemens. Mr. Meine believes that this is the contribution Mark Twain was thinking of when he told Mr. Paine of two humorous anecdotes which he contributed to the Saturday Evening Post in 1851. 14 Suicide, His ’pocket-pistol* (i.e. the bottle) failing in the patriotic work of ridding the coun try of a nuisance, he resolves to ’extinguish his chunk’ by feeding his carcass to the fishes of Bear Creek, while friend and foe are wrapt in sleep, fearing, however, that he may get out of his depth, he sounds the stream with his walking-stick. The artist has, you will perceive, Mr. Editor, caught the gentleman’s countenance as correctly as the thing could have been done with the real dog- gerytype apparatus. Ain’t he pretty?, and don’t he step along through the mud with an air? ’Peace to his re-manes.’ *A Dog-be-Deviled Citizen.’21 following the Messenger’s sarcastic editorial on the Journal item, there is another story, accompanied by two more woodcuts, in the issue of the Journal for September 23: "PICTUR’" DEPARTMENT. "Local” discovers something interesting in the Journal, and becomes excited. ("Local,” determined upon the destruction of the great enemy of the canine race, charters an old swivel (a six pounder) and declares war. Lead be ing scarce, he loads his cannon with Tri-Weekly Messengers.) "Local” is somewhat astonished at the effect of the discharge, and is under the impression that there was something the matter with the apparatus --thinks the hole must have been drilled in the wrong end of the artillery. He finds, however, that although he missed the "Dog-be-Deviled Citizen,”* he nevertheless hit the man "who has not the decency of a gentleman nor the honor of a black guard," and thinks it best to stop the controversy. Hannibal Journal, September 16, 1852. Miss Brashear credits this story to the Daily Journal, but it was printed in the weekly; the daily was not established until March 8, 1853. 15 Mr. Editor: I have now dropped this farce, and all attempts to again call me forth will be useless. A Dog-be-Deviled Citizen.22 *Who walks quietly away, in the distance, uninjured. Orion had returned to Hannibal by the time the above story appeared, and in the same issue of the Journal he had an editorial in which he praised the local editor of the Messenger, and added that the jokes of the Journal corre spondent had "been rather rough; but originating and perpe trated in a spirit of fun, and without a serious thought, no attention was expected to be paid to them, beyond a smile at the local editor*s expense.f * Such, then, was the character of Sam Clemens* first newspaper writing. In the second group of his early experi ments, are four feature stories, three of which appear in the same issue of the Journal which contained the first wood- cut and story. One of the latter, a long story accompanied by a woodcut, is entitled "A Historical Exhibition.* * Another is entitled **Editorial Agility.** Both of these have intro ductory notes written by Orion Clemens. The third story of this group, in the September 16 issue, is signed W. Epaminondas Adrastus Perkins, and tells of a drunken brawl on Holliday’s Hill. The last of the stories of the second group was 22 Hannibal Journal, September S3, 185S. Miss Brashear also credits this to the Daily Journal, but the daily was not yet established. 16 published in the September 23 issue of the Journal. It is entitled "Blabbing Government Secrets," and concerns the writer’s success in having the extra session of the legisla ture convened for the purpose of changing his surname from Perkins to Blab. Well, the request was granted: the Legislature was convened; my title was altered, shortened, and greatly beautified and all at a cost of only a few thousands of dollars to the State! These Democratic Legislators work cheap,don’t they, Editor?23 The story is signed by W. E. A. B. In the same issue, the young editor bows his way out of public life in a note over the signature W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab. Clemens’ first poem is the central theme of the third group of Hannibal Journal writings. To liven up circulation, apparently, during a second absence of his brother, Sam com posed and published the following verses in the Journal: LOVE CONCEALED. To Miss Katie of H— 1. Oh, thou wilt never know how fond a love This heart could have felt for thee; Or ever dream how love and friendship strove, Through long, long hours for mastery; How passion often urged, but pride restrained, Or how thy coldness grieved, but kindness pained. How hours have soothed the feelings, then that were The torture of my lonely life-- But ever yet will often fall a tear, O’er wildest hopes and thoughts then rife; Where’er recalled by passing word or tone, Fond memory mirrors all those visions flown. ^ Hannibal Journal. September 23, 1852. 17 For much I fear he has won thy heart, And thou art hut a friend to me; I feel that in thy love I have no part, I know how much he worships thee; Yet still often will there rise a gleam of hope, Wherewith but only time and pride can cope. Hannibal, May 4th, 1853 RAMBLER24 This poem, appearing first in the Daily Journal of May 6, 1853, was reprinted in the. weekly edition of the paper May IE, 1853. In a few succeeding issues of the paper Sam contributed items of comment on the poem, over the sig natures of Grumbler, Rambler, and Peter Pencilease’s Son, John Snooks. The fourth group of Clemens* Journal writings was contributed by the young“subeditor in the r$le of columnist. The three columns contributed by the "Assistant" appeared in the issues of May £3, May E5, and May E6, 1853. Under the heading "Our Assistant’s Column," the contributions included such matters as reports of small pox cases; "man’s rights," as illustrated by a man beating his wife and children, tar and feathers being recommended for the man concerned; warm weather, "niggers begin to sweat and look greasy"; "The Burial of Sir Abner Gilstrap," which was a parody of "The Burial of Sir John Moore," and satirized a rival Missouri editor; a note on editorial-pilfering; notes on emigrant parties bound for California. The three columns are assigned Hannibal Daily Journal, May 6, 1853. 18 to the authorship of Sam Glemens by Miss Brashear.25 In the May 27, 1853, issue of the Hannibal Journal appeared this notice: "Wanted! An Apprentice of the Print ing Business. Apply soon.” Samuel Clemens left, a few days later, for St. Louis on the first of his travels as a journeyman printer. When Sam left Hannibal in June, 1853, he informed his mother he was going to St. Louis, but his real purpose was to go on to New York.25 He^set type on the Evening News of St. Louis long enough to earn expense money to New York. He was working as a job printer in New York by August 31, 1853. He writes a letter from Philadelphia on October 26 of the same year, informing his brother that he is "subbing at the Inquirer office,”2? and is being laughed at by the other compositors because he is slow. After a period of visiting in Washington he returned to Philadelphia and set type on the Ledger and the North American during the spring and siammer of 1854. In the meantime, Orion had moved to Muscatine, Iowa, and had established the Journal there. In the fall of 1854, Sam went to Muscatine, set type for a few weeks on his 25 Brashear, 0£. cit.» pp. 128-139. 26 Incidents and dates of the Wanderjghre period, 1853-1861, are given in Brashear, ££. cit., pp. 151-195. 27 Paine, Letters, I, 26. 19 brother’s paper, then returned to St, Louis and went back to work on the Evening Nev/s, During the winter Orion gave up his Mascatine paper and established a job-printing office in Keokuk, Iowa. Soon Sam came to work for Orion, and stayed in Keokuk almost two years. The Keokuk period of Mark Twain was neither distinguished for its achievements nor was it unimportant, says Paine. At a printers’ banquet he delivered his first after- dinner speech; a hilarious speech— its humor of a primitive kind. Ifhatever its shortcomings, it de lighted his audience. • • • They impressed him into a debating society after that and there was generally a stir of attention when Sam Clemens was about to take the floor.28 Clemens spent the winter of 1856-57 in Cincinnati working at his printing trade. In Keokuk he had become fired with a desire to go to the Amazon to make his fortune, and he was now on his way, via Cincinnati and New Orleans. In April, 1857, he started down the river, met Horace Bixby, decided to become a Mississippi River pilot, and forgot about South America. The literary ventures of the journeyman printer days, not counting his personal correspondence, which was now taking on a readable travel-letter tone, consist of two series of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass letters. There is some doubt as to the second series being authentic Mark Twain 28 Paine, Biography, I, 107. 20 material. The first series consists of three letters^ writ ten when Sam was presumably on his way to South America, after having left Keokuk some time in the fall of 1856. The three letters were published in the Keokuk Post and were paid for at the rate of five dollars each. They are the first writings for which Sam Clemens received pay. No doubt the Snodgrass letters were attempts of Samuel Clemens to write material that would be suitable for a , f fun nier book,” which he had predicted during his printing days in Keokuk. He had been reading in bed one night when a young man named Ed Brownell, a chum, came into the room. ”What are you reading, Sam?” he asked. ”0h, nothing much— a so-called funny book— one of these days I'll write a funnier book than that, myself.” Brownell laughed. ”No, you won't, Sam,” he said. ”You are too lazy ever to write a book.”30 The first Snodgrass letter, dated St. Louis, October 18, 1856, was published in the Keokuk Saturday Post of Novem ber 1. It tells of how Snodgrass was sitting in the parlor when one of his friends suggested that they go to the theater Paine knew of only two of these Snodgrass letters when he v/rote his Mark Twain biography. He had obtained his information from Thomas Rees, of the Springfield (Illinois) Register. Paine tells of the letters of November 14 and March 14 in the Biography, pp. 112-114. 30 Ibid., I, 107. 21 to see Mr. Nealy play "Julius Caesar." They go to the theater and Snodgrass thinks he will show the orchestra some class by playing on an old coarse comb, in that way taking "them one- hoss fiddlers down a peg and bring down the house, too," if he’d "just give ’em a tech of ’Auld Lang Syne’" on it. With the audience laughing at the country hick, Snodgrass gets "riled." Darn my skin if X wasn’t mad. I jerked off my coat and jumped at the little man and, says I, "You nasty, sneakin’ degenerate great grandson of a ring-tailed monkey, I kin just lam— .” Finally the curtain goes up. Snodgrass doesn’t think much of the play, but at last it come time to remove Mr. Cesar from office ... so all the conspirators got around the throne, and directly Cesar come steppin’ in, putting on as many airs as if he was mayor of Alexandria. Arter he had sot on the throne awhile they all jumped on him at once like a batch of Irish on a sick nigger. After the final curtain, Snodgrass attempts to orate: "Gentlemen and Ladies— I’m a peaceable stranger from Keokuk, and my name is Thomas Jefferson— " • . • and in a twinklin’ a couple of police had sot me down in the street, advisin’ me to go to the devil and not come back there any more. Now, Mister Editors, Saint Louis may fizzle out and be derned.31 In his second letter, dated Cincinnati, November 14, 1856, and printed both in the Daily Post of November 29 and Saturday Post of December 6, Snodgrass tells of his ride on the railroad during his journey from St. Louis to 31 Samuel Langhorne Clemens, The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, pp. 3-16. 22 Cincinnati. He had planned to keep a daily journal of his voyage, a "'Snodgrass* Dierrea,’ or somethin of that kind, like other authors that visits forren parts." Having con sulted a map he determines that the best route from St. Louis to Cincinnati was "to go back to Keokuk, and from Keokuk to Quincy, and from Quincy to Chicago, and from Chicago to Indianapolis, and then down to the end of [his] ultimate destination." On the trip by river packet to Quincy, Snodgrass finds interest in the race between the steamboat and "an old fellar with a carpet bag, who calculated it was good exercise to walk to Quincy." The steamboat was delayed on a sand bar but finally got clear, and away she went walkin down the river on four inches of water, and jumpin over three acre patches of dry land, jest as though she had legs. The old man and her had a mighty tight race of it, and she only saved herself by takin a nigh cut across the bottom, comin in fifteen minutes ahead. When Snodgrass sees his first locomotive he isn’t "skeered," but he "had three chills and a stroke of palsy in less than five minutes," and his face a "curus brownish- yaller-green-bluish color in it which was perfictly unac countable." No conductor was going to get any ticket from Snodgrass. "Not by a derned sight," says I. "You can’t come any o them tricks on me, old feller. You can’t get my ticket and then stick me ashore at the first wood yard your old cook stove stops at." 23 Snodgrass becomes nonchalant, a seasoned traveler; It didn’t take me long to git used to the-cars, and then I begun to put on airs like an old traveler— stickin my feet over the back of the next pew, puttin my ticket in my hat band, pretending to go to sleep, and so on, and never lettin on to keer a cent where we was going to. On the last lap cf the journey the train tears along ”at the rate of four hundred and thirty-seven miles a minute, leavin the rail track red hot behind us— in some places it melted.”32 In the third letter Snodgrass tells of the extreme cold in Cincinnati; the Ohio river was ”friz to the bottom.” The city council had decided to sell coal at a low price to the poor people. But there were complications. Here’s a instance. A indigent Irish woman— a widow with nineteen children and several at the breast, accordin to custom, went to the Mayor to get some of that public coal. The Mayor he gin her an order on the Recorder; Recorder sent her to the Constable; Constable sent her to the Postmaster; Postmaster sent her to the County Clerk, and so on, till she run herself half to death, and friz the balance, while she had sixteen places to go yet, afore she could git the coal. A young lady asks Snodgrass to hold her basket for a moment, and the young man is left with a baby on his hands. He ”was ketched by a perliceman about midnight down to the river, trying to poke the dang thing through a hole in the ice.” There is a trial. Snodgrass is accused of being an ”on- nateral father.” He finally is released from jail. ”It pears to me that baby’ll larn to swim yit afore its six 32 Ibid.. pp. 19-33. 24 weeks older— pervided it don’t perish in the attempt.”33 Crude as they are, the Snodgrass letters are never theless significant as showing a stage of literary develop ment that Samuel Clemens was going through during his journeyman printer days. Later, in his far western writings^ we find that the exaggerated dialect of the Snodgrass letters has been abandoned. Also abandoned is the humor based on i misspelling. These letters are a somewhat sustained attempt at dialect writing; seemingly there was enough of conclusive ness in this experiment to show Clemens that a more limited use of dialect would be preferable in his sketches. The letters have a forced humor that will be hard to find in the Mark Twain sketches of later years. They illustrate ”the distance between the comic-strip humor of Twain’s boyhood 34 and the bitter satire of his age.” ”The genius that a little more than ten years later would delight the world 35 flickered feebly enough at twenty-one.” Searching through the files of the New Orleans Crescent, Miss Brashear discovered a series of four Snodgrass letters which she believes can reasonably be assigned to the author ship of Samuel Clemens. She thinks Sam was still at work on 33 Ibid., pp. 37-48. 34 Vincent Starrett, in his foreword to The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, p. viii. 35 Paine, Biography, I, 113. 25 his "funnier book" in New Orleans. The first of the letters appears in the Crescent of January 21, 1861. The nom de plume used, as in the other letters of the series, is Quintus Curtius Snodgrass. The title of the first letter is "The Expedition to Baton Rouge," and the narrative concerns Louisiana’s joining the Confed eracy. Snodgrass tells of how he joined the Louisiana Guard, sailed up the Mississippi on the steamer "National," and planted the flag of the Confederacy in front of the state house. Miss Brashear feels that since this new Snodgrass series was written four years later than the first, there would, naturally, be a difference in style and mood. Instead of the vernacular of the traveler from the country, the language of Snodgrass, metamorphosed with a classical given name, is ambitiously literary. He quotes from Shakespeare, Dickens, and Tom Paine.36 Miss Brashear gives some logical points concerning the authen ticity of the letter as Clemens’ work, but on reading the letter one finds it difficult to believe that it does belong to Clemens. The second letter of the series, printed February 25, 1861, is another satire on military affairs, entitled "Hints to Young Campaigners: with the Manual of Arms." The third, printed March 11, 1861, is an "account of a night’s epicurean adventures in which Snodgrass, his friend Laryndor Kydd, and ^ Brashear, 0£. cit., p. 189. a few other happy companions participated.The fourth letter is a report by Snodgrass of his attendance at a dinner at the president’s mansion in Washington. "The letter re flects the common southern ridicule of ’Old Abe’ and his family at the beginning of the Civil War.”®® Miss Brashear finds difficulty in justifying the lack of the exaggeration, anti-climax, and irony found in the earlier Snodgrass series. She admits that the Crescent let ters do not satisfactorily suggest the later Mark Twain. "And yet, if it can be proved that they are authentic, they are immensely significant as a link in Mark Twain’s develop ment as a humorist."39- Only one other attempt at newspaper writing was made by Samuel Clemens before he departed for Nevada. During his pilot days he wrote "squibs and skits" for New Orleans papers. His interest in writing was evidently not very great while he was enjoying the adventurous life of a Mississippi Hiver pilot as there is only one item preserved, not including the second Snodgrass series, of which the authorship" is doubtful. Horace Bixby remembered later that "’Sam was always scribbling when not at the wheel,’" but Paine says that if Clemens "published 37 Ibid.. p. 191. Loo. cit. 39 Ibid.. p. 192. Paine, Letters, I, 5. 27 any work in those river-days he did not acknowledge it later — with one exception.”4* 1 - The one exception is the burlesque written about Captain Isaiah Sellers, an old pilot who made the other pilots weary with the scope and antiquity of his reminiscent knowledge • . . and contributed paragraphs of general information and Nestorian opinions to the New Orleans Picayune, and signed them MMark Twain.”42 The old pilot, no doubt sincere enough in his intentions, gave a somewhat egotistical tone to his newspaper correspondence by such phrases as "My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans.” Sam Clemens wrote a burlesque imitation of Captain Sellers* correspondence, signing it "Sergeant Fathom.” The letter tells of a supposed trip of the steamer "Jubilee,” with a Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew. High water predic tions of Captain Sellers are treated ironically. The satire is reprinted as Appendix B in the fourth volume of Paine’s Biography, pages 1593-96. Its original publication was in the New Orleans True Delta of May 8 or 9, 1859. Later Mark Twain was sorry for the injury he had done the old pilot, and in the West, a few years later, he adopted the "Mark Twain” pen-name as his ora. To his biographer, Mark Twain expressed his regret over the writing of the 41 Paine, Biography, p. 149. Surely, Mark Twain, if he actually had written them, would have remembered and acknowl edged the four letters of the second Snodgrass series. 42 Ibid., p. 149. 28 burlesque. Paine writes of the effect of the satire: It broke Captain Seller’s literary heart. He never contributed another paragraph. Mark Twain always regretted the whole matter deeply, and his own revival of the name was a sort of tribute to the old man he had thoughtlessly wounded. If Captain Sellers has knowledge of material matters now, he is probably satisfied; for these things brought to him, and to the name he had chosen, what he could never himself have achieved— immortality.43 Samuel Clemens’ pre-Washoe writings were, then, of an amateurish, premature type. There had been no sustained effort at authorship, and none of the writings extant has any particular literary merit. Though he was twenty-five when he left for the West, Samuel Clemens had been so slow in his literary growth that there was still nothing important enough that he had done in his writings to point toward authorship as necessarily his future career. Certain elements, however, in the earlier writings do presage further development in the frontier West. One is Sam Clemens* predilection for humorous writing. A second is his preference for writing travel letters, as a correspondent, rather than writing local items for the newspaper. A third is his weakness for editorial controversy; he enjoyed picking fights with other editors, or with anyone who would carry on a controversy through the columns of newspapers. A fourth is his tendency to satirize individuals, often injuring them 43 Ibid., p. 150 29 unjustly, merely for the sake of a good story or to make some point that in itself may have been justified. In the West we shall find him continuing to write about politics and legislatures* In the West, however, Samuel Clemens abandons the use of exaggerated dialects, misspellings, and other elements of style found in his early middle western writings# CHAPTER II IMPACT OF THE FRONTIER With his twenty-five formative years behind him— his years as a boy in Florida and Hannibal, Missouri, his years as assistant editor to his brother Orion, his years as tramp printer, his four years as pilot on the Mississippi River, and his few weeks as soldier in the Civil War— Samuel Clemens left for the West with his brother Orion. He went as private secretary, without pay, to his brother, who was the newly appointed secretary of Nevada Territory. Sam had saved a considerable sum of money out of his wages as river pilot, and was more than willing to finance the Overland Stage trip across the plains to Carson City. So they went up the Missouri River to St. Joe and paid the stage fare of three hundred dollars for two passages. On July 26, 1861, the two brothers set out on the adventurous seventeen hundred mile journey, over the plains and through the passes of the snow-clad Rockies, a journey that is described in Roughing It.1 It would be a mistake to assume that Clemens went on the trip to the West.merely on a sudden impulse or a mere whim. On the contrary, he had been hearing for years of the ^ Mark Twain, Roughing It. 31 adventure and the romance of the frontier West and had been looking with a restless curiosity at the horizon out there where men were living as in the adventurous days of *49. . Three lures that were beckoning Glemens during his journalistic days with his brother on the Hannibal Journal are suggested by Miss Brashear: There was the Crystal Palace Pair in New York, at which Hannibal was to be represented by a bale of hemp and two barrels of flour, and there was always the river, with its "Die Vernon" and its "Jeannie Deans" making the fast time of thirteen or fourteen hours between St. Louis and Hannibal. Then there were parties pass ing through Hannibal on their way west.2 All three of these lures were answered by Samuel Clemens. The first resulted in his travels as journeyman printer, the second in his four years as a Mississippi River pilot, and the third in his five and a half years as a miner and a journalist in the West. The third of these lures, and the one in which we are primarily interested in this study, was extensively publi cized during Clemens* Missouri days. Newspapers of the time were carrying much information about the emigrant parties on their way to the frontier, whether they consisted of Mormons on their way to Salt Lake or gold seekers on their way to the California El Dorado. The Journal published its share of this kind of news. A typical item, from the columns of the 2 Brashear, Mark Twain, Son of Missouri, p. 151. 32 Hannibal Daily Journal of May 18, 1853, records news of the westward trek: Several California teams passed through here this morning. Messrs. T. W. Bunberry, A. J. Price, and Sam’l Pry started this morning with a good, light wagon and four yoke of fine oxen. One of Sam*s companions, a boy of twelve, left Missouri to play his part in the saga of the golden era of the ¥/est. Mark Twain writes, in his Autobiography, of this incident of the days of *49: I remember the departure of the cavalcade when it spurred Westward. We were all there to see and to envy. And*I can still see that proud little chap sailing by on a great horse . . .We were all on hand to gaze and envy when he returned, two years later, in unimaginable glory— for he had traveled.3 And Clemens himself gave publicity to the westward trek by publishing this kind of news a few days after he, as a seventeen-year-old assistant editor, had made his debut as a newspaper columnist. Beginning with the issues of the Hannibal Daily Journal of May 23, 1853, there are three is sues that contain his contribution entitled "Our Assistant’s Column." In the second of these, on May 25, 1853, are re printed two items from the St. Joseph Gazette: It is estimated that considerably upwards of ten thousand cattle alone have crossed the river at St. Joseph, destined for California. How many have crossed at other points, we have not understood. But it is very certain an immense amount of stock will cross the plains, this spring, cattle, sheep, horses, and mules. The number of cattle it is supposed will 3 Mark Twain, Autobiography, II, 183. 33 exceed one hundred thousand head. Persons can now readily account for the high prices of beef and stock. — (St. Joseph Gaz.) The grass on the other side of the river is said to be getting very good now. Many of the emigrants are now on their winding way, having bid adieu for a while to busy scenes of civilization, to try the realities of a life upon the uninhabited plains, save by the red man and the game. They are in search of what a wise man once said is the root of all evil— gold. We wish them a safe journey and prosperous time.— (St. Joseph Gaz.) These two items are the only exchange reprints used by the assistant in the three issues of his column. Samuel Clemens had no doubt looked toward the West many times before the great opportunity arrived. Would he not have gone West eventually even if Orion Clemens had not been appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada? Probably not even the possibility of continuing as a pilot on the Mississippi would have kept Clemens from his manifest destiny. It would seem to have been contradictory to his temperament for him to have continued in any one occu pation at any one place for an extended time, particularly as a young man. Among all the phobias, complexes, repressions, frustrations, and innumerable other abnormalities that have been considered in connection with Mark Twain by such analyti cal scholars as Van Wyek Brooks, possibly one trait can justi fiably be attached to this great American humorist— a restless urge for travel, moving, seeing new things, experiencing new adventures. Civil War or no Civil War, it is unlikely that Clemens would have tied himself permanently to the River. Possibly a year or so more would have been sufficient. In the light of the traits of personality that Mark Twain reveals in the works of his later years, can one imagine him staying on indefinitely as a pilot after he knew every town, sandbar, point, snag, landmark, bend, island, dead tree, bank, and reef on the twelve hundred miles of Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans? Pattee feels that "it is very possible that but for the war and the change which it wrought upon the river, Mark Twain might have passed his whole life as a Mississippi pilot.M4 This is not consistent with the temperament of the young Sam Clemens. Of course, many years later he looked back reminiscently on the river days and said: "I loved the profession far better than any I have followed since, and I took a measureless pride in it."5 But is there any evidence there that he would have preferred to stay on to make piloting on the Mississippi his life work? Hardly. In fact, the very limitation of only four years of pilot life had much to do with establishing it as a pleasant memory to look back on in future years. The pilot days were over before they palled on him. ^ Fred Lewis Pattee, A History of American Literature since 1870, p. 49. 35 The opportunity to go West was one for which he had been looking, and a very natural fulfillment of a desire for travel, for adventure, for new experiences in a romantic, colorful land. He had heard about it, and he had read about it. How he could see for himself. The thrilling twenty-day journey by Overland Stage from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Carson City, Nevada Territory, is colorfully described by Mark Twain in Roughing It. This first contact with the frontier made a profound impression ujjon the young adventurer. He was really travelling now. Previous excursions about the country, as journeyman printer and otherwise, had made so little impression on him that he writes in Roughing It: "I had never been away from home, and that word •travel* had a seductive charm for me."6 I only proposed to stay in Nevada three months, [he writes],— I had not thought of staying longer than that. I meant to see all I could that was new and strange, and then hurry home to business. I little thought that I would not see the end of the three- month pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long years!7 And steamboat days were so far from being thrilling and colorful to him by the time of his journey westward that he was immeasurably bored by the six-day trip on the Missouri River from St. Louis to St. Joseph. The boat trip was to 6 Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 15. 7 Ibid., p. 16. 36 him so dull, and sleepy, and uneventful that when he wrote of it ten years later it had left no more impression on his mind than if it had lasted six minutes instead of that many days. He writes sarcastically of the dull monotony of snags, reefs, sandbars, and the boat trip as a whole.8 Is this not evidence that for_,Sam Clemens the glory of the river had passed in 1861? On August 14, 1861, the Overland Stage rolled into Carson City. It had been plowing through alkali dust; the last clouds of this dust that the conveyance had raised were floating across the desert like smoke from a burning house. The stage jerked to a stop. Two weatherworn young men climbed out and inquired for the hotel. "It was Orion Clemens, the new Territorial Secretary, and his brother, former dandified pilot, later a lieutenant of a forlorn hope, now an obscure adventurer of the frontier."9 It is not improper that Sam should be thought of here as secondary in importance to his brother Orion. After all, Orion was the new Territorial Secretary. To the westerners, Sam Clemens was nobody. A change in the relative status of the two brothers was to come later. 6 Ibid.. p. 17. 9 Albert Bigelow Paine, Short Life of Mark Twain, p. 73. 37 Thus Clemens arrived in Carson City, It was the beginning of his adventures in the communities of the fron tier West. Carson was his first glimpse of a real western community: It was a "wooden" town; its population two thousand souls. The main street consisted of four or five blocks of little white frame stores which were too high to sit down on, but not too high for various other purposes; in fact, hardly high enough. They were packed close together, side by side, as if room was scarce in that mighty plain. The side-walk was of boards that were more or less loose and inclined to rattle when walked upon. In the middle of the town, opposite the stores, was the "plaza" which is native to all towns beyond the Rocky Mountains— a large, unfenced, level vacancy, with a liberty pole in it, and very useful as a place for public auctions, horse trades, and mass meetings, and likewise for teamsters to camp in. Two other sides of the plaza were faced by stores, offices, and stables. The rest of Carson City was pretty scattering. This is the impression of Carson City that Mark Twain had ten years later, and it is an accurate picture. But let us look at the picture of Carson City, and the plains, and the mining country generally as he gave it shortly after his arrival. In September or October, 1861, he wrote to his mother, Mrs. Jane Clemens, in St. Louis: My Dear Mother,— I hope you will all come out here someday. But I shan’t consent to invite you, until we can receive you in style. But I guess we shall be able to do that, one of these days. I intend that Pamela shall live on Lake Bigler until she can knock a bull down with her fist— say, about three months. "Tell everything as it is— no better, and no worse." Well, "Gold Hill" sells at $5,000 per foot, cash down; "Wild Cat" isn’t worth ten cents. The country is 10 Mark Twain, Roughing It, pp. 169-170. 38 fabulously rich in gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron, quicksilver, marble, granite, chalk, plaster of Paris, (gypsum), thieves, murderers, desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, Christians, Indians, China men, Spaniards, gamblers, sharpers, coyotes (pronounced Ki-yo-ties), poets, preachers, and jackass rabbits. I overheard a gentleman say, the other day, that it was "the d dest country under the sun,"— and that compre hensive conception I fully subscribe to. It never rains here, and the dew never falls. No flowers grow here, and no green thing gladdens the eye. The birds that fly over the land carry their provisions with them. Only the crow and the raven tarry with us. Our city lies in the midst of a desert of the purest— most un adulterated, and compromising sand— in which infernal soil nothing but the fag-end of vegetable creation, "sage-brush," ventures to grow. If you will take a lilliputian cedar tree for a model, and build a dozen imitations of it with the stiffest article of telegraph wire— set them one foot apart and then try to walk through them, you’ll understand (provided the floor is covered 12 inches deep with sand), what it is to wander through a sage-brush desert. ?/hen crushed, sage brush emits an odor which isn’t exactly magnolia and equally isn’t exactly polecat— but it is a sort of compromise between the two. It looks a good deal like greasewood, and is the ugliest plant that was ever conceived of. • . • the Carson [is] a river, 20 yards wide, knee-deep, and so villainously rapid and crooked, that it looks like it had wandered into the country without intending it, and had run about in a bewildered way and got lost, in its hurry to get out again before some thirsty man came along and drank it up. I said we are situated in a flat, sandy desert— true. And surrounded on all sides by such prodigious mountains, that when you gaze at them awhile,— and begin to conceive of their grandeur— and next to feel their vastness expanding your soul--and ultimately find yourself growing and swelling and spread ing into a giant— I say when this point is reached, you look disdainfully down upon the insignificant village of Carson, and in that instant you are seized with a burning desire to stretch forth your hand, put the city in your pocket, and walk off with it. As to churches, I believe they have got a Catholic one here, but like that one the New York fireman spoke of, I believe "they don’t run her now." . . • And up "King’s Canon," (please pronounce can-yon, after the manner of the natives,) there are "ranches," or farms, where they say hay grows, and grass, and beets and 39 onions, and turnips, and other "truck" which is suit able for cows— yes, and even Irish potatoes; also cabbages, peas and beans* The houses are mostly frame, unplastered, but "papered" inside with flour-sacks sewed together,— and the handsomer the "brand" upon the sacks is, the neater the house looks. . . .H This letter is important in showing Sam Clemens* re action to the frontier West* He is enthusiastic, spirited. The newness of this land— strange, strong, manly,— fascinates him. It has its hardships, but they in themselves are fas cinating* He is thrilled with his widening horizon. In this letter there is, as Paine says, "Something of the *wild free dom of the West,’ which later would contribute to his fame."12 The letter has the western tang, the tall-story atmosphere, the masculine exuberance of the frontier. It is different from any previous Clemens letter extant. In the letter just quoted, Clemens writes of Lake Bigler and of his desire that Pamela, his sister, should bene fit by staying at the lake three months. A trip to Lake Bigler was, in fact, his first definite occupation, his first project or activity in the West. He had been "hanging around" Carson City, studying human nature, mixing with western char acters, principally just loafing around the streets of the town. He had become fascinated by the curious new country, H Paine, Mark Twain’s Letters, I, 53-55. 12 Ibid., p. 56. 40 and had concluded to put off his return to ”the States.” I had grown well accustomed, [he writes] to wearing a damaged slouch hat, blue woolen shirt, and pants crammed into boot-tops, and gloried in the absence of coat, vest, and braces. I felt rowdyish and ”bully,” (as the historian Josephus phrases it, in his fine chapter upon the destruction of the Temple.) It seemed to me that nothing could be so fine and so romantic. Brooks sees something ominous in this change of costume to conform with frontier fashions. The artist in him had lost its guiding-line; he was ”broken down” again, just as he had been after his father*s death; his spirit had become plastic once more. He was ready, in a word, to take the stamp of his new environment.14 Of course, he was ready to take the stamp of his new environment, but what connection can this have with artistic frustration? Samuel Clemens was no freak; he was a normal young man acting as any other normal young man would have acted who came from Missouri to Carson City in the days of the frontier. ”Merely, you imagine, the natural change in dress that any gold-seeker would have made?” asks Brooks.13 The answer, not according to Brooks, is decisively ”Yes.” In his position of private secretary to the Secretary there was nothing for Sam Clemens to do, and there was no provision for payment for these non-services. He marveled 13 Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 180. 14 Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain, revised edition, p. 99. ^ Lbc* *cit* 41 at and enjoyed for himself the easy-going freedom of life on the frontier. He made friends of Carson men, and he would tell stories of-the Mississippi River to interested listeners around the stove in Orion’s office during chilly fall evenings. On the streets of Carson perhaps some notiee was taken of this individual with the great mass of bushy auburn hair, the sharp eyes, and the lounging walk. He was noticed, probably, a bit more than the average newcomer, but there is no reason to believe that he became conspicuous. The feeling among some of the older residents around Carson City today is that, from what they have heard and remembered, Sam Clemens was not particularly conspicuous but, like many another of the male residents of that frontier town, was lazy and indifferent, and did not always take the long way around to avoid the saloons and the poker table. Probably, Sam Clemens was outwardly very much like any other average Carson male resident of the early days, particu larly after he had been in the town for a few weeks. He does not seem, however, to have contracted the mining fever imme diately, But he did, finally, look about him for something definite to do. The opportunity came with the possibility of locating a timber claim on Lake Bigler. With John D. Kinney, a young man:from Cincinnati, Sam went to Lake Bigler— now Lake Tahoe— in August, 1861. They had heard of the great forests around the lake and had deeided 42 to stake out a rich timber claim. Although the trip to Lake Bigler lasted only a few days, it is significant in Mark Twain’s western development. Previous to this trip he had not been particularly impressed with the desirability of "staying in the West. It was a new and fascinating country, but was it worth living in? In the letter to his mother previously quoted we find Sam re peating the language of the gentleman who had called it "the damndest country under the sun." No rain, no dew, no flov/ers — not a green thing to gladden the eye. The birds finding it necessary to carry their own provisions with them. Only the crow and the raven in the midst of a sandy desert where nothing but sage-brush, the fag-end of vegetable creation, will venture to grow. The odor of crushed sage-brush, which is a compromise between magnolia and pole cat. Not a promis ing picture. Hardly one designed to hold a young man away from home for any length of time, even though many of the crudities and hardships of the man’s life on the frontier did appeal to him. Then Clemens came to Lake Tahoe! The glory of the lake and the mountain-fastness was overpowering. The two young men had been climbing for seemingly endless miles up the mountain range from Carson City to the-lake, with packs on their backs. They had been told that the distance to the lake was eleven miles, but after tramping endlessly on the 43 level through sage brush and greasewood, and then climbing a thousand miles straight up, they looked over and found no lake yet. Being gritty and determined young men, they toiled upward a couple of thousand miles more, and then looked over. Still no lake. Not being swearing men themselves, they sat down and hired a couple of transient Chinamen to cuss for them. With this refreshment, they trudged on again, and finally the lake burst upon them: ... a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft full three thousand feet higher stillJ It was a vast oval, and one would have to use up eighty or a hundred good miles in traveling around it. As it lay there with the shadows of the moun tains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole world affords. It was a sight that Mark Twain was never to forget. In his letters, in Roughing It, in his Autobiography, in Innocents Abroad, in his newspaper correspondence, he was to mention the glories of Lake Tahoe many times during his later years. The only other lake in the world which he was to find comparable with Lake Tahoe was Como, and even then he was to prefer the former. When Sam Clemens and John Kinney came to Lake Tahoe on that August day in 1861 they came to a virtually uninhab ited wilderness. The only sign of human activity was a 1 6 Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 181. 44 small group of workmen at a sawmill three miles down the lake shore. There probably were not more than fifteen other human beings anywhere near the lake. There was inspiration in this blue-green mountain lake, twenty-one miles long and twelve miles wide, mirroring the lofty peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Its endless bays made a picturesque shoreline of about one hundred miles. One can be sure the two young men were travel-weary when they finally reached the borders of Lake Tahoe. They found a small skiff belonging to friends in Carson City, and they set out across the bend of the lake to the camp they were looking for. I got Johnny to row, [writes Mark],— not because I mind exertion myself, but because it makes me sick to ride backwards when I am at work. But I steered.^*7 After a three-mile pull they arrived at the camp, tired and hungry. They found provisions and utensils cached among the rocks. Despite his great fatigue, Sam was still man enough to sit down on a boulder and superintend the job while his companion gathered wood and cooked supper. Many a man, Mark writes later, would have wanted to rest after going through what he had gone through. The sojourn at Lake Tahoe was a glorious experience for Sam Clemens. "As the darkness closed down and the stars 17 Ibid., p. 182 45 came out and spangled the great mirror with jewels, we smoked meditatively in the solemn hush and forgot our trou bles and our pains."!8 The life in the mountain air was so invigorating, and the sleep out-of-doors so refreshing that it would have restored "an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor.” Johnny and Sam made a survey of the lake shore, and about three miles from camp they were so impressed with the attractiveness of a spot that they claimed three hundred acres of timber by putting their notices on a tree. The dense forest of yellow pine that made up their claim must be fenced in order that they might hold their pro perty. j3o some desultory tree-cutting was done. Next came the house-building, which finally narrowed down to the con struction of a flimsy brush affair. "We did not sleep in our ’house.* It never occurred to us, for one thing; and besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough. We did not wish to strain it."19 They never found any diffi culty in going to sleep at night. "At the first break of dawn we were always up and running foot-races to tone down excess of physical vigor and exuberance of spirits. That is, Johnny was— but I held his hat."20 Though Mark Twain writes in Houghing It of living on 18 Ibid., p. 182. 19 Ibid.. p. 189. 20 Ibid.. p. 187. 46 the timber ranch for two or three weeks, the two young men probably-were actually at the lake itself only four days, as is indicated by a letter by Sam to his mother shortly after the sojourn at the lake. Sam is recalling some of the promises he had made to his mother when he left home for the West: But first and foremost, for Annie*s, Mollie’s, and Pamela’s comfort, be it known that I have never been guilty of profane language since I have been in this Territory, and Kinney hardly ever swears.— But some times human nature gets the better of him. On the second day we started to go by land to the lower camp, a distance of three miles, over the mountains, each carrying an axe. I don’t think we got lost exactly, but we wandered four hours over the steepest, rocki est and most dangerous piece of country in the world. I couldn’t keep from laughing at Kinney’s distress, so I kept behind, so that he could not see me. After he would get over a dangerous place, with infinite labor and constant apprehension, he would stop, lean on his axe, and look around, then behind, then ahead, and then drop his head and ruminate awhile. Then he would draw a long sigh, and say; ’ ’ Well— could any Billygoat have scaled that place without breaking his neck?” And I would reply, "No,— I don’t think he could." "No— you don’t think he could— (mimicking me), "Why don’t you curse the infernal place? You know you want to * — I do , and will curse the------ thieving country as long as I live." Then we would toil on in silence for awhile. Pinally I told him — "Well, John, what if we don’t find our way out of this today— we’ll know all about the country when we do get out." "Oh stuff— I know enough— and too much about the d— d villainous locality already."MX In the light of a wider acquaintance with Mark Twain, the reader of this letter will be permitted to draw his own conclusions as to which of these two young men was doing most 21 Paine, Letters, I, 57-58. 47 of the swearing around the shores of lake Bigler in those pioneer days* Can it be possible that Sam Clemens was al ready telling tall stories, even in his letters back to the folks at home? He had already picked up some useful Western informa tion* He had learned how to play faro. After supper we got out our pipes— built a rousing camp fire in the open air— established a faro bank (an institution of this country) on our huge flat granite dining table, and bet white beans till one ofclock, when John went to bed.22 When provisions began to run short, Sam and Johnny went back to the old camp down the lake for a new supply. Tired and hungry, they reached home about nightfall. While Johnny was carrying provisions from the boat, Sam took some food ashore, then lit a fire for cooking supper. He left the fire to go back to the boat for a frying pan, and in those few moments the forest carpet of dry pine needles had been ignited and the sheet of flame was tearing away through the chaparral and into the forest of pine. Sam describes the fire, in a letter to his mother, and later in Roughing It. It was truly an awesome spectacle: The mighty roaring of the conflagration, together with our solitary and somewhat unsafe position (for there was no one within six miles of us) rendered the scene very impressive. Occasionally, one of us would remove his pipe from his mouth and say,**--Superb! Magnificent! Beautiful!— but— by the Lord God Almighty, if we attempt to sleep in this little patch 22 Ibid., p. 58. 48 tonight, we’ll never live till morning!— for if we don’t burn up, we’ll certainly suffocate." But he was persuaded to sit up until we felt pretty safe as far as the fire was concerned, and then we turned in, with many misgivings. When we got up in the morning, we found that the fire had burned small pieces of drift wood within six feet of our boat, and had made its way to within 4 or 5- steps of us on the South side. We looked like lava men, covered as we were with ashes, and begrimed with smoke. We were very black in the face, but we soon washed ourselves white again.2® Habitation, fence, and considerable timber on the claim were destroyed by the fire. So there was nothing to do but go back to Carson City* Thus ends the first phase of Mark Twain’s western development. The trip to Lake Tahoe has the significance of having reconciled Sam Clemens to the "damnedest country under the sun." His first impression of Nevada had, no doubt, been one of uncertainty as to the pleasure or advis ability of living in this rough western land. Gradually, there developed in him the feeling that there was a bravado in mingling with these bearded men and living in a frame shack papered inside with flour sacks. Then the desert began to exert its influence. The mountains became an acceptable substitute for the Mississippi. Soon he climbed to Lake Tahoe, which "throws Como in the shade." Thereafter one hears no more about desolation.24 The West has exerted its influence. Homesickness has 2® Ibid.. pp. 56-57. 24 De Voto, Mark Twain’s America, p. 117. 49 been overcome. Sam Clemens is imbued with the spirit of the frontier. He is no longer certain that his stay will be only temporary. CHAPTER III CAREER AS SILVER MIRER After his first impact with the frontier and a two- month period of trying to adjust himself, to determine just what course he should take in the roaring life of the new West, Samuel Clemens was on the threshold of his third pro fession, that of silver miner. He had been a printer and a river pilot; now he was about to adopt the career favored in the new environment. As a miner, he enters another stage of his western development. For about two months after coming to Carson City, Clemens was able to withstand the exposure to the mining fever. At the end of that period, after his trip to the timber lands of Lake Tahoe, he succumbed. On his arrival at Carson City he apparently had only a casual interest in the mining excitement in the town, and, during the first weeks of his sojourn there, though he was in association continuously with those who were wild with the turmoil of silver and gold, he still had not shown more than a passing curiosity, at least outwardly. Friends with mining claims urged him to take part in their enterprises. The talk of great strikes in the mining fields buzzed continually in his ears. But he had decided to try out, first, the enterprise of a timber claim. 51 When, returning from the Lake Tahoe journey, Clemens did, finally, decide to go into the mining activity, his whole enthusiasm burst with a flood, as though the very damming up of interest in mining had filled a tremendous reservoir of energy behind his repression. Stories of sudden and fabulous wealth had had their effect, but there was evidence that was more material than the wild tales told on the streets and printed in the news papers. Wagonloads of ore, sometimes even of gold and silver bricks, drove through the streets of Carson City. As Paine says: ”No wonder Samuel Clemens, with his natural tendency to speculative optimism, yielded to the epidemic and became ’as frenzied as the craziest.f The Tahoe timber claim was soon forgotten. The last mention of it, until later years, was in a letter of October 25, 1861, to his sister Pamela, in which Sam informs his sister that he has laid a timber claim for her husband, Mr. Moffett. The claim can now be considered by Mr* Moffett to be better than bank stock, he says. A saw mill is to be moved there in the spring by a Mr. Jones. The claim is two miles in length by one mile in width, and is in the names of Sam. L. Clemens, Wm. A. Moffett, Thos. Nye, and three other persons. Situated on ’ ’ Sam Clemens Bay,” which has been so named by Captain Nye, the claim is so beautiful that Sam 1 Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography. I, 182. 52 feels that he would be happy to go there and die. "I'll build a county seat there one of these days that will make the Devil’s mouth water if he ever visits the earth."2 This is the last correspondence concerning the timber claims. In a previous letter, to his mother and his sister, Sam had included a statement that showed his first awaken ing interest in mining activities. He had spoken of going back to Lake Tahoe to build another cabin and fence, "and get everything in satisfactory trim before our trip to Esmeralda about the first of November."® This reference to a trip to Esmeralda could mean only one thing— that Clemens had at last entered into the mining excitement. Esmeralda was the scene of one of the frenzied campaigns for ledges. He had visited the Esmeralda district and had been given fifty feet in the "Black Warrior," an unprospected claim. The follow-up of this incident is typical of his mining ac tivity. The young man who had given him the fifty feet in the Esmeralda claim writes that he has gone down eight feet on the ledge and has found an eight-foot ledge of pretty good rock; that he could take out rock now if there were a mill to crush it but that the four mills are all engaged, and probably it will be best to suspend work until spring. Sam answers that the claim can be left alone at present, and in 2 Paine, Mark Twain’s Letters, I, 60. 3 Ibid., I, 58. 53 the spring he will go down himself to work on it, and that there will then be twenty stamp mills running in the Esmeralda district. Sam and his brother Orion are now purchasing feet in various claims, and prospects are growing bright. Sam writes to his sister that he and Orion have confidence enough in the mining country to think that if the war will let them alone they can make themselves and their relatives rich. "This is just the country for Cousin Jim to live in," he writes to Pamela. "I don’t believe it would take him six months to make $100,000 here, if he had 3,000 dollars to commence with."^ The folks at home heard no more from Sam for three months after this letter was written. In the meantime, in stead of going to the Esmeralda district immediately, he made a midwinter prospecting trip to the Humboldt country, a newly opened mining region two hundred miles from Carson City. Though there were many trying experiences during the expedition across the alkali desert to Unionville in the I Humboldt country, and the search for a promising claim was unavailing, this expedition seems to have served only to make the young miner even more anxious to succeed in his new 4 Ibid., I, 62. The "Cousin Jim" referred to here is Cousin.Jim Lampton, who is later to become the Colonel Sellers of The Gilded Age. 54 vocation. Sam’s companions on the Humboldt excursion were two young lawyers, A. W. Oliver and W. H. Glagget, and an older man, a blacksmith named Tillou. Sam had known Clagget as a law student in Keokuk. Tillou had had considerable ex perience in mining, and appears to have contributed a level head and good judgment to the venture. The other members of the party were the two rather dilapidated old horses which drew the wagon filled with supplies, and two nondescript dogs. Sam wrote, in a letter to his mother, that the wagon contained, besides the provisions and mining tools, certain luxuries, including ten pounds of killikinick, Watt’s Hymns, fourteen decks of cards, Dombey and Son, a cribbage board, one small keg of lager-beer, and the "Carmina Sacra.”5 The story of the venture is told in Houghing It. About the only pleasant phase of the expedition to Unionville was the unstudied picturesqueness of the vocabulary of good old Mr. Ballou [Tillou], the-blacksmith, according to the account in Roughing It. Mr* Ballou observed, while the prospecting party was dragging its way over the barren Great American Desert, that the coffee made with alkali water was "too technical”6 for him, and that the two ancient horses trying their level best to drag along the overloaded 5 Paine, Biography, p. 183. 6 Mark Twain, Houghing It, I, 221. 55 wagon were "bituminous from long deprivation."^ After the difficult experiences of several weeks in the Humboldt country, Sam returned to Carson City, still looking for mining prospects. The winter hardships of desert snowstorms and extreme cold had not unnerved him. He was not a quitter. Where there was still some prospect of success in mining enterprise, he had the fortitude to stand the hardships as well as other men of the frontier. Perhaps if there had been less of this tenacity and fortitude in the face of disappointments, he would have been consider ably better off in the long run. for certainly many enter prises of his in later life would not have been such tragic failures if he had given them up sooner than he did. This tendency to face difficulties and to work hard to overcome them, even when better judgment would call for abandonment, very probably can be traced back reasonably to the training and experience of Sam Clemens in his ventures in the frontier West. Next follows a comparatively long period of prospecting and mining in the Esmeralda district.8 Sam had acquired feet 7 Ibid., p. 218. ® That Aurora, In the Esmeralda country, was a lively mining camp in its boom days is indicated by the letter of a correspondent, a few years later, in the Sacramento Union. In the letter, published on May 22, 1866, the writer notes that three years previously Aurora had had a population of five thousand, a city government, two daily papers, two fire 56 in this territory and was determined to make something of prospects there. The return to Carson City was at the end of January, 1868. With his own funds almost exhausted after the Humboldt trip, Sam turned to his brother for financial help. Paine tells us: The brothers owned the Esmeralda claims in partnership, and it was agreed that Orion, out of his modest de pleted pay, should furnish the means, while the other would go actively into the field and develop their riches.9 Orion may not have been, as Miss Brashear suggests, T , the greatest single influence in Mark Twain’s life,"^ but he certainly was an important influence in Mark Twain’s career during the days in the frontier West. In February Sam was in camp in the Esmeralda district, feverish with enthusiasm in the spirited search for mineral wealth. Now for seven months his delirium of mining pros pects was to run its course. Mining in the Esmeralda dis trict, Sam odmped at various times with four different companions: Horatio Phillips, whom he writes about as Raish and Ratio; Bob Howland, whb became known as the most fearless 8 (Continued) companies, of sixty men each, with their machines, two mili tary companies, f t uniformed and equipped in every particular with their commodious and comfortable armories; also a brass band of nine pieces.” 9 Paine, Biography, I, 193. 10 Brashear, Mark Twain. Son of Missouri, p. 106. 57 man in Nevada Territory while he was city marshal of Aurora; Calvin H. Higbie, to whom Roughing It was later to be dedi cated; and Dan Twing. Bob Howland, nephew of Governor Nye, had been a friend of Sam*s in Carson. Paine writes: It was the same Bob Howland who would be known by and by as the most fearless man in the Territory; who, as city marshal of Aurora, kept that lawless camp in subjection, and, when the friends of a lot of con demned outlaws were threatening an attack with general massacre, sent the famous message to Governor Nye: "All quiet in Aurora. Five men will be hung in an hour."11 The association with Higbie, especially, was to be pleasantly remembered by Mark Twain in later years. A happy inspiration led him to change his first plans for the dedi cation of Roughing It. In a letter to Elisha Bliss of Hartford, which Mark Twain was to write from Elmira, New York, May 15, 1871, the following suggested dedication for Roughing It appears: To the late Cain This Book is Dedicated Not on account of respect for his memory, for it merits little respect; not on account of sympathy with him, for his bloody deed placed him without the pale of sympathy, strictly speaking: but' out of a mere human commiseration for him that it was his mis fortune to live in a dark age that knew not the beneficent Insanity Plea.1^ Paine, Biography. I, 176-177. 12 Paine, Letters, I, 188. 58 Can the reader of Roughing It doubt the greater ap propriateness of the dedication that was ‘ finally chosen? To Calvin H. Higbie of California, an honest man, a genial comrade, and a steadfast friend, this book is inscribed by the author in memory of the curious time when we two were millionaires for ten days. The Esmeralda days represent, it is true, a wild seek ing for wealth, Samuel Clemens wanted to be rich. Brooks sees something ominous again in this. The artist has lost his guiding-line; he is beset with fears that he cannot ful fill great family obligations; he must recover the prestige that was his as a Mississippi River pilot and regain his position as an important personage; if he had any awareness of the demands of his creative instinct he certainly could not fulfill them now, as he must fulfill his craving for wealth and prestige; he must acquiesce in the repression of his individuality; he must become rich. "Mark Twain was not merely obliged to check his creative instinct; he was ob liged to do his level best to become a millionaire.”13 Was the desire to find silver and gold, to become rich, something freakish, abnormal, in those frontier days? Has it not occurred to Mr. Brooks that thousands of other perfectly normal American young men were equally as excited as twenty- seven-year-old Samuel Clemens? The mining fever certainly did affect thousands of young men as violently as it did Clemens 13 Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain, p. 105. 59 in the days of silver and gold. Yet, Brooks finds this re action in the case of Clemens fraught with an awful signifi cance. Extravagant letters from Esmeralda to his mother and sister tell the story of the wild hopes of the young miner. Sam and Orion had acquired some feet in claims in the dis trict, but when Sam arrived to look over the claims he found them worthless, and threw the feet away. He writes of the Horatio and Derby ledge and of the value of water at the mines. Letters to Orion at Carson City go into excited de tail. The work, Sam writes, is hampered by snow. He wants the "Live Yankee” deed, but not by the "damned Express.” He expects that Gebhart will die; he was shot defending a claim. He wants forty or fifty dollars by mail immediately. The "Pugh” has been thrown away, will not be re-located. Snow prevents work on the Red Bird tunnel. The "Farnum” is doubtful. The "Governor” is under snow. The "Douglas” and the "Red Bird” have both been recorded. Orion is enjoined, by letter, to stir himself as much as possible and to lay up one hundred or one hundred fifty dollars subject to Sam’s call. Orion is not to send any money home as Sam will have Orion’s next quarter’s salary spent before he can get it. Sam owns one-eighth of the new "Monitor Ledge, Clemens Company,” and he will not sell a foot of it because he knows it to contain a fortune. He owns 60 interests in the "Flyaway” discovery and its extensions; workmen bring in some fine specimens. He is becoming dubious about glittering prospects, he writes, and has decided to be in only on the sure thing. "Feet" were being acquired now and then by Orion on his own responsibility while Sam was in Esmeralda. Sam did not trust his brother’s judgment, and was usually impatient and irritable at any miscellaneous buying that Orion indulged in: "Eighteen hundred feet in the C. T. Rice’s Company!” Well, I am glad you did not accept of the 200 feet. Tell Rice to give it to some poor man. But hereafter, when anybody holds up a glittering prospect before you, just argue in this wise, viz: That, if all spare change be devoted to working the "Monitor" and "Flyaway," 12 months, or 24 at furthest, will find all our earthly wishes satisfied, so far as money is concerned— and the more "feet" we have, the more anxiety we must bear— therefore, why not say "No— d n your ’prospects,* I wait on a sure thing— and a man is less than a man, if he can’t wait 2 years for a fortune?”14 In another letter he is even more irritated at Orion’s activities in buying more mining feet: You have promised me that you would leave all mining matters, and everything involving an outlay of money, in my hands. Sending a man fooling around the country after ledges, for God’s sake! when there are hundreds of feet of them under my nose here, begging for owners, free of charge. I don’t want any more feet, and I won’t touch another foot— so you see, Orion, as far 14 Paine, Letters. X, 73-74. 61 as any ledges of Perry’s are concerned, (or any other except what I examine first with my own eyes), I freely yield my right to share ownership with you.15 In one instance, Orion did, however, convince his brother that he had bought into something worth while. Sam and Raish examined a specimen which Orion sent, found fine gold inside, tested the specimen thoroughly. "If you have actually made something by helping to pay somebody’s pros pecting expenses it is a wonder of the first magnitude, and deserves to rank as such,” Sam writes to Orion. He says that he is well satisfied and commends his brother on the fortunate venture: Therefore, hold on to the "Mountain House," for it is a "big thing." Touch it lightly, as far as money is concerned, though, for it is well to reserve the code of justice in the matter of quartz ledges— that is, consider them all (and their owners) guilty (of "shenanigan") until they are proved innocent.16 Mining details fill the pages of the letters to Orion. In his letters to his mother and to his sister, Sam Clemens is more reserved, though he occasionally breaks out into extravagant statement. There is now a gradual infusion, too, of the western tall story spirit that was to contribute much to Mark Twain’s writing during his years in the frontier West: And Ma says "it looks like a man can’t hold public office and be honest." Why, certainly not, Madam. A man can’t hold public office and be honest. Lord bless you, it is a common practice with Orion to go 15 Ibid., p. 80. ibid.. p. 77. 62 about town stealing little things that happen to be lying around loose. And I don’t remember having heard him speak the truth since.we have been in Nevada. He even trys to prevail upon me to do these things, Ma, but I wasn’t brought up in that way, you know. You showed the public what you could do in that line when you raised me, Madam. But then you ought to have raised me first, so that Orion could have had the benefit of my example. Do you know that he stole all the stamps out of an 8-stamp quartz mill one night, and brought them home under his over-coat and hid them in the back room?17 Eight stamps would have weighed about 4,800 pounds. The pre delict ion for the western style of humor was showing itself. Brooks has made much of a supposed mother-complex which exerted a powerful influence oh Sam Clemens and his literary career. Certainly there is no evidence of this psychological factor during Clemens’ western years. On the other hand, there is powerful evidence against any such vital influence; particularly do his letters from the West to his mother show the lack of any abnormally strong filial tie. There is no evidence of the mother’s leading-strings which Brooks assumes, except as any young man would consider now and then the wishes of a mother he has left behind. That the mother’s excessive attachment had anything to do with throw ing Sam off balance in the feverish days in the West is ques tionable. Had there not been this excessive attachment, says Brooks, Sam Clemens could eventually have recovered his balance, reduced 17 Ibid., p. 68. 63 the filial bond to its normal measure and stood on his own feet* But that is to wish for a type of woman our old pioneer society could scarcely have produced*18 Yfhat could be better evidence of the type of attach ment Samuel Clemens had for his mother than the letters he wrote to her from the West during his first year away from home? Would not a supersensitive boy with a mother-complex have written intimate, revealing love letters, overflowing with sentiment? Samuel Clemens* letters during the first year in the West, and, in fact, during the whole five and one-half years of his western period, are anything but this type* They are rough, businesslike, only moderately informal letters addressed rather generally to the folks, or to his mother and sister— occasionally to ”My Dear Mother”— full of boisterousness, slap-stick, good and bad humor, with the ordinary amount of information a normal boy would write, as Sam does, to ”Ma.M The letters for the whole western period — if Paine’s collection is anywhere near completeness, or at all representative,— are hardly more personal or intimate than Mark Twain’s western newspaper writing. It would require a lively imagination to find any mother-complex in the west ern Mark Twain. The Esmeralda letters to his mother and sister reveal golden promises, naturally, and Sam hopes that he may some ip Brooks, 0£. cit*» p. 52. 64 day be able to help them out in a material way. He is un selfish enough to want all his relatives to share in his good fortune, and he does not confine himself to thinking only of the welfare of his mother and his sister. Trying experiences and hard manual labor were the main ingredients of the Esmeralda days. Young Sam Clemens was learning the fine points of mining by association with ex perienced men and by working the ground to the point of physical exhaustion. Money was always scarce, that which was supplied by Orion being spent as fast as it arrived, for supplies or for more "feet." For a long period the snow and the ice and the extreme cold made it difficult or impossible to work the claims. But there was always some bright pros pect just about ready to pay, and for the young miner "the mountains were banked with nuggets and all the rivers ran gold."19 The excitement of the mining camp was so intense that Sam Clemens hardly noticed a desperate border warfare that was waging, in his ora district, between the Territory of Nevada and the State of California. The warfare concerned a boundary dispute; several lives were lost in the battles; but the only mention Sam makes of this warfare is in an Esmeralda letter of April 13, 1862, to Orion: 1 Q Paine, A Short Life of Mark Twain, p. 78. 65 Wasson got here night before last "from the wars." Tell Lockhart he is not wounded and not killed— is altogether unhurt. He says the whites left their stone fort before he and Lieut. Noble got there. A large amount of provisions and ammunition, which they left behind them, fell into the hands of the Indians. They had a pitched battle with the savages come fifty miles from the fort, in which Scott (sheriff) and another man was killed. This was the day before the soldiers came up with them. . . • Col. Mayfield was killed, and Sergeant Gillespie, also Noble’s colonel was wounded. The California troops went back home, and Noble remained, to help drive the stock over here. And, as Cousin Sally Dillard says, this is all I know about the fight.20 That Sam was favorable to the Nevada side of the con troversy is indicated in a letter to Orion demanding an ex planation for the failure of a deputy sheriff’s commission to arrive for the benefit of Samuel Clemens, silver miner: And ask Gaslerie why the devil he don’t send along my commission as Deputy Sheriff. The fact of my being in California, and out of his country, wouldn’t amount to a d— n with me, in the performance of my official duties.21 Just how much of Clemens* mining operations were in Nevada Territory and how much in California it is difficult to deter mine. At the time he was in the Esmeralda district the bound ary was not satisfactorily defined; the border disputes were not settled until later.22 20 Paine, Letters, I, 70-71. 21 Ibid., p. 81. 22 A two-story brick building now standing in Aurora has an interesting history. The structure was built origin ally as the county courthouse of Mono County, California. When the California-Nevada boundary disputes were finally 66 Food was scarce, and hard to get— at any price. Flour went up to one hundred dollars a barrel, and finally could not be obtained. For a month the Esmeralda miners lived on barley, beans, and beef, Sam went to work in a quartz mill but the chemicals nearly poisoned him, and he contracted a severe cold; he remained on this job as a common laborer a week and then went back to prospecting. Incidents at Esmeralda furnished the material for the "blind lead" story of Roughing It, when Clemens and Higbie were "millionaires for ten days," The story, though partly fiction, is somewhat of a composite picture of incidents in which the setting, the local color, and the glittering pros pects that the miners always had before them are realistic enough. One incident that contributed to the "blind lead" story concerned rival miners who, armed with revolvers, took posses sion of Sam's Monitor claim and refused to give up possession. The law demanded that claim jumpers offer force, or they could not be legally ejected. Embroiled in the Monitor controversy Sam understood now the reason for the shooting affray in which Gebhart was killed. The Clemens Company was determined to resort to arms, if necessary. 22 (Continued! settled, it was discovered that the California county court house was actually in Nevada. The building was, therefore, turned into a hotel called The Esmeralda. 67 Another of the "blind lead" incidents concerned a spur of the Wide West claim. Two hundred of the four hundred feet of the spur were owned by Sam and Raish. The shaft of the spur was about one hundred feet from the Wide West shaft. Sam and his partner sublet to a workman for fifty feet and furnished powder and sharpening tools. Hopes went sky rocketing for a time, but finally the Wide West claim was forfeited. The Monitor and Wide West claims thus furnished the material for the "millionaires for ten days" story of Rough ing It. According to this account, Sam and his companion, after some prospecting around in the hills near the town of Aurora, struck a "blind lead," a lead or ledge of ore that does not crop out above the surface of the ground. In this case it was a subsidiary lead branching out unnoticed from an already established claim. Sam and his companion were about to become wealthy. But from the heights of potential good fortune the two young miners were soon fallen to despair. Through a misunder standing, they failed to do the required work of improvement on their claim, and at the end of the ten-day period allowed by law for holding a claim without improvement, they found that their potential wealth was lost to them forever. The blind lead had been relocated at the end of the ten days by someone else. New owners were in command. 68 It was enough. I sat down sick, grieved— broken hearted, indeed. A minute before, I was rich and brimful of vanity; I was a pauper now, and very meek. We sat still an hour, busy with thought, busy with vain and useless self-upbraidings, bush with "Why didn’t I do this, and why didn’t I do that," but neither spoke a word. Then we dropped into mutual explanations, and the mystery was cleared away. It came out . ‘ that Higbie had depended on me, as I had on him, and as both of us had on the foreman. The folly of itI It was the first time that ever staid and steadfast Higbie had left an important matter to chance or failed to be true to his full share of a responsibility.23 Thus the blind lead had been relocated by rival miners, be cause Sam had gone out of town to nurse his friend, Captain Nye, who was dangerously ill, and Higbie had gone to Mono Lake in answer to an urgent call to investigate a cement prospect. Inaccuracy in the Roughing It account, in addition to the fact of its being a composite rather than a precise single incident, is shown in the fact that the letters about the two claims referred to above point to Horatio Phillips as being Sam’s partner at that time, rather than Higbie. As it turned out, the claims did not pay as well as had been expected, but since the value of a prospect in those feverish days was not necessarily based upon the intrinsic worth of the silver or gold ore in the location, the two young miners might very well have made considerable money by selling their claims for the "paper” value. At any rate, the-incidents are typical of 23 Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 322. 69 the wild mining life that Clemens was leading in the Esmeralda country. The pace was so fast that the most authentic accounts would seem exaggerated to those not familiar with life in the diggings. De Voto writes: The yarn is true to the mining career of Sam Clemens in that febrile spring and summer of 1862. "Million aires!” The image flickers along the mind's horizon as ceaselessly as the undulations of the heat mirage above Washoe.24 The disappointments of the Monitor and the Wide West claims pointed toward the end of Sam's confidence in the Esmeralda prospects, or in any other mining-ventures. Even the Horatio and Derby was going stale. Sam was pleased to learn from Orion that feet in this ledge were worth from thirty to fifty dollars in California, because if the ledge proved to be worthless it would be pleasant for him to re flect that others were beaten worse than themselves. He writes: Raish sold a man 30 feet, yesterday, at $20 a foot, although I was present at the sale, and told the man the ground wasn't worth a d— n. He said he had been hankering after a few feet in the H. and D. for a long time, and he had got them at last, and he couldn't help thinking he had secured a good thing. He went and looked at the ledges, and both of them acknowledged that there was nothing in them but good "indications." Yet the owners in the H. and D. will part with anything else sooner than with feet in these ledges. Well, the work goes slowly--very slowly on in the tunnel, and we'll strike it some" day. But— if we "strike it rich," — I've lost my guess, that's all.25 24 De Voto, Mark Twain's America, p. 119. 25 Paine, letters, I, 80. 70 This is, indeed, a tone entirely different from any thing that had appeared in letters to Orion or to the folks back in Missouri. But even more decisive is a later para graph in the same letter to Orion: When you receive your next 1/4 yr*s salary, don’t send any of it here until after you have told me you have got it. Remember this. I am afraid of that H. and D. Sam is finally losing faith in the Esmeralda claims. And for the first time he is not calling for every cent that Orion can spare. The summer of 1862 thus sees the waning confidence in the mining prospects. Except for a cement pros pecting trip to Mono Lake with Calvin Higbie, the career of the young miner, Sam Clemens, is over. Significant incidents occurred, however, during the later months of Clemens* sojourn at Esmeralda that have to do with his development as a writer. In a letter to Orion, dated at Esmeralda May 11, 1862, Sam asks his brother if he has seen his letters in the Enterprise. It appears that on days spent in camp, probably when bad weather made it impossible to work the claims, Sam had written burlesque sketches and had sent them to the Territorial Enterprise of Virginia City, Nevada Territory. He had signed the sketches *Josh.M Evidently a strong impulse to write was stirring in him, since he was at the time still filled with the mining excitement and had probably no idea of deserting mining as a career, at least for 71 a year or two. But he had written some things for his brother*s paper back in Missouri and in Iowa, and the urge to write had not left him# The "Josh” letters to the Enterprise are not extant, but it is understood that they were crude burlesques written in a manner designed to meet the requirements of frontier humor# One was a take-off on a speech delivered by an ego tistical lecturer who was given the name "Professor Personal Pronoun.” The report ended with the statement that the lec ture could not be printed in full as the printer had run our of capital I’s. Another was a burlesque Pourth of July ora tion which began with this sentence: ”1 was sired by the great American Eagle and foaled by a continental dam." Stock patriotic phrases were employed throughout the sketch. It was rough humor, but it struck the fancy of Joseph T. Goodman, owner and editor of the Enterprise, and Samuel Clemens’ mining days were about to come to an end. Orion had taken some pride in the fact that the "Josh" letters of his brother were being printed in the Enterprise» and he did not hesitate to make the identity of the writer known to the newspaper’s staff members. We have no way of knowing what were Clemens* motives when he first began writing the "Josh" letters, but his personal correspondence reveals that later he was thinking of newspaper work in terms of its ( economic advantages. The financial situation in the diggings 72 was a serious one, and Sam had about reached the end of his patience in trying to cope with it. He writes to Orion that his debts are greater than he had thought, and he does not see "how in the h— 1” he is going to live on a little over one hundred dollars until October or November. He feels that he must have lucrative work of some kind very soon. Now write to the Sacramento Union folks, or to Marsh, and tell them I* 11 write as many letters a week as they want, for $10 a week— my board must be paid. Tell them I have corresponded with the N. Orleans Orescent, and other papers— and the Enter prise. California is full of people who have inter ests here, and it’s d— d seldom they hear from this country. I can’t write a speciman letter— now, at any rate— I’d rather undertake to write a Greek poem. Tell ’em the mail and express leave three times a week, and it costs from 25 to 50 cents to send let ters by the blasted express. If they want letters from here, who’ll run from morning till night collecting materials cheaper. I’ll write a short letter twice a week, for the present, for the "Age," for $5 a week. Now it has been a long time since I couldn’t make my own living, and it shall be a long time before I loaf another year.26 True to newspaper tradition (still in vogue), Clemens did not hesitate to use his imagination a bit in stating his qualifications as a newspaper correspondent. Actually, his previous experience was meager, his few newspaper contribu tions in the Middle West having been scarcely more than the most amateurish juvenilia, and the "other papers" being ex tremely limited in number, except as he had worked on them as a printer, not as a writer. But he was more than willing to 26 Paine, Letters, I, 82. 73 stretch a point now with respect to qualifications, for he was desperately in need of employment, and he felt that news paper work was what he would like, and offered the best oppor tunity for him. The "Josh" sketches fitted nicely into the Enterprise picture. They had the tone of humor that was popular in the silver boom town of Virginia Oity. The business manager of tiie Enterprise, Barstow, persuaded Goodman to urge "Josh" to join the staff. In a letter to Orion, dated July 30, Sam informs his brother that Barstow has offered him the post of local reporter on the Enterprise at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week. Sam had informed Barstow that he would let him know his decision by the next mail, if possible. Samuel Clemens* hesitancy to abandon his mining ven tures and become a frontier newspaper reporter has been the subject matter of considerable psychological theorizing. Paine sensed a reluctance on the young man* s part to become a low-down "camp scribbler." "He did not care to sign his own name. He was a miner who was soon to be a magnate; he had no desire to be kno?/n as a camp scribbler."2^ Brooks sees the artist, in Clemens making a final futile struggle against the degradation of becoming a newspaper reporter and writing humor; 27 Paine, Biography, p. 194. 74 Somehow, in this new call, the creative instinct in Mark Twain failed to recognize its own but actually foresaw some element of danger. What, indeed, did The Enterprise mean for him? He had been sending in Sis compositions; he had been trying his hand, experi menting, we know, in different styles, and only his humor "took.n28 There is no evidence whatever to show that Clemens had any reluctance, on artistic grounds, to becoming a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise. Like any other young man in the boom days of El Dorado, he naturally felt that right at the moment silver and gold constituted the main chance. Why should he not be hesitant to abandon the bright prospects of fabulous wealth, possibly in the next ledge, the suddenly discovered outcropping, the rich blind lead? This is no reason for suspecting a young man of having abnormal mental reservations, soul conflicts, or tremendous reactions of artistic sensitiveness. At any rate, Samuel Clemens did, in August, 1862, lose his soul. He became a reporter on a fron tier newspaper. That a man could stoop so low is virtually beyond the comprehension of Mr. Brooks and Mr. Paine. Before he left Esmeralda, Sam did spend some time in trying to decide just what to do. His hopes in the mining ventures had been destroyed. Naturally his disappointment was great, but his energies and his ambitions had been higher than those of the average miner. He hesitated to give up 28 Brooks, 0£. cit•, p. 110. 75 mining as a lost cause, particularly since he had spent such a comparatively long time and so much (of his brother’s) money chasing the will-o’-the-wisp of silver and gold. His letter of August 7, to Orion, virtually announces the end of the young miner’s faith in his hectic silver career: Now, I shall leave at mid-night tonight, alone and on foot for a walk of 60 or 70 miles through a totally uninhabited country, and it is barely possible that mail facilities may prove infernally ’ ’slow” during the few weeks I expect to spend out there. But do you write Barstow that I have left here for a week or so, and in case he should want me he must write me here, or let me know through you. For a week, it appears, Sam Clemens went somewhere away from the Esmeralda mining claims, to reflect, to con template his destiny. Paine says that he ”had gone into the wilderness to fight out his battle alone.”29 Here again is the suggestion of reluctance on Sam’s part to go into that low profession of frontier newspaper reporting. Actually, there is nothing to show just what Clemens did during the week— where he went, or what was his motive in going. Be Voto misinterpreting the letter to Orion, assumes that the walk of sixty or seventy miles is a part of the trip to the Enterprise offices: Sam walked sixty miles of the way from Esmeralda to Virginia City. No reason for the hike is mentioned in his letters, which merely announce it and direct Orion pq Paine, Biography. p. 204. 76 to tell the Enterprise that he is coming, and it may be that Sam was only saving stage fare.30 The letter to Orion does not direct the brother to tell the Enterprise that Sam is coming. In fact, after the mysterious week of contemplation, wherever and however it was spent, we find Sam back in Esmeralda, writing a letter to his sister, dated August 15. In the last Esmeralda letter to Orion, before the "Week," Sam writes a final paragraph of disillusionment dedi cated to the barren Esmeralda hills, where sweating miners, bearded and determined, wielded their picks and shovels in the hectic search for mineral fortune: Bully for B.l Write him that I would write him myself, but I am to take a walk tonight and haven’t time. Tell him to bring his family out with him. He can rely upon what I say— and I say the land has lost its ancient desolate appearance; the rose and the oleander have taken the place of the departed sage-brush; a rich black loam, garnished with moss, and flowers, and the greenest of grass, smiles to Heaven from the vanished sand-plains; the "endless snows" have all disappeared, and in their stead, or to repay us for their loss, the mountains rear their billowy heads aloft, crowned with a fadeless and eternal verdure; birds, and fountains, and trees— tropi cal trees— everywhere!— and the poet dreamt of Nevada when he wrote: And Sharon waves, in solemn praise, Her silent groves of palm. and today the royal Raven listens in a dreamy stupor to the songs of the thrush and the nightingale and the , canary— and shudders when the gaudy-plumaged birds of the distant South sweep by him to the orange groves of Carson. Tell him he wouldn’t recognize the d— d De Voto, op. cit., p. ISO. 77 country. He should bring his family by all means.^ Only those who have seen the desolate and barren hills of Esmeralda can appreciate the irony of that passage. The final letter from Esmeralda is dated August 15, and is to his sister Pamela— Mrs.- Moffett of St. Louis. The young disillusioned miner has returned to the diggings. He wants it understood that no matter how things stand in Nevada certainly he is not interested in returning to a pilot’s job on the Mississippi. He writes: What in thunder are pilot’s wages to me? ... I never have once thought of returning home to go on the river again, and I never expect to do any more piloting at any price. My livelihood must be made in this country. • • .Do not tell any one that I had any idea of pilot ing again at present— for it is all a m i s t a k e . The many elaborate passages of theorizing about Mississippi River piloting being Sam Clemens’ first, great, and only love, and of his reluctance and pain at having to abandon it, are not justified by the sentiments expressed during his Esmeralda days. In Esmeralda he is not longing for the Mississippi. There are too many new excitements on the frontier, even if so many lead to disappointment and dis illusionment. He writes to his sister that he has been think ing of going home, but he has given up that notion and is planning to spend the winter in San Francisco. He is cabining Paine, Letters, I, 84. 32 Ibid., p. 85. 78 with Dan Twing and Dan’s dog before leaving for an uncertain destination. He still has the fortitude, however, to joke about the "domestic” roof of their ten by twelve mansion, the dog’s catching flies, the taking turns at cooking, Dan's attendance at a funeral in an amazing costume, and about the wise and severe things that the two miners had said about «ZC2 the vanity and wickedness of high living. It is the last letter from Esmeralda. It is the end of Samuel Clemens’ mining career, and another phase of Mark Twain's western development is completed. Next he will be seen on the Comstock Lode, come to take his place in the ranks of those lusty and vigorous newspaper writers who gave life and sparkle to what might have been a drab frontier canvas. He will appear then as a candidate for the job of reporter-at-large for the Territorial Enterprise of Virginia City, Nevada Territory. 33 Paine, Letters, I, 86. CHAPTER IV THE COMSTOCK LODE On a hot, dusty August afternoon in 1862, a weather worn stranger appeared at the office of the Territorial Enter prise on C Street in Virginia City, Nevada Territory.' His slouch hat, blue woolen shirt, pantaloons stuffed into his boot tops, and his long beard, were covered with alkali dust. Slung to his belt was a universal navy revolver. On his back he carried a heavy roll of blankets. One of the proprietors of the Enterprise, Denis E. McCarthy, was in the office. He inquired of the visitor what his mission might be. Having thrown the pack from his shoul ders and dropped wearily into a chair, the wanderer replied: nMy starboard leg seems to be unshipped. I'd like about one hundred yards of line; I think I am falling to pieces." Then he added: "I want to see Mr. Barstow, or Mr. Goodman. My name is Clemens, and I've come to write for the paper." It was the master of the world's widest estate come to claim his kingdom. 1 Tradition says that Samuel Clemens walked the one hun dred and thirty miles from Aurora, in the Esmeralda country, to Virginia City. It is improbable that he did. There was plenty of transportation between the two mining towns in those days— more than there is now. And the route from Aurora 1 Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, I, 205. 80 to Virginia City lay through Carson City. It is not reason able to suppose that Sam Clemens , with a brother and many friends and acquaintances in the capital city, should have found it necessary to make the wearisome climb to Virginia afoot and with a heavy pack on his back. However, on that dusty August afternoon Clemens did arrive in Virginia City, high up on the slopes of Sun Moun tain. Standing at the threshold of the great Comstock Lode, through with the career of miner himself but ready to write the saga of silver land for the amusement and information of others, what could his vision be for the future in this roar ing boom town where he was to be a newspaper reporter for two adventureful years? Could he foresee that here was to be one of the most important periods in his life, one of the most significant in his literary development, and that in this wild town where bearded miners were setting the stage for the big bonanza, he would be choosing a definite life career and building its crude but substantial foundation? So significant in Mark Twain’s western development is the Comstock Lode that some knowledge of the history of the Lode is necessary to an appreciation of the influence it could exert on one who took part in its colorful life. Al though the California Gold Rush of 1849 in some ways eclipses it in dramatic interest, the Comstock Lode and its story of adventure and enterprise is one of the most sensational 81 highlights of the frontier West. And certainly in its eco nomic aspects it was of tremendous significance.2 When Clemens came to the Comstock Lode his first im pression must have been one of amazement at the unconventional and reckless frontier life. There was the miner, the gambler, and the Virginia City rough. There was the wild boisterousness of a community where the two leading enterprises were hard-rock mining and saloon-keeping. It was a life new and fascinating, a loud and convivial bachelor mining camp with a predilection for "rough stuff” and coarse humor. There was a strange com mingling of races, some living in indolence, some striving 2 There are several accounts of the history of the famous Nevada silver lode, but authorities worth studying narrow down to a very few. Probably the best account of the early days on the Comstock Lode is by ?filliam Wright, the f , Dan De Quille” of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. Be Quille, despite the fact that he wrote many tali stories as jokes in the Enterprise, for the edification of the rough population of Virginia City, nevertheless was unusually accurate in his stories about the mines. He was considered by H. H. Bancroft to be the real authority in this field. Bancroft felt that Be Q,uille*s book, The Big Bonanza, was the authoritative book on the history of the Comstock Lode. He says (History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, page 95) of Wright and. his book: "William Wright, whose nom de plume as a popular writer on Nevada journals was Ban Be QuITle, was reporter on the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise for sixteen years, and had the best facilities for acquiring his torical facts. His book is made popular by the introduction of facetious anecdotes, and a style of raillery much in vogue in writing of mining affairs, with no better reason than that in early times one or two humorous journalists set the fash ion, which few have been able to follow with similar success. Wright*s book is, however, a storehouse of information, gen erally correct, on current events connected with the mining history of Nevada, which gives it a permanent value among my authorities.w 82 recklessly for acquisition, others preferring the prodigal life. There were Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, Germans, Englishmen from Cornwall, Irishmen from Cork, and miscel laneous Americans, The ”honest miner,” the leading character in the life on the Comstock Lode, was boisterously active for work and for play. He moved in a setting of strange contrasts, one replete with grotesque exaggerations. Great expectations were frequently followed by equally great disappointments. Small wonder that the careers of all of the original devel opers of the Comstock Lode ended quickly and violently. The average intelligence and education of those who emigrated to the mining camps from the east was surprisingly high, one remarks on first thought. But the element of sur prise disappears when one considers the great hardships and the cost involved in the migration to the remote western land of El Dorado. When Clemens came to Virginia City, the Comstock Lode was only in its early years of operation. The first news paper notice of the discovery of silver ore on the Comstock was given in the columns of the Nevada Journal of Nevada City on July 1, 1859.3 Back of this is the story of the discovery of the Lode by the Grosch brothers— E. Allen and Hosea B., ® Theodore Hittell, History of California, III, 158. 83 from Heading, Pennsylvania. The brothers, having previously prospected in the Gold Canyon placers below what was later to be Virginia City, returned to the diggings from California in 1853. "In Gold canyon," says Bancroft, "they found what they called ’carbonate of silver,’ which they described as a ’dark gray mass, tarnished probably by sulphuric acid in the water . . . Other ore of silver we have found in the canyon.’"^ The Grosch brothers were back in the Washoe country in 1857, and were living in a stone cabin in American Flat ravine. They had been prospecting in various districts of the Nevada valleys and mountains, but had come back to renew their investigation of the Washoe diggings. They had identified the first silver in the region but their disclosures had not caused any excitement. Silver was a new idea to the miners of the time and place, but one which the GroshS brothers were capable of entertaining, [says C. B. Glasscock in writing of the discovery]. The gold-miners had made the same discovery but believed the metal to be lead, and threw it away with curses and contempt. Not so the Groshes. They continued to prospect for silver ore, and traced veins which their diagrams,' drawn at the time, indi cate were the south end of the great Comstock deposits.6 While the Grosch brothers were laboring away with their ^ H. H. Bancroft, History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, p. 96. 5 Glasscock and Hittell spell it Grosh; Wright and Bancroft, Grosch. 6 C. B. Glasscock, The Big Bonanza, pp. 33-34. 84 gold rockers trying to earn enough money to develop their silver claims, Hosea injured his foot with a pick. Blood poisoning set in and within a month he was dead. Allen decided to go to California to raise capital. He and a companion were caught in a snowstorm in the Sierra, and they wandered about in the mountains, suffering terrible hardships. They were compelled to kill and eat their pack mule. Finally, with their feet frozen, they stumbled upon the snow-bound cabin of a Mexican miner on the west slopes of the Sierra. Refusing to submit to amputation, Grosch died in delirium twelve days after reaching the cabin. His companion, broken in health, returned to Canada, whence he had come to the mining country. When Allen Grosch left for California on his fatal journey into the snows of the Sierra, he left his cabin in charge of Henry T. P. Comstock, a miner who, since 1856, had been prospecting in what was then western Utah terri tory, and who had been actively engaged in the Gold Canyon diggings for some time. Upon the death of Allen Grosch, Comstock came into possession of the Grosch brothers* books and papers. Historians differ as to the ethics of Comstock’s handling of the Grosch brothers* claims. Bancroft had this to say: How much or how little Comstock knew of the plans of the Grosch brothers previous- to coming into the pos session of their- books and papers through the death of Allen Grosch is uncertain; but probably he had 85 never been admitted to their confidence further than to engage his services, and to explain to him what the consideration would be, with assurances of the prospective value of their mining claims. The total disappearance of their books and papers, with all the evidence of their company and individual rights, is strong presumptive evidence against Comstock as the person in charge. YJhatever knowledge he had he kept to himself, and with equal care removed the traces of their claims, which might lead to identifi cation by either of the companies,7 or by the heirs of the Grosch brothers,8 Hittell disagrees with those who would assign to Comstock unethical practices in his handling of the Grosch brothers’ claims. He insists that "whatever connection . • • Comstock may have had with the Grosh brothers, there does not appear to be a particle of truth in the attempted slur cast upon him by the friends of Grosh."9 Whatever knowledge Comstock had of silver claims, he kept his information secret. He became so busy with his prospecting that the miners, observing that he would not take time to bake bread, gave him the sobriquet of Old Pan cake. Wright relates that even as, with spoon in hand, he stirred up his pancake batter, it is said that he kept one eye on the top of some distant peak, and was lost in speculations in regard to the wealth in gold and silver that might rest 7 Friends of the Grosches had formed two companies, one in the east and one partly in El Dorado County, California, and partly in Carson valley. 8 Bancroft, o£* cit., pp. 98-99. 9 Hittell, Q£. cit., III, 157. 86 somewhere beneath its rocky crest. Another miner in the Washoe country at the time was James Fennimore, whom Bancroft describes as an intemperate Virginian, without either brains or edu cation, who for some breach of lawful etiquette committed elsewhere, had found it convenient to remove to Carson valley in 1851, where he had remained ever since, digging his seasonfs wages out of the earth to pour it down his throat in bad whiskey during his leisure months.H When Fennimore first came to Washoe he called himself Finney, but he later acknowledged his true name. The miners, how ever, choosing what they thought was a name which suited his characteristics, called him "Old Virginia,” and the appel lation clung to him for the remaining years of his life. In January, 1859, Comstock, Fennimore, John Bishop, and other miners staked out claims at the head of Gold Canyon and called the place Gold Hill. Fennimore discovered and claimed also a spring of water that could be brought to the claims. In the meantime, two miners— Peter 0fRiley and Patrick McLaughlin— were prospecting at the head of Six-Mile Canyon. One day they dug into strange-looking earth that they did not understand. It seems that on that day Comstock had been out searching for a horse and was riding it back to Gold Hill 10 William Wright, The Big Bonanza, p. 41. ^ Bancroft, 0£. cit., p. 99. 87 when he came upon the two miners. "Youfve struck it, boys!” he shouted, and, according to Glasscock’s account, promptly declared himself in. ”The only trouble is that you’ve struck it on my land. You know I bought this spring from Old Man Caldwell. And I took up one hundred and sixty acres here for a ranch.”12 This exclamation, [says Bancroft] has been taken as proof that Comstock knew of this deposit, or at least that he recognized its value from knowledge obtained from the contents of the Grosch cabin, such knowledge not being possessed by the other miners.13 Despite the protestations of O’Riley and McLaughlin, Comstock won his point— though it was established on a feeble foundation— and was soon decidedly ”in” on the claim. Thus, Peter O’Riley and Patrick McLaughlin, cleaning their first rocker of rich ore from the top of the mine that was later to become the world famous Ophir, were in fact the discoverers— in a practical sense— of the Comstock Lode, although the fame went to Henry T. P. Comstock. Mining activity began in earnest on the Comstock Lode after the news of rich silver discoveries made its way to the outside. Comstock was a good bluffer. Without doing much work as a miner, he took on an air of dignified propri etorship and with much talking assumed a certain degree of importance on the Lode. Wright describes Old Pancake’s pro cedure, which today would be called "muscling in” or ip Glasscock, 0£. cit., pp. 39-40. 13 Bancroft, o£* cit., p. 101. 88 "chiseling": Once Comstock got into the Ophir claim he elected himself superintendent and was the man who did all the heavy talking. He made himself so conspicuous on every occasion that he soon came to be consid ered not only the discoverer but almost the father of the lode. As it was all Comstock for a consid erable distance round the Ophir mine, people began to speak of the vein as Comstock’s mine, Comstock’s lode, and the lead throughout its length and breadth came to be known as the Comstock lode, a name which it bears to this day; while the names of O’Riley and McLaughlin, the real discovers, are seldom heard, even in the city that stands on the spot where they first opened to the light of the sun the glittering treasures of the v e i n .14 A town soon was erected on the site where Comstock had claimed one hundred and sixty acres of land. At first it was called the village of Ophir, then Pleasant Hill, then Mount Pleasant Point— referring to the mountain on whose slopes it was situated, now Mount Davidson— then Winnemueca. Finally, however, Old Virginia went on a happy spree— or, rather, another happy spree— and this time, falling near his cabin and breaking a whiskey bottle, he waved the bottle in the air and shouted, "I baptize this ground Virginia Townl" The "town" part of the name was not used, however, the camp simply going by the name Virginia until later, when it came to be called Virginia City.15 14 Wright, o£. cit*, P* 55. 15 The new camp was hardly "On the public highway to California," as Paxon suggests in his History of the American Frontier, page 450. Carson Valley was on the Overland route, but it is a long, hard pull from there up to Virginia City, several thousand feet up the mountain. 89 Soon after the establishment of Virginia City, there was great excitement in the camp. With a hundred miners at work, quartz was being broken in fifteen arrastras. At Gold Hill, about a mile away, there was also great industry, al though the eight or ten arrastras in use there were grinding quartz for the gold it contained, not for the silver. It seems that the Californians were moving in on the diggings, and, realizing the value of the silver deposits at Gold Hill, were keeping information under cover as much as possible until they could buy in at low prices. With the coming in of the Californian moneyed inter ests, the old timers on the Comstock began losing out. The story of the original discoverers and developers of the Comstock Lode is short and severe. McLaughlin was soon rid of the little he received for his share of the claim, and in 1875 was working as a cook at the Green mine in Ban Bernar dino, California, at forty dollars a week. He died a pauper. O’Riley erected a hotel in Virginia City, lost his money in stock-gambling, became insane, and died in a sanitarium at Woodbridge, California, about 1874. Old Virginia’s violent death is described by Bancroft: Fennimore, who is much paraded by all the historians of Nevada, without any discoverable reason, unless a fondness for whiskey may be accounted a distinguished as well as a distinguishing trait, was killed at Dayton in July, 1861, being thrown from his horse while intoxicated, and suffering a fracture of the skull. 16 Bancroft, op. cit., p. 108. 90 Comstock went into the merchandising business in Carson City, but the-venture soon failed and he left Nevada in 1862. After some years of mining and road-building in Oregon and Idaho, he went to Montana. He was a member of the Big Horn expedition in 1870, and on his return in the same year he committee suicide near Bozeman, Montana, by shooting himself in the head. Bancroft declares that Comstock’s mind was ill balanced, or if not so naturally, he had suffered so many shocks of fortune that the last years of his life were but the record of a feeble struggle against advancing dementia.17 With others on the Comstock Lode, fortune dealt more favorably, though fortunes made were frequently lost as quickly. The year 1863 was considered the flush year of the early years of the Lode, but it was not until the big bonanza of the Consolidated Virginia and the California mines had been discovered that production began to approach the peak. The discovery of the great bonanza in 1873 sent production up to §35,254,507 worth of bullion for the year. The Comstock Lode consisted of a deposit varying in width from one; hundred fifty to one thousand feet. The lode ran north and south from a short distance south of Gold Hill north through Virginia City, along the eastern slope of Mount Davidson for about four miles. The fissure vein, or 17 Ibid., p. 98. 91 series of parallel veins, contained deposits of silver. The richer spots in the vein, which was pockety in character, were known as bonanzas. The lode ran at an elevation of about five thousand feet. From the earliest mining days an intense' rivalry ex isted between the Nevada and California mining districts, a rivalry that was reflected in the writings of Mark Twain and his colleague on the Enterprise, Dan De Quille. On one occasion, when the San Francisco Call did some boasting about the California mines, writing down those of the Com stock, Dan De Quille replied to "this absurd comparison between the California mines and the great Comstock Lode." He desired to know if any of the California mines had ever shipped ores that yielded $2,800 to the ton, as the Gould and Curry had done. The Comstock Lode had produced between fifty-one and fifty-two million dollars up to last April [1866]. The Comstock Lode is much wider than any known produc tive lode in California, and its ores are of corre sponding breadth. We are well aware of the value and productiveness of the leading California mines . . . but it is a falsification to state that any lode ever discovered in California bears any comparison in extent or productiveness to that of the Comstock.18 Again, the Enterprise, seeking to correct the idyllic picture that had been variously painted of the miner’s life, makes it clear that so far as the Comstock is concerned this 18 Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, June 14, 1866. 92 picture will not do: Pleasant tales have been told and poets have sung of the pleasures and rollicking joys of the miner’s life in the gold regions of California, amid the tall trees, flowery hills and beautiful mountain scenery, and with much real foundation of truth; but here in the land of Washoe the case is different. The musical shug of the rocker is not heard in our ravines, neither does the merry miner sing as he gaily swings his pick or shovels the auriferous dirt into the rip pling sluice. The real out and out Washoe miner can be found away down in the bowels of the Comstock. Regularly every morning, noon or evening, at a certain time, when the shrill steam whistles blow he can be seen with tin pail in hand containing his food, hasten ing to the various hoisting works, where he and scores of others meet waiting for the cages to bring up the "shift” which they come to relieve . . . Down the straight dark shaft • . • all are sent to their places of work in the various tunnels, chambers, drifts and winzes below . . . Down in the depths of the earth, where daylight never penetrates, are hundreds of miners, toiling like so many ants, honeycombing the very foun dations of Mount Davidson, and propping up the world, as it were, on sticks, A dangerous life, too, leads the ¥/ashoe miner ... Scarcely a day passes but we are called upon to record some fatality to life or limb occurring in the numerous mines along the great Comstock . . . This may not be a very pretty sketch, but it’s a true one nevertheless. Work in the silver mines required, indeed, sturdy con stitutions. The sweltering heat down in the shafts was at times unbearable. Men fell unconscious when defective ven tilation made it impossible for them to withstand the high temperatures and the bad air. The presence of hot water springs deep in the earth helped keep the temperature well over one hundred degrees most of the time. Under these 19 Ibid., february 2, 1867. 93 trying conditions, the miners resented any moves on the part of the bosses to push the daily pay down below the standard wage of four dollars. John Trembath, a Cornishman, super intendent of the Uncle Sam mine, made the unfortunate mistake of reducing the wage to three dollars and fifty cents a day, and the miners made an example of him. He was bound to the main hoisting cable of the mine and a label was fastened on him, reading, "Dump this pile of waste-dirt from Cornwall." He was hoisted, lowered, hoisted again, and finally dumped, thankful to be free again. Miners* unions that were formed to protect the interests of the workers succeeded in main taining the four dollar uniform wage of the Lode. The total production of the Comstock mines during their first twelve years has been estimated at $145,100,000, an annual yield of $12,100,000. With the discovery of the big bonanza— the Consolidated Virginia and the California mines— there was a production in one year— 1873'— of more than $35,000,000. This productiveness was increased annually on the Lode for several successive years. The two big bonanza mines alone were to produce $190,000,000 in bullion during their years of activity. A longitudinal section of the Comstock Lode in the year 1875 showed from north to south the following major mines with their holdings: Sierra Nevada, 2,657 feet; Union Con solidated, 600 feet; Mexican, 600 feet; Ophir, 675 feet; 94 California, 600 feet; Consolidated Virginia, 710 feet; Best and Belcher, 224 feet; Gould and Qurry, 921 feet; Savage, 768 feet.20 Wright wrote in that year: What are now known as the "bonanza" mines are in great part made up of small mines that were located to the southward of the Ophir soon after the discovery of silver. The big bonanza lies in the Consolidated Virginia and California mines, and its northern ex tremity extends into the Ophir.2^ The aggregate value of the forty-nine Virginia City and Gold Hill mines whose stocks were called on the San •Francisco Stock Board was $175,147,200 in 1874. There were a score more mines that had some market value at the time. In 1875, with flush times on the Comstock Lode, the population of Virginia City was more than twenty thousand; the population of Gold Hill was about ten thousand. By this time the four great bonanza kings— John W. Mackay, James G. Fair, James G. Flood, and William S. O’Brien— were in their boom days, having bought in profitably in the development of the big bonanza a few years previously. These four won their millions chiefly by stock manipulations. When divi dends began to fail, many charges were made against the bonanza kings, accusing them of fraud and corruption in the handling of mining affairs. The big bonanza and other developments go beyond the 20 V/right, 0£. cit., p. 470. 21 Ibid., p. 469. 95 time of Mark Twain’s association with the Comstock, but they are an integral part of the whole picture. Separate and ex citing narratives in themselves are the stories of the four bonanza kings and frenzied stock manipulations; of William Sharon, who built a railroad to Virginia City, and piped water from the Sierra to the Comstock Lode; and of Adolph Sutro, the German Jew who, after fourteen years of struggle against tremendous odds of man and nature, completed the famous Sutro Tunnel which drained the water from flooded mine shafts on the Comstock Lode, an achievement which has been called "the greatest mining enterprise on the American continent.”22 Flush days were not long in coming to an end. When the California mine paid its last dividend, in 1879, and the Consolidated Virginia its last dividend in 1880, the boom was over. From the ruinous inflation of mining shares, which had reached a peak in 1875 as a result of the develop ment of the big bonanza, values dropped to such a low level that thousands of stockholders were forced into bankruptcy. Bonanza23 days were over on the Comstock Lode; borasca days had come. But it had been a glorious adventure while it 22 Glasscock, op. cit*, P* 3£8. 23 The Mexican miners had brought in the Spanish word bonanza, signifying fair weather at sea, prosperity, good fortune in mining. Borasca meant bad weather, squalls; hence, hard times in mining. 96 lasted. When Samuel Clemens came to Virginia City, the camp was, of course, being run on a smaller scale than it would be in the days of the big bonanza, but it was a feverish camp, nevertheless, and it was to enjoy its first big flush year in 1863, when Mark Twain was still one of its distin guished personalities. He found here on the Comstock a rough, crude, coarse, robust town. Are we to infer from this that he was shocked, that he was repelled, that his artistic sensibilities suffered prostration? On the con trary, Virginia City completely satisfied Clemens at first glance, and the thrill of his experiences there never wore off. Probably the element that has contributed most to the myth that Clemens* artistic sensibilities met virtual dis aster in Washoe is the idyllic picture that has been painted of his life as a pilot on the Mississippi during the years immediately preceding his departure for the West. Romancers have made much of this picture, until one is asked to be lieve, even, that the artist in Mark Twain would have reached consummation on the River. Miss Brashear believes that the emphasis placed by some of his biographers and critics upon his four pilot years has been out of pro portion, that, while during those years he first attained to a fuller and more nearly satisfactory life for himself than he had found up to that time, they were, after all, Wanderjahre— a period of taking stock 97 of the world and of himself.2^ Of course, in a very real sense, all the years of Mark Twain’s life were Wanderjflhre. The pilot years, though unquestionably significant in Mark Twain’s development, must be examined on the basis of information in addition to that contributed by those who have romanced on Twain’s own romancing about the river. Some biographers and critics have obviously taken their cue from Twain himself, and have thus been led astray, particularly by Life on the Mississippi» which De Voto feels ignores the conception of the steamboat age: There is, for instance, no hint of the squalid venery of the steamboats, which were consistently a habitation for the loves of travelers, river rats, and frontiersmen. Harlots of all degree, New Orleans courtesans in the grand manner as well as broken-down yaller,gals no longer useful to riverside dives, were habituees of the boats. They and their pimps and all the machinery of bought protection, of display and sale, of robbery and murder were a constant in the trade. The book makes no mention of them. It prob ably would have made none in any case, since the amenities of literature in its time forbade, but its whole drift forbids also. There is no mention, either, of the parasitism that was also constant in the trade. The skin games, the frauds, the robberies, the gambling, the cozenage, the*systematic-organization of the sucker trade are wholly absent from its pages. To read the autobiography of George Devol is to perceive at once that the river as it was is not the river of Mark Twain.25 Could Samuel Clemens have been a pilot on the Missis sippi without coming into contact with the crude, the coarse, 24 Brashear, 0£. cit., p. 194. 25 X)e Voto, 0£. cit. t p. 110. 98 the sordid side of river days in the steamboat age? Hardly. Hence we can assume that his artistic sensibilities had built up a fairly effective resistance before he came West. What he had not encountered during his journeyman printer days he certainly learned about during his four years on the River. Indeed, one can be safe in saying that when Clemens came to Washoe he knew the realities of life. Nevertheless the Comstock was different, colorful, fascinating. To Samuel Clemens there was adventure in its very roughness. He enjoyed the robust life; he was never one to go in for the too delicate refinements. For example, up to a few months before his death, he could not, though he liked music, bear to have a professional pianist play the piano for him especially. He would have preferred to have his leg amputated*^ Samual Clemens, in Virginia City and throughout his whole life, could, in fact, withstand a remarkable amount of roughness without wincing. There are those who go so far as to say that he even enjoyed some of 26 In a letter to Paine, from Bermuda, he writes: It is 2:50 in the morning & I am writing because I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep because a professional pianist is coming to morrow afternoon to play for me. My GodI I wouldn’t allow Paderewski or GabrTlowitsch to do that. I would rather have a leg amputated. I knew he was coming, but I never dreamed it was to play for me. When I heard the horrible news 4 hours ago, be d d“Tf I didn’t come near screaming. I meant to slip out and be absent, but now I can’t. Don’t pray for me. The thing is just as d d bad as it can be already. (Paine, Biography, IV, 1561.) 99 it. Certainly it would be inaccurate to say that life on the Comstock Lode was one great rough drama. On the con trary, to balance the tough, boisterous element in the com munity there was the artistic and cultural life, the theater representing one phase of it, though not, perhaps, in as refined a manner always as the more delicate sensibilities might demand. On the rough side of Virginia City life there were the saloons with their crystal ornaments, their bawdy sculp tures in ivory and marble, and their mahogany and ebony bars; and there were the dance halls, the parlors, the melo- deons, and the cribs. It was a noisy, violent, incredible city. Elsewhere in the West the miner labored in inaccessible gulches and, for a bust, made infrequent pilgrimages to the big town— Denver, San Erancisco, Helena. But here hard rock and the big town met in one continuous bust. The West consummated itself. In the barrooms flourished separate arts for the amusement of the hard-rock miner. There was the genius of the mahogany who compounded a multiplicity of refreshing drinks for the edification of the thirsty; there was the artist who worked his craftsmanship in mosaics, frescoes, or oils; and there was the fine wizardry of the gambling table. Moreover, the "ladies of the evening" came to Virginia City 27 De Voto, 0£. cit., p. 123. 100 on the first wave of prosperity. De Voto writes: They constituted, no doubt, a deplorable source of gambling, pleasure and embroilment. They were not soft-spoken women, their desire was not visibly separable from the main chance, and they would have beheld Mr. Harte’s portrayal of them at Poker Plat with ribald mirth. But let them have a moment of respect. They civilized the Comstock. They drove through its streets reclining in lacquered broughams, displaying to male eyes fashions as close to Paris. as any then current in New York. They were, in brick houses hung with tapestries, a glamour and a romance, after the superheated caverns of the mines. They enforced a code of behavior: one might be a hardrock man outside their curtains but in their presence one was punctilious or one was hustled away.28 On the better side, relatively, there were the sev eral playhouses which flourished on the Lode. There was drama, melodrama, burlesque, grand opera, and an astounding variety of other attractions offered in these playhouses, not counting the less refined entertainments presented in the saloons and the cribs. Piper’s Opera House was the most noteworthy theater in Virginia City. During its years of spirited enterprise it offered a notable list of attractions, never lacking in variety from one week to the next: Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale; the humorous lecturer, Artemus Ward; Adah Isaacs Menken, "The Menken/1 who, coming from the Gaitie in Paris, had scored a success in San Prancisco before she came to Virginia City to present her classic Lady Godiva exhibition entitled "The Mazeppa," and who, we shall see, 28 IMS.* > p* 124* 101 was to add Mark Twain to her numerous train of distinguished admirers. Other Piper’s Opera House attractions ranged from Shakespearean repertoire to wild cat and bulldog fights and a battle between a bull and a bear. Imagine how the bearded miners must have sat enraptured at "The Montgomery Queen’s Great Show, with an African Eland, an Abysinnian Ibex, Cassowaries, and the Only Female Somersault Bider in the World! * ♦ To this drama of the frontier being enacted on the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, Samuel Clemens was added as a member of the dramatis personnae. For two years, as a newspaper reporter for the Territorial Enterprise, he was to take an active part in the energetic spectacle of the Comstock lode. After three apprenticeships in fields that he had abandoned, he was to choose here his life profession of authorship. Here on the Comstock Lode, robustly conscious of the great drama of the frontier, Mark Twain was born. CHAPTER V REPORTER ON THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE [AUGUST, 1862-0CT0BER, 1863] When Samuel Clemens joined the staff of the Territorial Enterprise of Virginia City he came into association with journalists who were to have much to do with his development as a writer on the Comstock Lode. During his two years as reporter for the Enterprise he was constantly associated, both professionally and personally, with Joseph T. Goodman, editor and proprietor of the Enterprise; Dan De Quille [William Wright], reporter; Steve Gillis, printer; Rollin M. Daggett, associate editor; and Denis E. McCarthy, part owner of the paper. The Territorial Enterprise was a morning daily when Clemens joined its staff in 1862. The paper had been estab lished as a weekly, by William L. Jernegan and Alfred James, the first number having been issued at Genoa, the first town in Nevada, on Saturday, December 18, 1858. It was the first printed newspaper in Nevada. An editorial in the paper, some years later, referred to the Enterprise as "the oldest journal in the State, having been established in Carson Valley while Nevada was an almost unpeopled portion of Utah Territory. 1 Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, April 4, 1866. 103 The paper was established a year before the discovery of silver in Nevada, when Genoa was a stage route town of about two hundred inhabitants. In November, 1859, the office of publication was moved to Carson City, the first issue printed there being that of November 12, 1859.2 Jonathan Williams purchased the interest of Alfred James after the paper was moved to Carson City, and the firm name became W. L. Jernegan and Company. By October, 1860, Williams had obtained sole ownership of the Enterprise, and in October or November, 1860, the paper was moved to Virginia City. At this time I. B. Wollard became co-publisher with Williams. Joseph T. Goodman and Denis E. McCarthy became partners of Williams on March 2, 1861;3 D. Driscoll succeeded Williams in a short time. Goodman and McCarthy became sole proprietors on October 28, 1863. McCarthy sold his interest to Goodman on September 15, 1865, and Goodman continued as sole proprietor of the Territorial Enterprise until February, 1874. Dan De Quille describes the early days of the paper: The office in which the Enterprise was first published in Virginia City, was a small, one-story frame build ing with a shed or lean-to on one side, and was a 2 Douglas Crawford McMurtrie, A Bibliography of Nevada Newspapers, 1858 to 1875 Inclusive, p. TT 3 Myron Angel, editor, History of Nevada, p. 317. 104 queerly arranged establishment. The proprietors had the shed part, fitted up as a~ kitchen and dining and lodging-place.. Bunks were ranged along the sides of the room, one above another, as on shipboard, and here editors, printers* proprietors, and all hands "bunked" after the style of the miners in their -cabins. A Chinaman, "Old Joe," did the cooking, and three times each day the whole crowd of "newspaper men" were called out to the long table in the shed to get their "square meal." The "devil" went for numerous lunches between meals, and often came fly ing out into the composition-room with a large piece of pie in his mouth, and the old Chinaman at his heels.^ The Enterprise, published under these conditions, became a journal of comradery— a lively, fresh, rugged, vigorous, fearless, picturesque, distinctive, masculine expression of the energetic life on the Comstock Lode. The chief factor in making it this kind of a newspaper was its ownership and editorship. ?/ith Joe Goodman at the helm, as editor-in-chief, the newspaper*s staff members were given a free hand, so long as they could make the paper’s content interesting, and pro vided that matters that were to be presented as serious news were actually based on fact. Goodman had been a miner, ex plorer, printer, and contributor to journals before he took over the Enterprise. He was a skillful craftsman in the field of writing, being equally effective at composing fine poetry and at writing editorials with a punch. His reputation was not confined to the Comstock Lode. A correspondent who wrote for the San Francisco Call had this to say: 4 Wright, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 218. 105 Goodman, of the Enterprise, is a clever young man in more than one sense of the word. As a newspaper writer, he has few equals, and no one who knows him can for a moment doubt his sincere loyalty. His printing establishment is among the finest on the Pacific coast, and he is a universal favorite.5 Samuel Clemens owed much to Joe Goodman, whose kindly guid ance, skillful tutorship, and understanding friendship fol lowed Mark Twain beyond the Comstock into later years. Goodman’s newspaper policy was broad and elastic, but he believed in forceful, interesting journalism. He was a younger man than Clemens, but he had rare gifts which the new reporter soon came to appreciate. When Sam began his work on the Enterprise. Goodman gave him this advice: Never say we learn so and so, or it is rumored, or we understand so and so; but go to headquarters and get the absolute facts; then speak out and say it is so and so. In the one case you are likely to be shot, and in the other you are pretty certain to be; but you will preserve the public confidence.6 Dan De Quille was Sam Clemens’ fellow reporter on the Enterprise. They worked together and played together. De Quille, whose real name was William Wright, had greater writ ing ability than Sam Clemens in that day and showed much more promise of success as a writer. Even Joe Goodman, whose judgment was unusually keen, felt that De Quille would be the more successful of the two. De Quille’s specialty as a seri ous writer was information on mines and mining activities. 5 San Erancisco Call, December IS, 1863. 6 Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, I, 206. 106 In his lighter moments— and there were many of these— he set the pace for other journalists of the region in the writing of hoaxes, ironical sketches, and droll humor, gaining wide notoriety on the Pacific Coast. Por more than thirty years, De Q,uille was a writer for the Enterprise and a contributor to many other newspapers and magazines of the West. Describ ing De Quille, with whom he was associated for several years on the staff of the Enterprise. C. C. Goodwin writes: He had a quaint irony through which he could make fun of his fellowman's idiosyncracies, which everyone would recognize at a glance, but he never offended anyone. Daggett, with his intellectual cleaver, would chop a man to pieces. Mark Twain, with his droll humor, would lead his victim up to the shambles he had in waiting for him, and the unconscious creature would never suspect what was going to happen until the ax fell. But Dan had a softer way. The intended victim would know all the time after the first ten lines that he was going to be sacrificed, but he was under a spell, enjoyed the process, and laughed after he was downed . . • His solar armor story was one of his best ones.7 De Q.uille’s solar armor story concerned an invention which was supposed to be effective in protecting a person from the heat of summer. It consisted of an India rubber suit, a small air compressor, and a battery. ¥/ith his rubber suit on, the wearer could turn on the compressor, which was concealed within. One button started the compressor, another 7 C. C. Goodwin, As I Remember Them, pp. 213-216. turned it off. De Q.uille’s story told of how the inventor put on the armor and started out across Death Valley with the temperature at 117 degrees in the shade. He disappeared in the sun, and was absent that day and all night. A search ing party went out the next morning, and found the man’s body a few miles out on the floor of the valley. The daring inventor had given his life for science. He had started the compressor, but had been unable to turn it off, and had frozen to death with the temperature at 117 degrees in the shade. The machine was still running when the body was found. Pendant from the nose of the unfortunate scientist was an icicle eighteen inches long. This solar armor story is typical of the kind of hoax story Dan De Quille and Mark Twain wrote for the Enterprise. The follow-up of such an item was frequently amazing. A month after the publication of the solar armor story, De Quille received a marked copy of the London Times, in which a British writer who had read the story suggested that British soldiers in India be equipped with the armor. Another Enterprise staff member was Rollin M. Daggett, who had come to California to mine for gold, had made his stake, and had gone to San Francisco to establish the Golden Era, a literary weekly which built up a fine reputation in the West and was the early workshop of many famous writers. In the late fifties, Daggett sold his interest in the Golden 108 Era and went to Virginia City to become associate editor of the Territorial Enterprise, Daggett was a forceful writer, never hesitant to throw his views into print. As De Voto says: He gave himself freely the pleasures of this world, but alcohol did not soften the edge of- his satire. He hurled the Enterprise at villainy and corruption in high places. Men went looking for him armed; he gave public notice of his office hours,8 C. C. Goodwin, who served with Daggett on the Enter prise in those days of silver, tells this incident which is typical of Daggett’s personality as a newspaper man: He and I were quietly at work one afternoon when a man came in unannounced, walked straight to him, and presenting a folded Enterprise, said: "Daggett, that is a shame. My cows are as well fed as any man’s, and the milk I sell is rich and sweet.” Daggett took the paper, looked at the heading: "Swill Milk,” swiftly glanced it over and knew that one of the reporters had been writing up the man’s dairy in not very complimentary terms. Turning upon the man an indignant face, he said: "You are a pretty fellow to come to me. I was down by your corral night before last";— he had not been there in three years;— "as I walked- along the high-board fence I heard your cows gnawing bones, and when X turned the corner they looked up at me and growled like dogs." The man dropped his hands, exclaiming: "Well, b y 1 ” turned and left the office. "That was all on the square, I suppose?" I said. "That was necessary," was the response. "That son of a gun will not bother us again for eighteen months."9 ® De Voto, Mark Twain’s America, p. 136. 9 Goodwin, 0£. cit., p. 188. 109 Daggett had a high courage that led him to take stands for justice and fair play. His satire was an effective weap on when the Enterprise engaged in its many noteworthy con troversies, with individuals, groups, or rival newspapers. Samuel Clemens learned from Daggett many valuable lessons in the job of fighting, with the printed word, corruption in high places. Steve Gillis, ninety-five pounds and every pound a fighter, was a printer on the Enterprise. He became Clemens* companion on many ventures. He was the king jokester of a tribe of Comstock joking giants. He brewed tricks continu ously and worked them off on his closest friends with great glee. Sam was the target more than once, but Steve repaid any injury which might have been done by a thousand acts of friendship. He was to be Mark Twain’s second at the famous duel which ended a Comstock career; he was to go with Mark to San Erancisco; finally, it was Steve Gillis who brought Mark Twain to the significant interlude at Jackass Hill. Denis McCarthy, who was part ov/ner of the Enterprise, when Clemens joined the staff, later became Mark Twain’s business manager on the lecture tour in 1866. Coming to the Enterprise was surely a significant event in the career of Samuel Clemens, when one considers this group of men with whom he was to be associated. These were men who believed in a robust, lively, interesting journalism;' they 110 believed in giving full play to rough humor, which was an essential in the colorful life on the Comstock Lode, But the fundamental basis of their journalism was honesty, fair play. They could jest on occasion, but when principles were at stake their satire and irony invariably worked in the cause of justice, tolerance, loyalty to ideals. Associated with such men as these, and writing for a newspaper as power ful and as honest as the Enterprise, Clemens developed those qualities which were inherent in him. It was the first real opportunity he had enjoyed to express himself freely against sham, hypocrisy, humbug. He fitted easily and naturally into the Enterprise fraternity. De Quille and Twain came to be boon companions; so much so, in fact, that a rival paper, the Cold Hill Daily News, wrote satirically: "To Be Married.— Dan de Quille and Mark Twain are to be married shortly. About time."^ De Quille was better equipped at writing stories which demanded exact facts and figures than was Sam, so the two frequently divided up the items as they covered the town in common. The feature material was handled by Sam, the straight nev/s by Dan. Shortly after Clemens came to the Enterprise, De Quille left for a trip east. This expected absence of De Quille was, in fact, one reason for the Enterprise having offered Sam a 10 Gold Hill Dally News, April 18, 1864. Ill position. When De Quille returned after an absence of nine months on the Plains and in the States, he found Virginia City almost wiped out by the big fire of 1863. He wrote later of the conditions he found on the Lode: Thus I "resumed business at the old stand” in the thick of red-hot times— in the midst of flames and war.11 It was also in the midst of the cutting and shooting days— the days of stage robberies, of mining fights, wonderful finds of ore, and all manner of excitements. As may be- imagined Mark and I had our hands full, and no grass grew under our feet. There was a constant rush of startling events; they came tumbling over one another as though playing at leap frog. While-a stage robbery was being written up, a shooting affray started; and perhaps before the pistol shots had ceased to echo among the surrounding hills, the firebells were banging out an alarm. The crowding of the whole population into that part of town which had escaped the fire led to many bloody battles. Pighters, sports and adventurers, burned out of their old haunts, thronged the saloons and gaming houses remaining, where many of them were by no means welcome visitors.12 After De Quille returned to Virginia City he and Mark roomed together. By this time they were making it a practice to "slam” one another in print as frequently as possible. Much of this badinage occurred in the pages of the Enterprise, but some of it was published in other newspapers. In the Golden Era of San Erancisco, De Quille wrote: We (Mark and I) have the "sweetest” little parlor and the snuggest little bedroom (and it’s only three H There had been a bloody battle among the volunteer firemen, and many had been killed and wounded. 12 Dan De Quiile, "Reporting with Mark Twain," California Illustrated Magazine, IV (1893), 170. 112 floors from the ground) all to ourselves. Here we come every night and live— breathe, move and have our being, also our toddies. As Mark has already hinted to the world in his modest way, through the columns of the Territorial Enterprise, that "our furniture alone cost #28,000,.in Europe," I need only add that our upholstery, etc. cost |15,000 more, in— a horn. We have a very good dodge for getting wood, we leave our door open when we go out . . • and the fellows that are hired to oarry up wood to the rooms, make a mistake nearly every day and pile a lot in our parlor. I never have seen the fellow making these mistakes, but Mark assures me that the wood all gets into our parlor that way. I suppose he was right— it looks very plausible, but lately I’ve been thinking that it was rather strange that the fellow quit making these mistakes the very day that Mark went down to Carson to report the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention, and hasn’t made a single mistake since.13 When he began his work as reporter on the Comstock Lode, Clemens saw that the spirit of the mining camp demanded a lively treatment of news. Routine matters, he was pleased to note, were of little interest to the editors of the Enter prise. Even a murder, if it was just an ordinary murder, was tossed off in a line or two. He had some trouble at first finding items, but Editor Joe Goodman suggested that some times they made news out of the hay wagons that came into town from the Truckee River. Sam, according to his own ac count, searched through the town and found one dilapidated hay wagon creaking down the street. He used it profusely, multiplying the wagon by sixteen, bringing it into town from sixteen different directions, and making sixteen separate 13 San Francisco Golden Era, December 6, 1863. 113 items out of it. Showing such remarkable aptitude, he was well on his way to becoming a qualified reporter in Comstock journalism. But the big opportunity came when a desperado killed a man in a saloon. Sam went to cover the story. He was profuse in his thanks to the murderer: Sir, you are a stranger to me, but you have done me a kindness this day which I can never forget. If whole years of gratitude can be to you any slight compensation, they shall be yours. I was in trouble and you have relieved me nobly and at a time when all seemed dark and drear. Count me your friend from this time forth, for I am not a man to forget a favor.14 Writing up murders was almost routine work for Enterprise reporters. This may sound like another one of the many exag gerated Wild West stories, but one needs only to look into the files of Washoe newspapers of the sixties to verify the statement. Crimes of violence were of daily occurrence. The rough element predominated. Sam was sitting in his room one night writing a letter to his mother and sister when he heard pistol shots down the street. He made a notation in his letter: P.S. I have just heard five pistol shots down street — as such things are in my line, I will go and see it. He went out to investigate, returned, and added these lines: P.S. No. 2— 5 A.M.— The pistol did its work well— one man— a Jackson County Missourian, shot two of my friends, (police officers), through the heart— both died within 1 4 Mark Twain, Houghing It, p. 21. 114 three minutes. Murderer’s name is John Campbell.-*-5 Residents on the Comstock said in that day that the first twenty-six graves in the Virginia City cemetery were occupied by murdered men. If that fact had been true it would not have been particularly astonishing to the miners. Crime conditions on the Comstock furnished Mark Twain material for hi-s- Roughing It protest against the American jury system. It became the subject matter of some of his earliest social criticism. The jury system, he felt, put a ban upon intelligence and honesty, while rewarding ignorance, stupidity, and perjury. He believed that the system should be altered to give men of brains and honesty an equal chance with fools and miscreants. Thus, while he wrote lightly enough about the doings of desperadoes of Virginia City, he was experiencing a growth of resentment against the injustice of certain social systems, and we shall find that on the Comstock little by little he developed the ability to fight these evils with humor, satire, irony, hoax stories, and other manifestations of his growing skill as a writer. Not long after he joined the staff of the Enterprise. Clemens wrote the first of his hoax stories which were to give him much notoriety on the Pacific Coast. Some time early in October, 1862, when he had been on the newspaper only a few weeks, he wrote the story of "The Petrified Man." It is the 15 Paine, Mark Twain’s Letters. I, 89. 115 first of his Enterprise stories extant. A few weeks had sufficed to impress upon Clemens the kind of material that would be readable for the f f honest miner” and the Virginia City rough. An official named Bewail, at Humboldt, a coroner and justice of the peace, had been too independent in the matter of furnishing news to the Enterprise. Sam felt the power of the newspaper that employed him; he had no intention of allowing anyone to seem to disdain that power; he resolved to "show up” the man of Humboldt. Thus his first big Washoe joke related how a petrified man had been found in the moun tains south of Gravelly Ford. The limbs of the mummy were reported as being in perfect condition, not excepting the one-time wooden left leg of the hardened defunct. The writer goes on to describe the peculiar position of the mummy: The body was in a sitting posture and leaning against a huge mass of croppings; the attitude was pensive, the right thumb resting against the side of the nose; the left thumb partially supported the chin, the fore finger pressing the inner corner of the left eye and drawing it partly open; the right eye was closed, and the fingers of the right hand spread apart.(1) This strange freak of nature created a profound sensation in the vicinity, and our informant states that, by request, Justice Sewall or Sowell of Humboldt City at once proceeded to the spot and held an inquest on the body. The verdict of the jury was that "deceased came to his death from protracted exposure," etc. The people of the neighborhood volunteered to bury the poor unfortunate, and were even anxious to do so; but it was discovered, when they attempted to remove him, that the water which had dripped upon him for ages from the crag above, had coursed down his back and deposited a limestone sediment under him which had glued him to the bed rock upon which he sat, as with a cement of adamant, and Judge S. refused to allow the charitable citizens to blast him from his 116 position. The opinion expressed by his Honor that such a course would be little less than sacrilege, was eminently just and proper. Everybody goes to see the stone man, as many as 300 persons having visited the hardened creature during the past five or six weeks.16 Since no file of the Territorial Enterprise for this period is extant, one must depend on reprinting in other newspapers for the text of the hoax story. In its repub lishing of the story, the Bulletin uses the heading "A Washoe Joke,” and prints the following introductory state ment: "The Territorial Enterprise has a joke of a ’petri fied man* having been found on the plains, which the interior journals seem to be copying in good faith.” If journals outside of Virginia City were copying this story in good faith, that fact added much to the amusement of the miners on the Comstock. It was the sort of humor that Washoe could appreciate; the story had an immediate appeal when it im pounded in solid rock the age-old gesture of derision. The story was a "scoop” in Comstock newspaper realism. It probably is a mistake to credit Dan De Q,uille with any influence, or his solar armor story with any incentive, for the writing of the "Petrified Man" hoax.17 De Quille left for the East as soon as Clemens joined the staff, and 16 San .Francisco Bulletin, October 15, 1862. Reprinted from Territorial Enterprise. 17 De Voto suggests that the solar armor story probably produced the "Petrified Man." De Voto, 0£. cit., p. 137. 117 was away for nine months* The "Petrified Man" hoax was printed in the Enterprise some time before October 15, 1862, the date of its publication in the San Erancisoo Bulletin. One may reasonably assume that when Clemens came to join the staff of the Territorial Enterprise he was pretty well ac quainted with the spirit of Washoe and the temper of its humor, and that he needed no instruction in this phase of his work. Besides, he had, without a doubt, a predeliction for this tone of writing; he had shown it previously. He could write with a tang without undergoing a treatment of forced feeding. The career of the humorist before and since his days on the Comstock Lode offers ample testimony to establish this fact. Clemens developed on the Enterprise an appreciation of the value of names in the day’s news. His sketches almost invariably deal with persons; events are only important as they deal with definite individuals. In a letter to his sister Pamela, written-a few months after he joined the Enter prise staff, he stresses this point. He informs Pamela that she would never do for a local reporter because she does not appreciate the interest that attaches to names. He writes: An item is of no use unless it speaks of some person, and not then, unless that person’s name is distinctly mentioned. The most interesting letter one can write, to an absent friend, is one that treats of persons he has been acquainted with rather than the public events 118 of the day.I® Clemens* local items, hoaxes, satires, editorials, and travel letters of the western period show that he had faith in the appeal of persons over the appeal of events. Notoriety was not long in coming to Clemens under the liberal policy which the Enterprise followed with respect to its staff. The "Petrified Man" story was widely reprinted, but a few months later came a new development which was to prove of much greater significance in making Clemens known as one of the bright men of the Enterprise. One evening, late in 1862, Goodman and Clemens were at dinner— they fre quently had "hours of quiet association together"^9— when Sam suggested that he be permitted to report the coming pro ceedings of the territorial legislature at Carson City. He was not familiar with that sort of work, but he desired an out-of-town assignment and felt that he could find something interesting in the doings of the legislature. A man named Gillespie, who had become clerk of the house, had previously covered the legislative news for the Enterprise. The opening was there; Goodman decided that Sam Clemens was the man for the job. Thus, early in 1863, Clemens, arrayed in a long 18 Paine, Letters» I, 89. 19 Paine, Biography, I, 216. 119 broadcloth cloak, a starched shirt, and polished boots, arrived in Carson City. He was returning now as a person of distinction, come to report the news of the territorial legislature for one of the most widely known and influential journals in the West. No longer was he merely another be wildered miner rushing feverishly from one claim to another and making wild splurges in fantastic "feet." He went to live with Orion’s family. He was pleased to learn that Orion’s wife was by this time the social leader of the capi tal. He himself soon took a position of importance in the life of Carson City. Members of the legislature soon discovered in Sam Clemens a man of enthusiasm and ability. He made himself known by his wit, his assurance, his keen insight into the problems of the day. Some of his early letters to the Enterprise are said to have contained some curious blunders concerning the legislative proceedings, but he was given in struction in parliamentary matters by Gillespie, clerk of the house, and soon he was able to write accurately of tech nical matters. But the technical matters were of little concern to him. What he liked to do was to write letters that sparkled, that had life, force, interest. Clement T. Rice, legislative reporter for the Virginia City Union, poked fun at what he considered crudities in Clemens’ first letters from Carson City. Paine writes: 120 But this was a mistake. Clemens in his next letter declared that Rice’s reports might be parliamentary enough, but that they covered with glittering techni calities the most festering mass of misstatement, and even crime. He avowed that they were wholly untrust worthy, dubbed the author of them "The Unreliable," and in future letters never referred to him by any other term. Carson and the Comstock and the papers of the Coast delighted in this burlesque warfare, and Rice was "The Unreliable" for life. Rice, and Clemens, it should be said, though rivals, were the best of friends, and there was never any real animosity between them.20 Two friends of Clemens made it possible for him to increase the accuracy and interest of his reports by giving him inside information concerning the workings of the polit ical machinery. These two, who made up the Humboldt delega tion, were Jack Simmons, speaker of the house, and Billy Clagget, who had been one of Sam’s companions on the pros pecting trip to Unionville. Simmons, Clagget, and Clemens became the conspicuous figures of the legislative session. Letters from the Carson correspondent of the Enterprise were being quoted and copied in other newspapers. Clemens was building up a reputation. But he was not satisfied. He wanted to make himself better known as a writer; he desired, to place himself as a personality before the reading public. He discarded several possible names before he finally hit upon the one which he thought would be suitable. It was, pre sumably, the pen name that had been used back on the Mississippi 20 Ibid.. p. 220. 121 by Captain Isaiah Sellers, whom Clemens had so cruelly lam pooned in the New Orleans True Delta in 1859. He had deeply regretted the affront to the old man, and he felt that now he had an opportunity to compensate, in part, at least. He went to Virginia City, conferred with Goodman, and on Feb ruary 2, 1863, a Carson dispatch in the Territorial Enterprise appeared over the signature of "Mark Twain." Paine says: In all the nomenclature of the world no more force ful combination of words could have been selected to express the man for whom they stood. The name Mark Twain is as infinite, as fundamental as that of John Smith, without the latter*s wasting distribution of strength. If all the prestige in the name of John Smith were combined in a single individual, its dynamic energy might give it the carrying power of Mark Twain. Let this be as it may, it has proven the greatest nom de plume ever chosen— a name exactly in accord with tEe man, his work, and his career.21 Writing of Clemens* choice of a pen name, Paine is more enthusiastic about the role of reporter on a frontier newspaper than he is in writing of Sam*s reluctance to become a "camp scribbler," and of his "unwillingness to s u r r e n d e r ."22 Brooks sees, however, in the choice of a pen name, another ominous sign of disintegration of the artist: In short, he wanted a trade-mark in order to sell what he instinctively regarded as merchandise; and the fact that the pen-name was the fashion of the time— in pioneer circles, especially, observe— simply argues that all the other writers in the West were in a similar case. The pen-name was a form of "protective coloration" 21 Ibid., p. 222. 22 Paine, Letters. I, 82. 122 for men who could not risk, in their own persons, the odium of the literary life, and it is an interesting coincidence that "Mark Twain,” in the pilot’s vocabu lary, implied "safe water," . . . He instinctively thought of his writing as something external to him self, something of which he was proud only because it paid,23 In this sweeping gesture, Brooks becomes psychological mon arch of all he surveys. The whole group of frustrated western authors is thrown into a single hamper, Frontier authors, we are led to believe, chose pen names because they were to become prostitutes in the outlawed business of au thorship, Frontier citizens objected to high achievement or special vocations, especially in the field of writing. Writ ers were prohibited, on pain of social extinction, from expressing themselves. Creative lives were stunted and thwarted. Sensitive, artistic souls were shanghaied into false careers, or concealed themselves behind the screen of the nom de plume. In the case of Mark Twain all this is especially applicable. This is, of course, entirely according to Brooks. A glance through the files of newspapers and magazines of the frontier West~of the sixties will dispel any illusions one might have as to the attitude of western pioneers toward literature and writers. The publications are loaded down with literary writings, perhaps not of the highest standards 23 Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain, p. 113. 123 but certainly not entirely -bad. There is a riot of fanciful pen names. Writers adopted authorship joyously, wrote humor as often as they felt like it, and showed absolutely no sign of being victims of a literary pogrom carried on by those big, bad, rough and tough westerners. One may reasonably infer that Clemens, like other western authors, became a writer because he liked to write, and chose a nom de plume because he took a certain pride in his profession of author ship. One must search for a greater freak of.human nature than the western Samuel Clemens for the application of psychological theories of arrested development, lack of inner control, undeveloped genius, spiritual miscarriage, and mega lomania. To think that the seemingly innocent act of choos ing a pen name should have brought such a searchlight of analysis to shine upon Mark Twain5 Recent examination of the log of Captain Isaiah Sellers^ revealed entries so badly written that doubt was immediately raised that Sellers ever wrote anything himself for the newspapers. Also it is doubtful, from an examination of the journal, that Captain Sellers ever used the nom de 24 The Sellers log was made available for scholarly examination for the first time recently, by its owner, Mrs. Mollie Young Mueller of Los Angeles, grandniece of Captain Sellers. It contains entries from February, 1825, to Novem ber 22, 1862. Willis ¥/ager of New York University, at whose suggestion the Sellers log was located and examined by the present writer, is preparing for publication detailed infor mation about the journal. 124 plume "Mark Twain." The entries have to do with Mississippi River navigation data primarily, and Captain Sellers makes several claims concerning the origination of various steam- boating practices, particularly those connected with the work of the leadsman. Neither the name "Mark Twain" nor a single reference to Samuel Clemens occurs in the log. Clip pings pasted in the journal are stories written by others— newspaper reporters— in which rather routine river data, signed by I. Sellers, are included. The entries of this type of information in the log show how necessary it was for the newspapers to edit Captain Sellers’ material. The owner of the Sellers log, Mrs. Mollie Young Mueller, a descendant of the Hood branch of the Sellers fam ily tree, has in her possession the old Hood family Bible also. In this Bible, birth and death entries show that Captain Sellers was born on October 5, 1803, and died on March 6, 1864. He died of smallpox in Memphis, Tennessee. The date of his death is further authenticated by a newspaper story pasted by someone in the smaller journal. Since Cap tain Sellers did not die until 1864, Paine is in error in saying that Samuel Clemens did not adopt the nom de plume of "Mark Twain" until the captain’s death. Several items over the signature of Mark Twain were printed in Nevada and California newspapers in 1863. At any rate, Samuel Clemens did choose a pen name, and 125 as ominous as the choice may have been in his career, he seems to have borne his cross with admirable fortitude. His Carson dispatches took on new significance. He became more widely known than ever and does not seem to have shrunk from the spotlight. We have no evidence that he attempted to hide his identity as an author in that low Comstock crowdi On the contrary, he seems to have been proud of the fact that he was now attracting some real attention. Friends and ac quaintances now called him "Mark" instead of "Sam.” He was happy in his position of importance on the Enterprise. His letters home were full of gaiety, youth, inspiration, con tentment. We next hear of Mark Twain in San Francisco on one of the several trips he took to the metropolis while he was a reporter on the Enterprise. As evidence of' the fact that editorial badinage betv/een rival newspapers did not neces sarily result in personal animosity, we find that Clement T. Rice, "The Unreliable," the Virginia City Union reporter, was Mark’s companion. The blasts which Mark had set off in his Carson letters, with Rice as a target, had been followed up by others in the Enterprise, one of which offered "The Unreliable" advice on how to conduct himself in church. But they were still friends. In San Francisco they had a glorious time. Mark naturally hated to go back to Washoe just then, since the bay city offered many attractions in the way of dining, drinking, and making excursions by land and by sea. Mark records Rice’s enthusiasm: Oh, no— we are not having any fun, Mark— Oh, no, I reckon not— it’s somebody else— it’s probably the ’ ’ gentleman in the wagonl” (popular slang phrase. J ?/hen I invite Rice to the Lick House to dinner, the proprietors send us champagne and claret, and then we do put on the most disgusting airs. Rice says our calibre is too light— we can’t stand it to be noticedt25 This visit took place in the early summer of 1863, and we have remaining of the writing he did during this so journ one sketch entitled ’ ’ All About the fashions.” This sketch was dated June 19, and was sent as correspondence to "the Territorial Enterprise, files of the Enterprise of that period are not extant, but the story was reprinted in the Golden Era of September 27, 1863. The weekly runs as an introduction to the sketch a letter from a Tfashoe ”widow,” "A Lady at the Lick House,” who writes about the Lick House ball she had attended and how Mark Twain, who is such a favorite, was there. She sends the Golden Era a clipping of the Enterprise story which Mark Twain had written about the ball and sent from San Francisco. The Washoe ”widow” writes Edrs. Golden Era— We are all delighted with the letter describing the brilliant Ball at Mr. Barron’s. I am a ?/ashoe widow, was among the favored few, and went. Sarah Smith skipped me in the toilettes. I suppose I wasn’t very stunning, although Brigham & Co. said I looked ’ ’ swell,” and that Bobergh couldn’t 25 Paine, Letters, I, 91. 127 get up anything better. Some months ago when my spouse, now at Eeese Biver, first brought me down from Virginia City to stop in San Francisco, I arrived in the nick of time to attend one of those charming reunions which are all the rage in the Pacific Metropolis. We have had several soirees since that, but nobody gave any account of them to the papers. It’s too bad. Now we are eagerly looking forward to the next soiree, expecting the G-olden Era to tell all about it. One of our board ers says she knows Florence Fane, and means to invite her; but I can’t for the life of me get her to tell me the real name of your charming feuilleton ist. I hope she’ll come. And may-be Mark Twain will stay in town, to be there too. There is some talk of getting up a special gathering in compliment to him. He’s such a favorite— stops here for his health — hoping to find out how to cure a cold. I am going to wear a new dress, made precis*ely after the pattern of one of those sweet Paris Fashion Plates in the California Magazine. That Ball Dress in the May number— I think it was— I’ve kept it in my boudoir ever since. Then if Mark Twain is only there to see; how happy, how happy, I shall be. (I don’t mean that for poetry— Like what you put in the Golden Era.) (To take that license I am free— I write with such facility.) But I have not told you what I wanted. Mark Twain was at our party, last June, and sent the Territorial Enterprise an account of the affair. My husband enclosed me the paper in which it appeared. I cut it out and you can copy it. Please do. I’ve been bothered to death to let every body see it, and it’s dreadfully tattered and torn.*6 From this letter we learn that Mark Twain was on another visit to San Francisco in September, and that by the summer of 1863 he was attracting attention in the metropolis. Twain opens his June 19 letter to the Enterprise by telling of how he has just received a ’ ’ sweet little note” from the Comstock: 26 San Francisco Golden Era, September 27, 1863. 128 Virginia, June 16, Mr. Mark Twain:— Do tell us something about the fashions. I am dying to know vdiat the ladies of San Francisco are wearing. Do, now, tell us all you know about it, won’t you? Fray excuse brevity, for I am in such a hurry. Bettie. P.S. Please burn this as soon as you have read it. Mark goes on to comment on this letter. He conjectures on what he would do if he had a wife, but decides not to borrow trouble by following this line of reasoning. He assures Bettie that he appreciates the compliment she has paid his critical and observant eye and his varied and extensive in formation, which a mind less balanced than his "could scarcely contemplate without excess of vanity." He is only too glad to tell about the fashions. I will, Bettie— you better bet you bet, Betsey, my darling. I learned these expressions from the Un reliable; like all the expressions which fall from his lips, they are frightfully vulgar--but then they sound rather musical than otherwise. A happy circumstance, the Lick House ball, given by the proprietors on the occasion of Mark’s paying up his board bill, makes it possible for him to give a good account of the current fashions. Describing the fashions of the ladies at the ball, Mark writes of Mrs. B., arrayed in a superb speckled foulard, with stripes running fore and aft; of Mrs. J. B. W., who wore a "heavy rat-colored brocade silk, studded with large silver stars, and trimmed with organdie," not forgetting a "bournous of black Honiton lace, scolloped, 129 and embroidered in violent colors with a battle piece rep resenting the taking of Holland by the Dutch*1; of Miss C., who wore an elegant Cheveux de la Heine (with ruffles and furbelows trimmed with bands of guipure round the bottom), and a mohair Garibaldi shirt, whose unique head-dress was crowned with a graceful pomme de terre (Limerick French), and who had her hair done up in papers— greenbacks* Others wore similarly striking costumes* Feeling that Bettie will want to know something of the style of male attire at the ball, Mark describes his own costume, which consisted of Mr, Lawlor’s shirt, Mr. Ridgway’s vest, Dr. Wayman’s coat, Mr. Camp’s hat, Mr. Paxton’s boots, Jerry Long’s white kids, Judge Gilchrist’s cravat, the Unreliable’s brass seal-ring, and Dr. Tollroad McDonald’s pantaloons. About the last article of apparel he adds to Bettie: ’ ’ And if you have an idea that they are anyways short in the legs, do you just climb into them once, sweet ness.” Ending the letter with a few words to the editors of the Enterprise, Mark suggests that it is about time he is getting back to the Comstock: I expect I had better go home now. Well, I have been here long enough anyhow. I didn’t come down to stay always, in the first place. I don’t know of anything more here that I want to see. I might just as well go home now as not. I have been wanting to go home for a good while. I don’t see why I haven’t gone before this. They all say it is healthier up there than it is here. I believe it. I have not been very well for a week. I don’t eat enough, I expect. But 130 I would stay here just as long as I pleased though, if I wanted to. But I don’t. Well, I don’t oare— I am going home— that is the amount of it-r*and very soon, too— may be sooner. Here we have Mark Twain writing as a reporter on a roving assignment. It was what he liked best of all as a newspaper job. Definite assignments, and the writing of local items of straight news, did not appeal to him. Now we get a hint of the sort of writing he was to do in his travel letters later. Writing as a reporter-at-large, on any subject that struck his fancy, playing up the feature element and the human interest over the news angle— this is what Mark Twain preferred and what he was best fitted to do in the field of journalism. His humorous writing on fashions in the Lick House ball letter was, of course, not an original idea. Fashion writing in a humorous vein had already been done extensively by other writers. It was virtually a con stant in the reportory of western humorists. But Mark Twain had his own way of doing it, and he continued to use the same subject in additional sketches later. Returning to Virginia City and to his work on the Enterprise, Mark Twain began writing occasional letters for the San Francisco Call. The twelve letters in the series were published in the Call on the following dates: July 9, 15, 18, 23, 30, August 6, 13, 30, September 3, 19, and December 2, 11, of the year 1863. These letters deal with such subjects as shootings, the Fourth in Virginia, mining 131 news, theatricals, a judicial war, a billiard match, and an agricultural fair. In August, 1863, Mark was at Steamboat Springs, not far from Virginia City, attempting to recover from a severe bronchial cold. In a letter to his mother and sister, dated at Steamboat Springs, August 19, 1863, he complains that his mother has given his vanity a deadly thrust: Behold, I am prone to boast of having the widest rep utation, as a local editor, of any man on the Pacific coast, and you gravely come forward and tell me "if I work hard and attend closely to my business, I may aspire to a place on a big San Francisco daily, some day." There’s a comment on human vanity for youJ Why, blast it, I was under the impression that I.could get such a situation as that any time I asked for it. But I don’t want it. No paper in the United States can afford to pay me what my place on the "Enterprise" is worth. If I were not naturally a lazy, idle, good-for-nothing vagabond, I could make it pay me $20,000 a year. But I don’t suppose I shall ever be any account. I lead an easy life, though, and I don’t care a cent whether school keeps or not. Everybody knows me, and I fare like a prince wherever I go, be it on this side of the mountains or the other. And I am proud to say, I am the most conceited ass in the Territory.27 The money value which Mark Twain in this letter places on his Enterprise position no doubt is an allusion to the practice, common in the Comstock journalism of that day, of presenting newspaper reporters with "feet" in claims when they wrote notices. These gifts were presented to the reporters even when the notices were not particularly favorable; publicity 27 Paine, Letters. I, 91-92. 132 was desired, at any cost. To the period of this Steamboat Springs sojourn prob ably belongs the sketch "How to Cure a Cold," which appeared in the Golden Era on September 20, 1863, and was later in cluded in the Jumping Frog, 1867. Mark Twain and Bret Harte were not exactly twin spirits in authorship for the Golden Era of September 20, 1863. In- that issue began Harte*s longer version of M’Liss, which, under the title of "The ?/ork on Red Mountain," had been printed in the shorter form of four chapters in two installments, the first in the Golden Ira for December 9, 1860, the second on December 16, 1860. The contrast of tone in the works of the two authors is prob ably nowhere more strikingly presented than in this issue of Era. On October 11, 1863, the Golden Era pub lished another sketch by Mark Twain, entitled "The Great Prize Fight." This sketch is reprinted in Wit and Humor of America, 1907• On the Comstock Lode humor was of a vigorous, positive, elemental sort. And the staff members of the Enterprise had a particular flair for joke making. Mark Twain had not been on the staff long before his colleagues recognized in him a delightful target. He had shown that he enjoyed playing jokes at the expense of others but could never see any fun in being made the victim himself. So the battle was on. Mark’s "keen love of the ridiculous placed him in the joker 133 class, while his prompt temper, droll manner, and rare gift of invective made him an enticing victim.w^8 steve Gillis especially liked to play jokes on Mark because the result was such a rare profanity as could amaze even a citizen of the Comstock Lode, a profanity that had started with an un usually vigorous gift of phrase and had developed strength and vitality through the journeyman printer, the Eiver, and the mining days. To Mark Twain, profanity, in certain try ing circumstances, offered a relief denied even to prayer. A favorite trick of the Enterprise staff members was to arouse Mark’s wrath by hiding his candle, which he used in preference to a lamp while working. This usually re sulted in an outburst of denunciation that shook the rafters of the none-too-substantial building. Then there was the incident of the meerschaum pipe. Several versions of this affair have been given by associates of Mark Twain on the Comstock Lode. Alf Doten, who reported with Mark on the Lode, wrote an account of the meerschaum pipe party for the Nevada Magazine of October, 1899, in which he has the affair beginning with certain printers coming "into the local room where Dan and Mark were sitting at the table, busily writing.”29 But this story differs from the one told by Steve Gillis, the 28 Paine, Biography, p. 213. 2® The account is in the Nevada Magazine, October, 1899, pp. 182-184. 134 Enterprise printer who was a close friend of Mark Twainf ' s and was actually the perpetrator of the pipe joke. Steve’s account relates how Twain, returning from the Carson City assignment covering the meetings of the legislature, was grieved because other members of the staff had been presented with meerschaum pipes, but he had been neglected. Steve felt that there would be no difficulty in taking care of the sit uation. Soon the other staff members were informed of the plot to present Mark with an imitation meerschaum, the party took place late one night in the saloon under the opera house, Mark Twain made a speech of appreciation in all sin cerity, and, after the drinks had been generously quaffed, the plotters went home feeling a bit sheepish. The next day Mark found that the pipe would not color. Then came compre hension. It was a cruel joke because it had been too well planned. Probably this incident more than any other— though a fake hold-up of Mark Twain on the Comstock later during his lecture tour also greatly annoyed him— contributed to the resentment he expressed on later life against the joke- sters of the Comstock Lode. The cruelty of the pipe trick had been increased especially by the act of Dan De Quille in telling Mark in private beforehand that he was to be given a fine pipe by his friends. Mark, therefore, had worked hard on his speech. After the fine words of presentation, Mark 135 made his beautiful address of appreciation. Steve Gillis, telling of the incident to Paine, said: Sam’s reply, which was supposed to be impromptu, actually brought the tears to the eyes of some of us, and he was interrupted every other minute with applause. I never felt so sorry for anybody.30 Small wonder that Mark Twain— who admitted that he did not have a “dear and lovely disposition,” that this was a feature that had been left out of him at birth and that even at seventy he had not yet acquired it— 3^was later to write feelingly against grown-up persons who indulge in practical jokes. He felt that these v/ere persons who had lived narrow, obscure, and ignorant lives, and that they had carried over into adult life the standards and ideals of childhood. There were many practical jokers in the new Territory. I do not take pleasure in exposing this fact, for I liked those people; but what I am saying is true. I wish I could say a kindlier thing about them instead. If I could say they were burglars, or hatrack thieves, or something like that, that wouldn’t be utterly un complimentary. I would prefer it, but I can't say those things. They would not be true. These people were practical jokers, and I will not try to disguise it. In other respects they were plenty good enough people; honest people; reputable and likeable. They played practical jokes upon each other with success, and got the admiration and applause and also the envy of the rest of the community.32 30 Paine, Biography, p. 225. ^1 Mark Twain, Autobiography, p. 171. 32 Ibid.. pp. 305-306. 136 This was written when Mark Twain was seventy-one years old, and probably on one of his bad days. It does not express his usual feeling toward the old companions of the West. He had forgotten, for the moment, possibly, that he himself was one of those Comstock practical jokers, and frequently a cruel fun maker, for many years of his life, certainly, from boyhood up, he had had more than the normal person’s partici pation in perpetrating jokes that were injurious to the other fellow. And seldom had he felt the desire to be a "good sport" when the joke was on him. He liked fun, if he him self did not have to suffer. His viewpoint toward criticism is somewhat analogous. "I like criticism," he wrote, "but it must be my way.”33 Doten wrote in 1898: "It was well understood by all who knew him best that although he liked practical jokes on others, he did not seem to enjoy one upon himself.«34 But Comstock journalism was not always joking. When not otherwise occupied, the Virginia City and Gold Hill pa pers were often carrying on editorial controversies. "Argentoro," Virginia City correspondent for the San Francisco Call, wrote that the papers were fighting like cats and dogs. 33 Ibid.. p. 247. 34 Nevada Magazine. October, 1899, p. 183. Cf. also Twain’s reaction to a fake holdup and to the letter episode in Chap. IX. 137 The Enterprise and Union denounce the Bulletin as "insignificant," "contemptible," "stupid," etc., while the Bulletin retorts in like manner. A few days since the Union unequivocally charged the Bulletin with having sold itself for five hundred dollars, and boasted that it could name the parties who paid the money, and dared the Bulletin to seek redress in a suit for libel. The Union and the Bulletin, both Virginia City dailies, car ried on a long and bitter editorial battle over this matter of the alleged acceptance of money in a political campaign. There were many other similar editorial controversies in Virginia City, with Mark Twain taking an active part. Of all the writing that Mark Twain did for the Territorial Enterprise, the one story that attracted the most attention, and was remembered the longest on the Comstock, was his "Empire City Massacre." This hoax story was published in the Enterprise October 28, 1863. There are many stories in Mark Twain’s writings that will testify to the unusual delight he sometimes seems to have taken in com posing sketches of bloody violence, but the story of the massacre at Dutch Nick’s tops them all. The piece is hard to explain; probably it was just one of those things that result when a temperament has been too long restrained and the rusted safety valve finally has broken open. The story, as reprinted in the San Francisco Bulletin three days after its publication in the Enterprise, tells of how a man named Hopkins, living in a log house at the edge of a pine forest between Empire City and Dutch Nick’s with Ixis wife and nine children, went berserk and, armed with an ax, a knife, and a club, killed the mother and seven of the children, and dangerously wounded the two other children. With blood, and brains, and gore strewn about the house, Hopkins severed his wife’s head from her body and went for a horseback ride. About 10 o’clock on Monday evening Hopkins dashed into Carson on horseback, with his throat cut from ear to ear, and bearing in his hand a reeking scalp from which the warm, smoking blood was still dripping, and fell in a dying condition in front of the Magnolia saloon, Hopkins expired in the course of five minutes, without speaking. The long red hair of the scalp he bore marked it as that of Mrs, Hopkins.35 The massacre story, as published in Appendix C36 of Paine’s biography of Mark Twain, shows editing that goes beyond the customary changes made for consistency in typo graphical style. The following changes indicate the possi bility that Mark Twain did some editing of the story after its Enterprise publication:37 "we learn” for ”we have learned” 35 San Francisoo Bulletin, October 31, 1863. 36 Mark Twain, in ”My Bloody Massacre,” Sketches New and Old, adds some facts not included in Paine’s version of the massacre story or in the Bulletin reprint. Two miners, reading the story in a Virginia Cityrestaurant, are horri fied. ”Jim,” says one, ”he b’iled his baby, and he took the old ’oman’s skelp. Cuss’d if I want any breakfast.” Since there is no baby-boiling in the Bulletin reprint, and none in Paine’s version, it is safe to say that there was none in the original story. 37 A Mark Twain scrap book in the possession of the Willard S. Morse estate, Santa Monica, California, shows how Mark Twain edited his western writings for later use in the last. "visiting in Carson" for "visiting Carson"; "eyes" for "gaze” "declare" for "state"; "no one had ever heard" for "we had never heard"; "pur game" for "the game"; "invested an immense amount" for "invested to an immense amount." The Bulletin story can probably be taken as authentic, since it was printed soon after the original. The Empire City massacre story has been explained as having two objects. One, supposedly, was the punishment of the San Francisco Bulletin for its adverse criticism of mining affairs on the Comstock Lode and its suggestions that money might better be invested in California resources. The other object was to take a secondary slap at the Magnolia saloon at Carson City, a saloon which, for some reason or other, had aroused Mark’s resentment. The Magnolia dispensed a potent "forty-rod" whisky; it killed every time at that distance. This liquor was also known as "tarantula juice." "When the boys were well charged with this whisky, it made the snakes and tarantulas that bit them very sick.”3® Probably the Magnolia saloon did not suffer greatly from this publicity, and it is doubtful that the Bulletin or other California interests experienced any serious setback, although many persons, even on the Comstock Lode, took the story seriously. They overlooked the fact that Dutch Nick’s 38 Wright., op. cit., p. 40. 140 and Empire City were the same place; that there was nothing but sage brush where the story described a pine forest; that the lone bachelor living at Dutch Nicies had no family. Paine says: Even when these things were pointed out many readers at first refused to confess themselves sold. As for the Bulletin and other California papers, they were taken-in completely, and were furious. Many of them wrote and demanded the immediate discharge of its author, announcing that they would never copy another line from the Enterprise, or exchange with it, or have further relations with a paper that had Mark Twain on its staff. Citizens were mad, too, and cut off their subscriptions. The joker was in despair.39 With respect to the Bulletin* s having been taken-in, Paine is in error, as is shown by that newspaper’s reprint of the Enterprise story. A dash at the end of the Bulletin* s re print is followed by these lines: (From the "Territorial Enterprise" of 29th October) I take it all back. * * * * * * Mark Twain. Obviously the Bulletin had not been misled by the massacre hoax. The story did result in a serious predicament for the Enterprise, however, and Mark feared that he had ruined the paper. He offered to resign, but Editor Goodman would have none of this talk. He explained to'Mark that the Enterprise could furnish its readers with the day's news but it could not equip them with good sense. He predicted that the Paine, Biography, I, 230. 141 Empire City massacre story would be remembered long after other Enterprise writings of Mark Twain had been forgotten. Here, certainly, Joe Goodman was put to a severe test. Where else could Twain have enjoyed this editorial loyalty? The massacre story is not significant as an example of lit erary craftsmanship; it is a crude hoax story that could add no artistic prestige to its author. But that Mark Twain could write this crude story and still be championed by an editor of Goodman’s calibre, so that there was yet left an opportunity to go on to more worthwhile achievement, is of real significance. Being severely penalized for this piece of writing might have resulted badly for Mark Twain, though this, of course, is merely conjecture. The story did have, after all, one redeeming quality, as De Voto points out: To its coarse and bloody details and to its fantastic exaggerations was added another quality: social reproof. Mark Twain was rebuking the practices of California speculators. Social satire thus makes its appearance at the Enterprise office, completely em bedded in the native joke.40 40 De Voto, 0£. cit., p. 155. CHAPTER VI REPORTER ON THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE [NOVEMBER, 1863— MAY, 1864] With a fine opera house, plenty of money, and enthu siastic audiences awaiting attractions at Virginia City, it was natural that players who came to San Francisco should make the Comstock Lode an important stopping-place on their western circuit, Mark Twain took great delight in writing up theater news and views, and seems to have heen a regular attendant at the outstanding attractions, as he also was in San Francisco when he visited there. A high point of his enthusiasm for personalities of the stage was reached when, during the theater season of 1863-64, Adah Isaacs Menken came to Virginia City to present her Lady Godiva play, ”The Mazeppa.” She had already had a long run in San Francisco and had been given wide publicity. ”The Menken” was a glam orous star of the sixties who gained an international reputa tion through her romantic and tempestuous love affairs and her artistic genius. JTalk says of her: Strapped to the back of "Mazeppa*s” fiery steed, and attired in pink silk fleshings, ”with the small end of a dimity nothing fastened to her waist,” she earned a little hour of glory. Poetess, as well as stage- performer, she was the friend of Charles Dickens, Algernon Swinburne, George Sand, Theophile Gautier and Alexandre Dumas pere. In her train followed a motley host, from princelings to needy wits. While she lived no woman was more eagerly discussed, and, after her 143 death, more mercilessly slandered,^ The Jewish actress included in her remarkable adventures four marriages. John C. Heenan, "Benicia Boy," the prize fighter, was her second husband; Robert H. Newell (Orpheus C. Kerr), poet and dramatic critic, was her third. In San Francisco, "The Menken" had played for sixty nights, at five hundred dollars a night, at Tom Maguire’s Opera House. Praises of her performances of "The Mazeppa" echoed over the mountains to Washoe. The miners awaited her coming. Imagine their dismay, however, when, making her debut at Maguire’s new theater in Virginia City on the night of March 2, 1864, Adah chose as the play for the opening night, "The French Spy." Every seat in the house had been sold the day previous, however, as no one wanted to miss seeing the glamorous star.2 "The Mazeppa" followed, and the Washoe miners gazed in rapture, as did also the newspaper reporters: Quarrying a rude vein of local journalism, Mark Twain, the moment his eyes glimpsed the astonishing vision, fell under Menken’s spell. In Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s memorable phrase, "she was a stunner!" What should impress his youthful imagination more than this strange woman, who united rare intelligence and most glamorous personality, with ravishing loveli ness of an order rarely witnessed in those parts? . . . ^ Bernard Falk, The Naked Lady or Storm Over Adah, preface. 2 San Francisco Golden Era, March 6, 1864. 144 To speak her praises in the Virginia City Enterprise became the humorist’s solemn and chiv alrous duty. His championship of the actress ex tended to the boycott of a manager who caused her offense. A final expression of his admiration was to nominate her his Egeria. To be honored with her judgment, he broughtalong his own unripe inventions, content, like Hillel at the feet of Gamaliel, to be the recipient of her superior wis dom. More crudely than we have phrased the circum stance, Mark Twain’s own words put on record one of those engaging episodes: ”1 took it [an article] over to show to Miss Menken, the actress, Orpheus C. Kerr’s wife. She has a beautiful white hand, but her handwriting is infamous; she writes fast, and her caligraphy is of the doorplate order— her letters are immense. I gave her a conundrum, thus: ’My Hear Madam, Why ought your hand to retain its present grace and beauty always? (Answer.) Because you fool away devilish little of it on your manuscript.’”3 Other theatrical attractions occupied Mark Twain’s attention during the season of 1863-64. ”Ingomar, The Barbarian,” was presented in the opera house in the fall of 1863. Mark Twain’s connection with this play proved of more than usual significance, because his critique was copied in the East, and we have the first instance of eastern periodi cals printing the western writings of Mark Twain. The Golden Era, introducing its reprint of Mark Twain’s ’ ’Ingomar” write-up, says that during the Eall Season of Mr. Maguire’s Dramatic troupe at his new Opera House in Virginia City, the Territorial Enterprise has indulged its readers with 3 Ealk, op. cit., pp. 67-68. 145 an extraordinary succession of humorous, pungent and peculiar critiques*4 Writing up "Ingomar" in a fashion which he felt the Comstock miners could appreciate, Twain presented a resume of the play in the columns of the Enterprise. Mrs. Claughley is described as t f a healthy Greek matron (from Limerick),” who urges her daughter to marry Polydor to save the family homestead from the sheriff. Polydor, a "wealthy, spindle-shanked, stingy old stockbroker," is refused by the Greek maiden, who speaks without a foreign accent. The Comanches capture Parthenia’s father and hold him in "soak." Parthenia appeals to Polydor, who advises her to "shove out after" her parent. "She shoves!" Tableau of Comanche camp shows the Indians throwing dice, Parthenia’s father, now a slave, "packing faggots on a jack." Parthenia becomes a hostage in place of her father. She falls in love with Ingomar. "The Comanches again, with Thorne at their head! He asks who enslaved the Chief? Ingomar points to Polydor. Lo! Thorne seizes the trembling broker, and snatches him bald-headed!" The chief of police makes a treaty with the Comanches, and gives them a ranch apiece. Grand tableau of Comanches, police, Pi-Utes, and citizens generally. Ingomar and Parthenia in a love scene. "The old thing."5 ^ San Prancisco Golden Era, November 29, 1863. 5 Ibid., November 29, 1863. 146 In this "Ingomar” review, Mark Twain shows a breaking away from the cruder humor that was in evidence in earlier burlesque writings. Gradually he came to depend more and more on cleverness rather than coarseness. The critique, besides being reprinted in the West, found its way into the columns of a monthly magazine in the East, Yankee Notions. In its April, 1864, number, under the heading, ”The Flay of Ingomar in California,” Yankee Notions introduces its reprint of the burlesque review with these words: The following is a resume of the well-known play of "Ingomar,” made by Mark Twain, of the Virginia (N. T.) Territorial Enterprise. We miss a figure if anything more thoroughly drollhas been perpetrated in many a long year. The company playing at the Virginia City theatre, was the one from Maguire’s Opera house, San Francisco, and the persons alluded to are of course the actors of that company.6 An event of significance in the western development of Mark Twain occurred when Art emus ?/ard [Charles F. Browne] came to Virginia City in December, 1863. There was money on the Comstock Lode, and the town had a fine opera house and enthusiastic audiences. Ward came with the intention of lecturing for a few days, but he remained to play, and his visit lasted three weeks. The reason: there was also com- radery on the Comstock. Previous to Ward’s coming, Mark Twain wrote a notice for the Territorial Enterprise, in which he welcomed to 6 Yankee Notions, April, 1864. 147 Washoe the "Wild Humorist of the Plains": We understand that Artemus Ward contemplates visit ing this region to deliver his lectures, and perhaps make some additions to his big "sho." In his last letter to us he appeared particularly anxious to "sekure a kupple ov horned todes; alsowe, a lizard which it may be persessed of 2 tales, or any komical snaix, and enny sich little unconsidered trifles, as the poets say, which they do not interest the kommun mind. Further, be it nown, that I would like a opportunity for to maik a moddel in wax of a average size wash-owe man, with feet attached, as an kompan- ion pictur to a waxen figger of a nigger I have sekured, at an large outlaye, whitch it has a un natural big hed onto it. Could you alsowe manage to gobbel up the skulp of the layte Missus Hoppins? I adore sich foot-prints of atrocity as it were, muchly. I was roominatin on gittin a bust of mark Twain, but I’ve kwit kontemplatin the work. They tell me down heer too the Ba that the busts air so kommon it wood ony bee an waist of wax too git un kounterfit pre sentiment." We shall assist Mr. ¥/ard in every possible way about making his Washoe collection and have no doubt but he will pick up many curious things during his sojourn.7 The reference to the "skulp of the layte Missus Hoppins" in Ward’s letter indicates that the Empire City mas sacre story of October 28 had been generally spread around on the Pacific Coast. The strained effect of Ward’s humor, depending so greatly on misspelling, is a hint of the impasse Mark Twain might have come to if he had not abandoned the Snodgrass style of humor when he came West. As a lecturer in that day, however, Artemus Ward was immensely popular. ¥Oien he came to the Comstock Lode he was ^ San Francisco Golden Era, November 29, 1863. Re printed from the Territorial Enterprise. 148 at the peak of his career. Dan De Quille, writing later of Ward’s visit, said that the humorist was then in fine health and spirits. Everything he saw called forth a joke or a quaint saying. His drollery was without effort. His fun like the qual ity of mercy was not strained. It was natural to him to see the comical side of everything. He teemed with waggery which on the slightest provocation ex panded into a surprising flow of facetiousness— into a merry, sportive string of pleasantry. There was nothing malicious in his fun.8 Y/hatever may have been their estimate of the man in other respects, the members of the Enterprise staff found that Artemus Yfard had "the gift of friendship. Something in his gentle madness excused the labor of his witticisms and the odium of his practical jokes. He made men glow." To Joe Goodman, Dan De Quille, and Mark Twain he became a brother in the fraternity of the Comstock. The four of them, with Denis McCarthy and I. E. Hingston, Ward’s manager, painted Virginia City; the job required three weeks. The mines, Chinatown, the bars, and the restaurants were their workshops; they mixed the colors of the rainbow in a riot of fun. Dining at Chaumond’s restaurant, the company arose for a toast in which Ward gave them Upper Canada. Joe Goodman wanted to know why he was giving away Upper Canada. "Because I don’t want it myself," replied Ward. Joe Goodman had a joke, but he kept it until daybreak, when the dinner ended. 8 California Illustrated Magazine, August, 1893, p. 149 It was the bill for the dinner— two hundred and thirty-seven dollars. ?/ard saw the joke, paid the bill. The fun was still not over. Artemus and Mark went roof-walking, and had a gay time jumping from one roof down to the other, which was not difficult even for a couple of heavy banqueteers, since Virginia was built on a steep hillside. Another gay session ended in a private party for Artemus Ward. He writes of it in a letter from Austin, Nevada, after he has left the Comstock: Why did you not go with me and save me that night? — I mean the night I left you after that dinner party. I went and got drunker, beating, I may say, Alexander the Great, in his most drinkinist days, and I blackened my face at the Melodeon, and made a gib bering, idiotic speech. God-dam itl I suppose the Union will have it. . . . Some of the finest intel lects in the world have been blunted by liquor.10 The two great personalities of Artemus Ward and Mark Twain complemented each other during those memorable three weeks in that frontier mining town. There resulted a rising tide of humor that could hardly be matched in the world today. Mark Twain had awakened to a fuller power; Artemus Ward was in his prime. They were giants of a race that became extinct when Mark Twain died. The youth, the wine, the whirl of lights and life, the tumult of the shouting street— it was as if an electric stream of inspiration poured into those two human dynamos and sent them into a dazzling, scintillating whirl. All gone— as evanescent, as for gotten, as the lightnings of that vanished time; out of the vast feasting and entertainment only a trifling morsel remains.11 10 Paine, Mark Twain* s Letters, I, 93-94. 11 Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, I, 240-241. 151 for children was printed. It is not extant. There is no doubt, however, that Ward had aroused in Twain a desire to be known beyond Washoe and the Pacific Coast. In a letter to his mother* early in 1864, Mark writes that he was sometimes throwing off pearls which ought f , for the eternal welfare" of his race to have a "more extensive circulation than is af forded by a local daily paper" and that ¥/ard had suggested that he leave the sage-brush obscurity and accompany Ward to New York. Mark, however, had preferred not to burst too suddenly upon the New York public, and had decided to remain in ?/ashoe.!3 desire for a wider field of authorship was now definitely in Mark Twain*s mind. It would not be long before he would leave Washoe for a more extensive sphere of activity. On January 12, 1864, the two houses of the Nevada territorial legislature convened at Carson City. It was to be the last gathering of this body as a group representing a territory, since Nevada became a state on October 31, 1864. Mark Twain was again sent by the Territorial Enterprise to report the legislative sessions. This second Carson City assignment is of great significance in Mark Twain’s career, for he becomes during this reporting period a really impor tant figure in public affairs. Now, his writings, although 13 Paine, Biography, I, 243-244. 152 mostly still in a humorous vein, carry weight with the readers. There is almost invariably to be found in them some element of political or social criticism. His satire and irony are now being directed toward problems that are of some real importance in the life of the community. His work on the Enterprise had been attracting general attention by the time he went to the legislative sessions for the sec ond time, but probably nothing he wrote had been considered more than a humorous treatment of unimportant subjects, or rather unimportant feature writing of news around the Comstock Lode* Now, in Carson City, his humor became more substantial writing, more thought provoking, less ephemeral, and much less coarse than some of his previous writings. No doubt, the fact that he felt that he now had some real in fluence in public affairs had much to do with the change in style, tone, and content of his articles. He wrote later of the influence he enjoyed, as contrasted with that of his brother Orion: Orion was soon very popular with the members of the legislature, because they found that whereas they couldn’t usually trust each other, nor anybody else, they could trust him. He easily held the belt for honesty in that country, but it didn’t do him any good in a pecuniary way, because he had no talent for either persuading or scaring legislators. But I was differently situated. I was there every day in the legislature to distribute compliments and censure with evenly balanced justice and spread the same over half a page of the Enterprise every morning; conse quently I was an influence. i-4 ^ Mark Twain, Autobiography, II, 307-308. Writing of the affairs of the legislature and mingling with those who had been sent to represent various sections of the territory at the.capital city, Twain became a respected and influential figure in the political life of the territory* Members of the legislature hoped for his commendation, feared his ridicule* He became such a power that, with his friends, Simmons and Clagget, he could control a large number of votes, and could wield a great influence in the passing or rejection of bills.15 His popularity was so great that when a burlesque "Third House" was organized, he was chosen "Governor." The first session was made a public occasion, and "Governor" Mark Twain delivered an address, not extant. On this occasion he was presented with a gold watch, inscribed with his name and title, by Judge A. W. (Sandy) Baldwin and Theodore Winters. A forceful writer representing a powerful journal was an in dividual to be reckoned with. That he was fearless, merciless, and incorruptible, without doubt had a salutary influence on that legis lative session, [says Paine]. He reveled in his power; but it is not recorded that he ever abused it.1^ The only legislative activity in which he indulged that could possibly have had a direct personal interest to him was a bill that increased his brother’s fees in connection with his work as territorial secretary. This bill, which Mark was 15 Paine, Biography, I, £44 ff 16 Ibid., p. £44. successful in having passed, required every corporation doing business in the territory to record the full text of its charter with the secretary of the territory. The bill was entirely justified. Mark Twain kept an eagle eye on the doings of the leg islature. Members were conscious of his discerning attention whenever a bad move, in his estimation, was made, there was bound to be publicity. If a bad law was passed, Mark rushed to print with a denunciation of skullduggery; if a good law cleared up a previously bad situation, he frequently had more than a casual word to say about the matter. When the legis lature passed a law restricting the number of notaries public in the territory, Mark wrote a satirical sketch on conditions with respect to notaries up to that time. The sketch, en titled "Concerning Notaries," appeared in the Enterprise early in the year, 1864, and was reprinted in the Golden Era on February 28, 1864. "Concerning Notaries" is a vast im provement over any previous western writing of Mark Twain that is extant. There is more real humor without the coarse ness of previous sketches.. It is far removed from such strained effects as the Empire City massacre story. It is more rounded out, more complete, more convincing, more enter taining than earlier attempts. It still employs exaggeration but in a pleasing, effective manner. It employs irony in a way that predicted the successful use of this device in later 155 writings. Reprinting the sketch on notaries, the Golden Era refers to Mark Twain as the "wild humorist of the Sage Brush Hills” who writes to the Territorial Enterprise from Carson City, "telling all about the Legislature, Governor Nye, and the rest of mankind at Nevada1s Capital."17 The Carson City letters of Mark Twain were obviously attracting more than a casual interest on the Pacific Coast, And the reference to Mark as the "wild humorist of the Sage Brush Hills" indicates that the western newspapers were looking to Mark Twain as a possible equal of Artemus Ward, who had not long before been on his western lecture tour. As reprinted in the Golden Era, the sketch on notaries opens with Mark being amazed at an occurrence in Carson City: A strange, strange thing occurred here yesterday, to wit’ : A MAN APPLIED FOR A NOTARY*S COMMISSION. Think of it. Ponder over it. He wanted a notarial commission— he said so himself. He was from Storey county. He brought his little commission along with him. He brought it on two stages. It is voluminous. The County Surveyor is chaining it off. Three shifts of clerks will be employed night and day on it, de cyphering the signatures and testing their genuineness. They began unrolling the petition at noon, and people of strong mining proclivities began locating claims on it. We are too late, you know. But then they say the extensions are just as good as the original. I believe you. 17 Golden Era, February 28, 1864. 156 After writing this much, Mark presumably goes out to investi gate, and finds that his news wasn’t so sensational, after all, as there are already seventeen hundred and forty-two applications for notaryships on file in the governor’s office. "There are also as much as eleven cords of petitions stacked up in his back yard. A watchman stands guard over this com bustible material— the back yard is not insured." Mark goes out to investigate some more, and runs into a "seedy, ornery, ratty, hang-dog-looking stranger" named Billson, who insists he has been yearning to meet Mark. He said UD— n it,*old Quill-driver, you must come and take a drink with me;" and says I, "D— n it, old Vermin-ranch, I’ll do it." (I had him there.) We took a drink, and he told the bar-keeper to charge it. After which, he opened a well-filled carpet-sack and took out a shirt-collar and a petition. He then threw the empty carpet sack aside and unrolled several yards of the petition— "just for a starter," he said. "Now," says he, "Mark, have you got a good deal of influence with Governor Nye?" "Unbounded," says I, with honest pride; "when I go -and use my influence with Governor Nye, and tell him it will be a great personal favor to me if he will do so and so, he always says it will be a real pleasure to him— that if it were any other man — any other man in the world— but seeing it’s me, he won’t." Mr. Billson then remarked that I was the very man; he wanted a little notarial appointment, and he would like me to mention it to the Governor. I said I would, and turned away, resolved to damn young Billson’s official aspirations with a mild dose of my influence. Ten steps farther on, Mark meets a cordial, travel- stained individual who shakes hands so enthusiastically in greeting that Mark has to straighten his mashed knuckle joints back into place. It is Borias, from ?/ashoe, good old 157 Borias. They gobble cocktails in the nearest saloon, Borias mentions, just incidentally, that he wants a notaryship, and wonders if Mark can’t help along a little. Next comes J. Bidleeome Dusenberry of Esmeralda, for merly of the city of New York,, He observes casually that he has a petition. And there is Chief Justice Turner, and William Stewart, and Sandy Baldwin, and scores of others, with pack trains and wagons loaded with petitions, Mark continues down the street, examining the petition of every man he meets. It becomes a monomania with him. Finally, he stumbles upon a ’ ’ pensive, travel-worn stranger, leaning against an awning-post.” Mark is curious. I went up and looked at him. He looked at me. I looked at him again, and again he looked at me. I bent my gaze upon him once more, and says I, ”Well?” He looked at me very hard, and says he ”Well— well what?” Says I, t f Well— I would like to examine your petition, if you please.” He looked very much aston ished— I may say amazed. When he had recovered his presence of mind, he says, ’ ’ What the devil do you mean?” I explained to him that I only wanted to glance over his petition for a notaryship. He said he believed I was a lunatic— he didn’t like the un healthy light in my eye, and he didn’t want me to come any closer to him. Mark explains the situation, and the two become friend ly. The stranger swears that he has just arrived in Carson City, and doesn’t want any notaryship. Mark feels that it is his turn to treat, by thunder. They enter a deserted saloon and drink up its contents. We lay upon a billiard table in a torpid condition for several minutes, but at last my exile rose up and 158 muttered in a sepulchral voice, "I feel it— 0 Heavens, I feel it in my veins!" "Feel what?" says I, alarmed. ”1 feel--0 me sainted mother! I feel— feel— a hanker ing to be a Notary Public!" And he tore down several yards of wall-paper, and fell to writing a petition on it. Poor devil— he had got it at last, and got it * bad. I was seized with the fatal distemper a moment afterward. I wrote a petition with frantic haste, appended a copy of the Directory of Nevada Territory to it, and we fled down the deserted streets to the Governor’s office. But I must draw the curtain upon these harrowing scenes— the very memory of them scorches my brain. Ah, this Legislature has much to answer for in cutting down the number of Notaries Public in this Territory, with their infernal new law. Mark Twain’s writings during this session of the ter ritorial legislature gave him more favorable publicity than anything he had done previously. He was recognized now as being capable of writing more than merely coarse burlesques. He had developed a certain repression in his articles; he was experiencing for the first time the effectiveness of social satire; he was prepared to develop the new vein he had discovered in his Carson City prospecting. When he re turned to Virginia City his position as a character of impor tance was so well established that he and Dan De Quille could safely indulge in personal badinage in the Enterprise without the danger of boring the readers. On May 1, 1864, the Golden Era remarks that "recent issues of the Territorial Enterprise give the particulars of a series of terrible calamities that have befallen two of the literary celebrities of Silver Land." Under the heading "’Mark Twain’ and ’Dan De Q,uille,’ Hors de 159 Combat” the Golden Era reprints the playful controversy be tween the two Enterprise writers. Mark writes of a disas trous accident to his confrere and roommate, and describes the torn and mutilated body of Dan, that is, what was left of him after he was thrown from a horse. He adds, however, that Dan ”is recovering fast', and what is left of him will *| Q be around the breweries again to-day, just as usual.f,xo Dan comes back in kind, describing what happened to Mark’s nose, when that gentleman took a lesson in the manly art. The next development of significance in connection with Mark Twain’s work on the staff of the Territorial Enter prise was to be the last of his writing activities on the Comstock Lode. With startling suddenness he was engaged in an editorial controversy with a rival Virginia City news paper. Within a few weeks, the editorial fight flared up, a duel was arranged, a warrant was signed, and Mark Twain was leaving the scene of his first two years as a writer on the frontier. An array of varied stories has been told about Mark Twain’s Comstock duel. Taking their lead from Twain himself, many narrators have allowed their imaginations to run riot, although, with respect to the duel incident, Mark was strange ly silent in later years. He leaves the story out of Houghing TO Golden Era, May 1, 1864. 160 It, where his version might very well have been given. Prob ably the newspaper files of the time are the best authority for the details of Twain’s last editorial controversy on the Comstock Lode.' One thing is certain: the controversy in volved the "Flour Sack Sanitary Fund,” which was being col lected on the Comstock for the relief of wounded Union soldiers. The first meeting in Virginia City for the "Sanitary Fund" was announced by the Virginia City Union: To-day, at 2 o’clock, the long deferred mammoth Sanitary meeting will be held at the Opera House. The announcement alone ought to fill the house, but when it is remembered that sweet singers, eloquent orators, pretty ladies, and a fine brass band will be in attendance, who can stay away? Turn out for the honor of Nevada1 Turn out for the sake of loyalty and humanity. Listen to the cry of suffer ing from our wounded thousands on the road to Richmond,* and fill the building with an eager throng of humane, generous-hearted givers. In an article on the following day, the Union told of the enthusiastic response of the people of Virginia City to the fund, but condemned the mining companies for not being more generous in their donations. The contributions of yesterday, [said the Union], were, with a few honorable exceptions, made by the miners, merchants, mechanics and professional men of Nevada. The great companies, which could easily have afforded to donate a quarter of a million from their coffers, were generally most shamefully in different. 20 19 Virginia City Union, May 15, 1864. 20 Ibid., May 17, 1864. 161 But what led to serious trouble for Twain was a dispute, be tween the Union21 and the Enterprise, concerning newspaper workers* donations to the fund, Joseph Goodman was away from Virginia City at the time, and Twain was in charge of the Enterprise. The ensuing trouble reminds one of the editorial controversy in which Samuel Clemens had engaged while his brother was away on a Tennessee trip, back in the Hannibal days. Now, on the Comstock, Mark Twain was experi enced in newspaper warfare, and the strife assumed major proportions in a very short time. Files of the Enterprise of that time not being extant, we turn to other newspapers for reprints of Mark Twain's editorials and for the Union*s editorials. Following up editorials in the Enterprise, the Union, thoroughly aroused, replied, under the heading, "The 'How Is It' Issue": When last the Sanitary Commission called for aid, the publishers and employes of the Virginia Daily Union unostentatiously united with their generous fellow citizens and contributed the sum of five hundred and fifteen dollars.22 have paid that sum in gold to the Treasurer of the Sanitary Fund for Storey county. The Territorial Enterprise news paper has only pretended to contribute. It has paid nothing of the contributions which it, with great self-show, promised— always in the presence of a crowd. This sort of showing off was not sufficient in itself. The Enterprise must contemptibly boast of its liberality over the Union, and, in the most unmanly manner, carry its unwarrantable assertions 21 Not the Chronicle, as Paine records. 22 Tfie editor was mistaken as to the amount, which should have been three hundred and fifteen dollars, as shown by other references. 162 so far as to say that the gentlemen in the employ of the Union would not pay their subscriptions. We showed the utter and unprecedented meanness of the Enterprise in this instance, and that paper yesterday returned a string of despicable stuff knotted so full of lies that there was not left a space sufficient for the smallest thread of truth. Never before, in a long period of newspaper intercourse— never before in any contact with a contemporary, however unprincipled he might have been, have we found an opponent in state ment or in discussion, who had no gentlemanly sense of professional propriety, who conveyed in every word, and in every purpose of all his words, such a grovel ing disregard for truth, decency and courtesy, as to seem to court the distinction only of being understood as a vulgar liar. Meeting one who prefers falsehood; whose instincts are all toward falsehood; whose thought is falsification; whose aim is vilification through insincere professions of honesty; one whose only merit is thus described, and who evidently de sires to be thus known, the obstacles presented are entirely insurmountable, and whoever would touch them fully, should expect to be abominably defiled. This is the opinion that James L. Laird, editor of the Union, had of Mark Twain. In the same issue of the Union in which this editorial by Laird appeared there was published a communication, signed "Printer," in which employes of the Union took Twain to task: "How It Is.” Virginia Daily Union:— The editor of the Daily Enterprise has, during the last two days, in his anxiety to injure a cotemporary, seen fit to place before the public in a false light, and slander in a cowardly manner the printers of this city. We refer to his misrepresentation of the circumstance attending our donation to the Sanitary Fund. We wish it distinctly understood that we have no sym pathy whatever in any issue between the proprietors of the Union and Enterprise. Nor do we entertain any Virginia City Union, May 21, 1864. 163 feeling of rivalry toward our fellow-craftsmen employed on that paper. We consider that what redounds to our credit is equally due to them. The editor of the Enterprise has asserted that but for his promptings, the employes of the Union would never have paid their last contribution. In this he wilfully lies. The employes of the Union were in no way instigated to make the donation by their employers, and never contemplated repudiating it. Thursday morning’s Union gave a full list of the men who had donated the money, and the receipt of Mr. Black, Secretary of the Sanitary Eund, attesting that it ($315} had been paid. This should have removed all doubts, if any existed, as to who were the donors. Why does not the editor of the Enterprise accuse Mr. George E. Jones, Mr. De Long and many other prominent citizens who subscribed repeatedly during the evening, of being influenced to do so by a spirit of rivalry toward his establishment? We can only view his blackguardism as an attack upon members of our craft. In asserting that we "had not intended to pay the bill, but on secondary consideration, and for the sake of saving an entirely imaginary reputa tion for virtue and honesty, concluded to do so,” he has endeavored to misinterpret the generous, patriotic promptings of laboring men who gave their little mite willingly; and in so doing he has proved himself an unmitigated liar, a poltroon and a puppy. Printer.24 This is the opinion that the Daily Union printers had of Mark Twain. The communication had been prepared by J. Wilmington, a member of the Union’s printing force. Mark Twain immediately took personal offense at the two items in ' t^ ie Union. There was an exchange of personal notes between the editors. In reprinting these notes, the Sacramento Union observed that sharp notes had been appearing in the Enterprise, between Samuel Clemens, of that paper, and J. W. Wilmington and James Laird, of the Union office, on 24 1864 164 account of the appearance in the latter journal of two articles which reflected somewhat severely on Clemens. Clemens demanded of Laird, one of the publishers of the Union, a retraction of, or satis faction for, the alleged insults.25 Evidently Mark Twain had'waited no time in sending a sharp note to Laird of the Union. since Wilmington, accord ing to the Sacramento paper’s reprint, replied as follows: Office of the Virginia Daily Union. Virginia, May 21, 1864. Samuel Clemens: James Laird has just handed me your note of this date. Permit me to say that I am the author of the article appearing in this morning’s Union. I am responsible for it. I have nothing to retract. Respectfully, J. W. Ysfilmington.^6 Twain replied by sending another note to Laird, in which he accused Laird of shirking responsibility. Laird sent a note, then, upholding ?/ilmington, who, he said, was formerly one of the proprietors of the Cincinnati Enquirer and, as captain of a company in the Sixth Ohio regiment, had fought at Shiloh. He insisted that Mark must meet on the field of honor with Wilmington. The "liar, poltroon and puppy” designation of Wilmington’s note was mentioned twice in this note by Laird. To this, Mark replied that he had objected even more to Laird’s editorial than he had to Wilmington's communication. "In the meantine,” he wrote to Laird, ”If you do not wish Sacramento Union, May 26, 1864. 26 Loc. cit. 165 yourself posted as a coward, you will at once accept my peremptory challenge, which I now reiterate.” Another note from Laird resulted in the following from Mark Twain: I denounce Laird as an unmitigated liar, because he says I published an editorial in which I attacked the printers employed on the Union, whereas there is nothing in that editorial which can be so construed. Moreover, he is a liar on general principles, and from natural instinct. I denounce him as an abject coward, because it has been stated in his paper that its proprietors are responsible for all articles ap pearing in its columns, yet he backs down from that position; because he acknowledges the "code,” but will not live up to it; because he says himself that he is responsible for all "editorials,” and then backs down from that also; and because he insults me in his note marked "17,” and yet refuses to fight me. Finally, he is a fool, because he cannot understand that a publisher is bound to stand responsible for any and all articles printed by him, whether he wants to do it or not. Sam. L. Clemens. 2^ At the end of its column of reprints of the Clemens-Laird notes, the Sacramento Union adds: "There was no fighting at last accounts.”28 Two days later, the San Francisco Call, under the heading, "The Duello in Virginia,” reviews the Clemens-Laird notes and adds this comment: It is well, perhaps, that only ink instead of blood has been shed in this affair, but it would have ap peared better if neither had been spilt. The day has gone by when duels can give any man credit for bravery or honor, wisdom or truth; and to call people fools, cowards, poltroons, liars, puppies, and other flattering names, does not make them so, nor prove them so. It simply shows that passion and not good 27 » May 26, 1864. 28 Sacramento Union. May 26, 1864. 166 sense has been for a time the master.29 In addition to the controversy that Mark Twain had stirred up with the Union, there arose another with the ladies of Carson City. The subject concerned v/as the matter of disposition of certain money collected by the ladies for the "Sanitary Fund." An editorial of Mark Twain’s, published in the Enterprise on May 18,30 had aroused the ire of the Carson ladies. They sent a note to the Enterprise, which made no mention of it. The note was then sent to the Union and v/as printed in the rival paper: Carson City, May 18th, 1864. Editors of the Enterprise: In your issue of yester day, you state "that the reason the Flour Sack was not taken from Dayton to Carson, was because it was stated that the money raised at the Sanitary Fancy Dress Ball, recently held in Carson for the St. Louis Fair, had been diverted from its legitimate course, and was to be sent to aid a Miscegenation Society somewhere in the East; and it was feared the proceeds of the sack might be similarly disposed of." You apparently mol lify the statement by saying *"that it was a hoax, but not all a hoax, for an effort is being made to divert those funds from their proper course." In behalf of the ladies who originated and assisted in carrying out the programme, let us say that the v/hole statement is a tissue of falsehoods, made for malicious purposes, and we demand the name of the author.. T?he ball was gotten up in aid of the Sanitary Commission, and not for the St. Louis Fair. At a meeting of the ladies, held in this city last week, no decision was arrived at as to whether the proceeds of the ball should be sent to St. Louis or New York, but one thing was decided, that they should go to the aid of the sick and 29 San Francisco Call, May 28, 1864. 30 This is the date given in a note to the Union; May 17 is indicated in the letter below. 167 wounded soldiers, who are fighting the battles of our country, and for no other purpose. . . . the ladies having the matler’ Tn charge, consider themselves cap able of deciding as to what shall be done with the money, without the aid of outsiders, who are probably desirous of acquiring some glory by appropriating the efforts of the ladies to themselves. Mrs. W. K. Cutler, President. Mrs. H. P. Rice, Vice President. Mrs. 8. D. King, Treasurer. Mrs. H. H. Ross, Sec'y. Ban. Ball.31 By this time Mark Twain was in trouble both in Virginia City and in Carson City. He had been too hasty in his editor ial comments. While his battle with the Union was going on he received the note from the Carson City ladies, and was un willing to apologize to them at that particular time because of the possible embarrassment to himself. He learned, how ever, that Mrs. Orion Clemens was being snubbed by the ladies of Carson; so he wrote a letter to Mrs. Cutler, in which he explained his difficulty with the Union and how he had been prevented from publishing an apology for the Carson editorial. He added: But my chief object, Mrs. Cutler, in writing you this note (and you will pardon the liberty I have taken), was to thank you very kindly and sincerely for the consideration you have shown me in this matter, and for your continued friendship for Mollie while others are disposed to withdraw theirs on account of a fault for which I alone am responsible.32 The Laird-Clemens duel never did materialize, despite 31 Virginia City Union, May 27, 1864. 32 Paine, Letters, I, 98. 168 the many stories told of that duel in later years, by Mark Twain, Steve Gillis, and numerous others. However, there was still trouble enough. A new law had been passed in Nevada, making it a felony even to send or to accept a chal lenge to a duel. Faced with the threat of arrest and im prisonment, Twain, accompanied by Steve Gillis, left for San Francisco at the end of May, 1864. Paine says: So ended Mark Twain’s career on the Comstock. He had come to it a weary pilgrim, discouraged and unknown; he was leaving it with a new name and fame— elate, triumphant, even if a fugitive.33 The members of the Enterprise staff were sorry to see Mark go, and there is reason to believe that the population generally on the Comstock Lode was also sorry. Rival news papers on the Lode, having felt the sting of Twain’s satire, were not emotionally overcome. The Union was silent concern ing his departure. The Gold Hill News, a mile away from Virginia City, having ridiculed the Laird-Clemens controversy in several editorials, had this to say, among other things, after Twain had left the Comstock: Is it necessary to say that we allude to the lamented Twain? That loved and lost journalist, tortured by a demand for ”news” when it was not, did manufacture some that he fondly believed would satisfy the public craving. He filled the pine forest at Butch Nick’s with the ghastly corpses of the Hopkins family, and sprinkled the road to Carson with gore from the Ver million scalp of the apocryphal mother of those myth ical slain. That ’ ’ news” satisfied the greedy mind 33 Paine, Biography, p. 252. 169 of the public, and it stared itself out of countenance in frozen horror for a few brief hours, and was con tent. But mark the sequel: the indignation of the non-manufacturer and the diabolical damnation of the deceived. The fate of that unhappy man is ever before us, and warns us to avoid the rock upon which he split whenever we are asked f , What*s the n e w s ? "54 Even without the editorial troubles of May, 1864, Mark Twain would not have remained on the Comstock Lode in definitely. He had become interested in wider fields, and although he might have gone less precipitately under dif ferent circumstance, there is no reason to believe that he would not soon have been going out to seek better literary contacts and opportunities. However, the two years on the Comstock Lode as a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise had definitely contributed to Mark Twain*s development as a writer. Erom the very beginning of his connection with the Enterprise, the newspaper-had given him virtually a free rein. It would be difficult, probably, to think of any other paper as influential and well known as the Enterprise that would have given him similar freedom. Of course, this freedom was in some respects harmful. Twain wrote sometimes with too little restraint; there was frequently a coarseness or an overzealousness that needed toning down. But this v/as not serious, and the good points of the sort of position he enjoyed on the Enterprise outnumbered, the bad points. Hill Daily News, June 8, 1864. 170 On the Enterprise, Mark Twain first took up writing as a career. On the Enterprise, he-adopted-the pen name that was to become famous the world over. On the Enterprise, he first attracted a reading public beyond his own locality, his work gaining the notice even of eastern publications. Before coming to the Comstock Lode, Samuel Clemens had served three apprenticeships, with none of them resulting in the choice of a life work. When Mark Twain left the Comstock Lode, he had served his final apprenticeship; he had made writing his career. CHAPTER VII BOHEMIA AND JACKASS HILL It required no apology on the part of Mark Twain for him to enter easily into the literary company of San Francisco* s Bohemia late in May, 1864. His work as a writer on the Territorial Enterprise had given him wide notoriety, and in previous visits to San Francisco he had been treated as a celebrity. His popularity during these visits as a reporter for the Enterprise had been attested in a letter (previously quoted) from "A Lady at the Lick House,” who wrote to the Golden Era about the writer from Washoe: And maybe Mark Twain will stay in town, to be there too. There is some talk of getting up a special gathering in compliment to him. He*s such a favorite — stops here for his health— hoping to find out how to cure a cold.l Twain had a wide acquaintance in San Francisco and had a good comprehension of its reputation as a literary center when he came there in May, 1864. With his companion, Steve Gillis, Mark settled down, temporarily, to a steady job. Gillis took a job as composi tor on the Morning Call when Mark joined the staff of the paper as a reporter. The two young men lived together, going from one lodging to another with great frequency. By the 1 San Francisco Golden Era, September 27, 1863. 172 time they had been in San Francisoo four months they had changed their lodgings five times and their hotel twice. From the first, it appears, Twain was dissatisfied with his position on the Gall. The contrast with the Enterprise was too much for him. Under Joseph T. Goodman, and in association with other brilliant journalists in Virginia City, he had enjoyed a literary freedom that he could never hope to command in the metropolitan journalism of San Francisco. On the Enterprise he had been a free spirit; he could free-lance to his heart’s content. On the Gall he was merely another staff member, and as such was com pelled to follow the rules of the paper, particularly where the politics of the Gall were concerned. In this uncongenial atmosphere, Twain’s literary ability was cramped, at least with respect to his contribu tions to the Call. It was a steady, regular job— too steady and too regular for the adventurous, free soul of Mark Twain, f i f e have no way of knowing how much he wrote for the Call during the time he was on its staff; of the several severely critical articles he is said to have written only one seems to have appeared in that newspaper.2 Previously, while he was a reporter for the Enterprise, he had sent several arti cles to the Call, and these were published, evidently not 2 Paine, Biography, I, 258. 173 being in opposition to the policies of the paper. Now, as a staff member, writing about local affairs, he found himself unable to write the sort of thing his newspaper wanted. In San Francisco, Mark Twain’s humor became more and more impregnated with social reproof, and the Call felt no particular obligation to publish this kind of copy. How ever, one item did achieve publication, probably because the Call’s vanity had been hurt. It was a sharp denunciation of an undertaker whose establishment was conducted as a branch of the coroner’s office. Writing to his mother and sister on September 25, 1864, Twain told of his controversy with the coroner’s deputy: I have triumphed. They refused me and other reporters some information at a branch of the Coroner’s office— Massey’s undertaker establishment, a few weeks ago. I published the wickedest article on them I ever wrote in my life, and you can rest assured we got all the information we wanted after that.3 As a practical joke, someone had made a false entry on the information slate kept at the shop. The Alta, Bulletin, and Flag published the misleading item, and, upon discovering its falsity, rebuked the coroner’s deputy for allowing the item to go to the newspapers. The undertaker thereupon re moved the slate from his office and refused further informa tion to reporters. In his article, captioned ”A Small Piece 3 Paine, Letters, I, 100. 174 of Spite,” Twain severely criticized Coroner Sheldon and his assistants for denying to the public this vital information. He felt that the people would not see the propriety of the coroner’s hiding the affairs of his office from them, ”in order that the small-potato malice of his employes against two or three newspaper reporters may be gratified.” As for the employes, he was distrustful of them: You see the dead-cart leaving the place, and ask one of them where it is bound, and without looking up from his newspaper, he grunts, lazily, and says “Stiff,” meaning that it is going in quest of the corpse of some poor creature whose earthly troubles are over. You ask one of them a dozen questions calculated to throw more light upon a meagre entry in the slate, and he invariably answers, “Don*t know”— as if the grand end and aim of his poor ex istence was not to know anything, and to come as near accomplishing his mission as his opportunities would permit. They would vote for General Jackson at the “Body-snatchers’ Retreat,” but for the mis fortune that they ”don*t know” such a person existed. What do you suppose the people would ever know about how their interests were being attended to if the employes in all public offices were such unmitigated ignoramuses as these? One of these fellows said to us yesterday, ”We have taken away the slate; we are not going to give you any more information; the re porters have got too sharp— by George, they know more’n we do!” God help the reporter, that don’t! It is as fervent a prayer as ever welled up from the bottom of our heart.4 While he was on the staff of the Call, Twain came into association with many literary figures in San Francisco’s Bohemia, among whom was Bret Harte, Prentice Mulford, Charles Warren Stoddard, Fitzhugh Ludlow, Orpheus C. Kerr, and 4 ^an Francisco Call, September 6, 1864. 175 Joaquin Miller. Many of the cityfs important literary fig ures gathered in the offices of the Golden Era, California’s first literary publication. Fraternizing with this group, Twain soon became a leading author of the metropolis, and, like the others, a contributor to the Golden Era and the Californian. Twain had already contributed two articles to the Golden Era before he left Virginia City. These were "How to Cure a Cold," published September SO, 1863, and "The Great Prize Fight," published October 11, 1863. Although he was later to express some dissatisfaction with the literary tone Go1* * 61* Era, he no doubt welcomed the opportunity to contribute to its columns when he first came to join San Francisco’s literary circle. The first issue of the Golden Era had appeared on December 19, 185S, and although it called itself "a weekly family newspaper— devoted to literature, agriculture, the mining interest, local and foreign news, commerce, education and the fine arts," it devoted its col umns chiefly to literary material. It was really a magazine; only in size and typography did it resemble a newspaper. Mark Twain’s first contribution to the Golden Era after he came to live in San Francisco was a sketch entitled "Evi dence in the Case of Smith vs. Jones," a burlesque in which conflicting testimony is offered by witnesses called in an assault case. The article was published June 26, 1864. 176 His next contribution to the Golden Era was a sketch called "Early Rising, as Regards Excursions to the Gliff House." In this he attempts to show that Benjamin franklin was wrong in advising a man to go to bed early and arise early. Mark tells of how he had tried out franklin’s method in Virginia City; in fact, had gone so far as to view the sun rise four times a week for a limited time on the Comstock' Lode, and instead of growing healthier on account ot it, he got to looking blue, and pulpy, and swelled, like a drowned man, and his relations grew alarmed and thought they were going to lose him. They entirely despaired of my recovery, at one time, and began to grieve for me as one whose days were numbered— whose fate was sealed— who was soon to pass away from them forever, and from the glad sunshine, and the birds, and the odorous flowers, and murmuring brooks, and whispering winds, and all the cheerful scenes of life, and go down into the dark and silent tomb— and they went forth sorrowing, and jumped a lot in the graveyard, and made up their minds to grin and bear it with that fortitude which is the true Christian’s brightest ornament.5 However, Mark determines to give franklin’s proverb one more test; so he goes with a friend on an excursion to the Cliff House, starting at four in the morning. They al most freeze to death in the bracing atmosphere, everything smells of horse-blankets, the fog sometimes shuts even the horse from view, and the two excursionists are human icicles 5 Goi<ien Era, July 3, 1864. 177 when they reach the Ocean House and find no fire there. Mark banishes all hope, goes back on his religion, and seeks f t surcease of sorrow in soothing blasphemy.” Finally, they are served coffee by a melancholy individual whose gravity is so impressive and so appropriate to the surroundings that it thaws out some of Mark’s better instincts, and Mark tells him that he might ask a blessing if he thought it would lighten him up any— because he looked as if he wanted to very bad— but he only shook his head resignedly and sighed. . • • "Put no trust, [Mark warns]- , in the benefits to accrue from early rising, as set forth by the in fatuated Franklin— but stake the last cent of your substance on the judgment of old George Washington, the Father of his Country, who said fhe couldn’t see it.*” After the publication of this article, another year passed before Twain was again a contributor to the Golden Era. The next important literary connection which Mark Twain had in San Francisco was with the Californian. Late in 1863, Bret Harte and Charles Henry WT ebb— ”Bret” and "Inigo”— were becoming restive at playing second fiddles for the provincial Era, and were considering the founda tion of a larger magazine over which they would them selves have some editorial control.6 On Saturday, May 28, 1864, the first number of the Californian appeared, with C. H. Webb as editor and publisher and Bret Harte as chief contributor. It was a small folio of sixteen 6 George R. Stewart, Jr., A Bibliography of the ?/ritings of Bret Harte in the Magazines and Newspapers of California, 1857-1871, p. 146. ------------------ 178 pages, with a three-column makeup except for the last two advertising pages, which were arranged in a four-column typography. In the first number of the magazine, and at the very time that Mark Twain was leaving Virginia City and its Comstock Lode journalism for the San Francisco Bohemia, ap peared a notice about Twain’s controversy with Laird of the Union: A belligerent correspondence has been passing between a couple of editors in Virginia City. It is none of our business, but we should regret if any hostile meeting occurred. Why should one editor desire to give another out for even a single "in- sertion,n in the cold ground, as "leaded matter"? Bullets are not arguments, and blood never washed a stain out from any character. Duels at best are but the fooling and foolish relics of the exploded custom of a barbarous age, and the sooner the duel is permitted to lapse into desuetude, the better.? On September 10, 1864, a notice in the Golden Era announced that Bret Harte had become editor of the magazine: In the change of a name at the head of this paper, and of a personal influence in its columns, the undersigned trusts will hereafter be found the only essential alteration in that general character and design which have made it acceptable to its readers. F. B. Harte Harte*s editorship lasted until November 19, 1864. Later he was again editor for a short period, December 9 to 30, 1865. It was shortly after Harte*s first assumption of the editor ship that Twain’s first contribution to the Californian appeared. This sketch, "A Notable Conundrum," was published 7 Californian, May 28, 1864. 179 on October 1, 1864, and was followed by other articles al most every week for more than two months, until Twain left San Francisco for the Tuolumne hills. For a year after July 3, 1864, nothing by Mark Twain appeared in the Golden Era. The fact that the Californian was considered by many to be superior to the Golden Era both in typography and literary quality no doubt had much to do with this. In a letter to his mother and his sister, dated September 25, 1864, Twain writes of his preference for the newer magazine: I have engaged to write for the new literary paper— the "Californian1 ' — same pay I used to receive on the "Golden Era"— one article a week, fifty dollars a month. I quit the "Era,” long ago. It wasn't high-toned enough. The "Californian” circulates among the highest class of the community, and is the best weekly literary paper in the United States— and I suppose I ought to k n o w .8 Shortly after he arrived in San Francisco, Twain sent to the Enterprise an article that the Golden Era reprinted under the heading, "'Mark Twain' in the Metropolis." In its introduction, the Golden Era says: "The Sage-Brush Humorist from Silver-Land, ’Mark Twain,' has come to-town, and stops at the Occidental."9 In this article Mark writes of the Occidental Hotel as Heaven on the half shell, of the lively San Francisco theaters, and of Fred. Franks, his favorite 8 Paine, Letters, I, 100. 9 .Golden Era, June 26, 1864. 180 Washoe tragedian, whose name they have put in small letters in the programme, when it deserves to he in capitals— because, whatever part they give him to play, don’t he always play it well? and does he not pos sess the first virtue of a comedian, which is to do humorous things with grave decorum and without seeming to know that they are funny? Here Twain gives an interpretation of humor which he was to repeat several times in later writings. He goes on to tell of the bird's, and the flowers, and the Chinamen, and the winds of San Francisco, and cannot understand why the natives are always complaining: But it is human nature to find fault— to overlook that which is pleasant to the eye, and seek after that which is distasteful to it. You take a stranger into the Bank Exchange and show him the magnificent picture of Sampson and Delilah, and what is the first object he notices?— Sampson’s fine face and flaming eye? or the noble beauty of his form? or the lovely, half-nude Delilah? or the muscular Philistine behind Sampson, who is furtively admiring her charms? or the perfectly counterfeited folds of the rich drapery below her knees? or the symmetry and truth to nature of Sampson’s left foot? No, sir, the first thing that catches his eye is the scissors on the floor at Delilah’s feet, and the first thing he says, ’ ’ Them scissors is too modern— there warn’t no scissors like that in them days, by a d d sight*. The routine job of news-gathering on the Call soon palled on Mark Twain. The impersonal nature of the work dampened his enthusiasm; he felt keenly the loss of that freedom of expression which had been allowed him when he was a reporter on the Comstock Lode. He detested the drudgery of serving as a cog in the Call machine, as he wrote later: 181 At nine in the morning I had to be at the police court for an hour and make a brief history of the squabbles of the night before. They were usually between Irishmen and Irishmen, and Chinamen and China men, with now and then a squabble between the two races, for a change. During the rest of the day we raked the town from end to end, gathering such material as we might, wherewith to fill* our required columns; and if there were no fires to report, we started some. At night we visited the six theaters, one after the other, seven nights in the week. We remained in each of those places five minutes, got the merest passing glimpse of play and opera, and with that for a text we "wrote up" those plays and operas, as the phrase goes, torturing our souls every night in the effort to find something to say about those performances which we had not said a couple of hundred times before. It was fearful drudgery— soulless drudgery— and almost destitute of interest. It was awful slavery for a lazy man.10 Probably the work on the Call was not as bad as this would lead one to believe; these memories were written down many years after Twain had left the West. But certainly he did lose interest, and his connection with the newspaper became unsatisfactory both to himself and to his employer. He had previously asked the Call to pay him twenty-five dollars a week and let him work only in the daytime, his hours then becoming from ten in the morning until five or six in the afternoon. The paper had even furnished Mark with an assistant to help him gather the news. But this had not cured Mark’s indifference to his duties. Finally, an 10 Paine, Biography, I, 257. 182 interview with George E. Barnes, one of the Gall*s editors, resulted in Twain’s resignation from the paper. The Roughing It account is probably fanciful: Suffice it that I so lost heart, and so yielded my self up to repinings and sighings and foolish regrets, (about a mining investment) that I neglected my duties and became about worthless, as a reporter for a brisk newspaper. And at last one of the proprie tors took me aside, with a clarity I still remember with considerable respect, and gave me an opportunity to resign my berth and so save myself the disgrace of a dismissal.il This is merely another of the many instances of Twain’s pre dilection for exaggerating his shortcomings. Barnes later declared that Twain had resigned with great willingness. The various stories told of the supposed discharge from the Call have probably arisen from many different stories which Twain himself told of’ the incident. Complications in San Francisco were increased for Twain by certain letters he was sending to his old nev/spaper, the Territorial Enterprise. In his Enterprise correspondence he assailed San Francisco officials for the political corrup tion that existed in the city. He was specific in his refer ences, called names, pictured the scene just as he saw it, and drew down the wrath of the city’s officials. Especially were the police incensed at the ferocity of the attacks that Twain made upon them through the columns of the Enterprise. H Mark Twain, Roughing It, pp. 169-170. 183 Finally, Martin G. Burke, San Francisco’s chief of police, filed a libel suit against the Enterprise, But even this did not stop Mark Twain or the Enterprise, The San Francisco correspondent sent to the Comstock Lode a still more force ful letter, describing the police corruption in the city and the lechery that was openly permitted. Goodman published the letter in full. At the very time when Twain was having all this con troversy with San Francisco’s officials, Steve Gillis, his companion, got into trouble with the police. Steve had been passing a saloon, a fight was going on, he joined it, and he soon was in the hands of the police on a charge of assault with intent to kill. It happened that the big bartender whom Steve— a small but scrappy fellow— had picked for his adver sary was a friend of Chief of Police Burke. Steve was re leased, on bail furnished by Mark, and departed for Virginia City. ¥/hen the case was 'called, and Steve did not appear, Burke took pleasure in instituting action against the bonds man. James N. Gillis,12 brother of Steve, happened to be •* 12 James Gillis is supposed to be the ’ ’ Truthful James” of Bret Harte. However, William R. Gillis, brother of James and Steve, writes, in his Gold Rush Days with Mark Twain, p. 182, that it was not his brother who was the original of Bret Harte’s ’ ’ Truthful James,” but J. W. E. Townsend, a well-known California newspaper worker and a teller of tall stories. Since William Gillis claims, in his book, almost every dis tinction in sight, one must pause to consider the very defi nite possibility that his brother was not Harte’s ’ ’ Truthful James.” 184 in San Francisco at the time. He invited Mark to come up to his cabin in the Tuolumne hills until things cooled down in San Francisco. In that peaceful retreat, [says Paine], were always rest and refreshment for the wayfarer, and more than one weary writer besides Bret Harte had found shel ter there. James Gillis himself had fine literary instincts, but he remained a pocket-miner because he loved that quiet pursuit of gold, the Arcadian life, the companionship of his books, the occasional Bohemian pilgrim who found refuge in his retreat.13 On December 4, 1864, Mark Twain arrived at Jim Gillis* cabin on -Jackass Hill in the Mother Lode country, a few miles from Tuttletown and Sonora. C. C. Goodwin, a Comstock Lode and California journalist of those days, describes Jim Gillis and his hermitage in the hills: The cabin was in the big pines, the mountains rose like temples in the background and far away to the east, across the range, the setting sun was turning to purple the crest of Mount Bodie. I did not ask him if he was ever lonely, for I knew that he was not. He had his books, his daily papers, his dogs, his rabbits, his birds and his flowers; his mine, which he worked a little daily, and the murmur of the breeze in the big pines to go to sleep by. There was nothing of the hermit*s exclusiveness about the place. There were no locks on the doors or the cupboard, all passers-by were welcome and moreover, he was an authority in that region. People brought their troubles and differences to him for advice or adjustment and there were no appeals from his decisions. Then, too, though living there alone, he was 13 Paine, Biography, pp. 265-266. 185 fully abreast of all current events, as given day by day through the newspapers, and would drop shrewd remarks as he discussed them. If there was a trace of bitterness or prejudice in his soul, he kept it hid.14 Bret Harte had been a visitor at the Jim Gillis cabin. He had come there ragged, hungry, and discouraged. Gillis had befriended him, and. had advised him to leave the hills and try the newspapers of San Francisco. He gave the young man fifty dollars to help him on his way. ¥fhen Gillis • visited Harte a few months later in San Francisco, Harte snubbed him; in fact, he was offended, and could think of nothing except the money which he owed, though Gillis himself had written the loan off his books and had come only to con gratulate Harte on his San Francisco success. Here was one of the many instances where Harte insisted upon considering as enemies those from whom he had borrowed money. Bret Harte became an unpleasant memory to kindly Jim Gillis, who, of all men, had not a trace of any aptitude for making enemies. Between Jim Gillis and Mark Twain the relations were entirely different. From the time that the two first met, they remained friends, and always had a good word for each other. On Jackass Hill Twain found surcease for a troubled mind. Away from the turmoil of San Francisco, in a new and peaceful environment, he could relax, he could reorganize ^ Goodwin, As I Remember Them, p. 92. 186 himself. He found here also the opportunity to improve the foundation of his literary career. In the humble cabin of logs and slabs, sheltered by a giant oak, with books at hand, and a fireplace and modest comforts, Mark Twain reached another point in his literary development. Inhabiting the cabin, in addition to Mark and Jim, were Vsfilliam, a younger Gillis boy, and Dick Stoker and his cat (Dick Baker and his cat, Tom Quartz, of Houghing It). There had at one time been great mining activity in the region, but now there was solitude, with only an occasional pocket miner prospecting in the deposits along the Stanislaus River and in the hills of the Mother Lode. When rainy days kept the family indoors, Jim Gillis stood before the fire and related marvelous stories in which Dick Stoker frequently was the central figure. Stoker took these stories philosophically, never objecting to their ex travagance. The story of Dick Baker and his cat, the story of the Jaybird and the Acorn, and the story of the "Burning Shame" were among those which Mark Twain heard here from Jim Gillis. There were visits with other pocket miners in the hills; and romance had some share when Mark and young "Billy" Gillis called on the "Chaparral Quails," the two pretty daughters of an old couple, the Carringtons, who lived a short way from Jackass Hill. During his interlude at Jackass Hill, Mark Twain spent 187 much of his time pocket hunting for gold with the Gillis boys and Stoker. When weather permitted, forays were made some distance from the cabin. On New Year’s night, 1865, he is at Yallecita in Calaveras county, probably on a pros pecting trip, when he observes a ”magnificant lunar rainbow — first appearing at 8 P. M.— moon at first quarter— very light drizzling rain.”15 In the same month he is in Angel’s Camp, on a pocket mining trip with Jim Gillis. The coffee at the French Bestaurant is bad— ”day before yesterday’s dish-water”— and they are served this coffee and beans for breakfast and dinner every day. The monotony of some features of these January days Mark recorded in his notes: January 23, 1865, Angels. Bainy, stormy, beans and dish-water, for breakfast at the Frenchman’s; dish-water and beans for dinner, and both articles warmed over for supper. 24th. Bained all day— meals as before. 25th. Same as above. 26th. Bain, beans and dish-water— beefsteak for a change— no use, couldn’t bite it, 27th. Same old diet— same old weather— went out to the ”pocket” claim, had to rush back. 28th. Bain and wind all day and all night. Chili- beans and dish-water three times today as usual and some kind of ”slum” which the Frenchman called ”hash.” Hash be damned1 29th. The old, old thing. We shall have to stand the weather, but as J. says we won’t stand the 15 Mal>k Twain’s Notebook, p. 6. 188 dish-water and beans any longer, by God, 30th, Jan.— moved to the new hotel, just opened— good fare and coffee that a Christian may drink without jeopardizing his eternal soul, Dick Stoker came over today from Tuttletown, Tuolomne Co. 16 This would appear to have been a dreary existence for a man of Mark Twain’s restless temperament, but it does not actually tell the whole story of Twain’s days on the Mother Lode. True, the prospecting results were discouraging; there was much promise, but little fulfillment, although Jim Gillis was always ready with a word of encouragement and might have been able to produce results if he had been given more cooperation, and if the prospecting had lasted longer. The fanciful story of the claim that was deserted because Mark was tired of the rain and the cold, whereas Jim wanted to continue panning, is a pretty narrative but certainly fictitious. According to this tale,-1 - 7 two Austrians came along, observed how the rain had washed the dirt away on the deserted claim, revealing a handful of nuggets, waited for the thirty-day claim notice to expire, then posted their own notice and took out thousands of dollars worth of gold. And Jim and Mark had failed to become rich simply because Mark refused to carry just one more pail of water for panning, according to this story. ^ 2 M * » PP* 6-7. 17 Paine, Biography, I, 272-273. 189 There were, however, rich claims to be prospected in the Mother Lode country, and Mark Twain' realized this. After all, he had for some years now been definitely in the career of authorship. And his newspaper reporting and magazine writ ing experience had placed him on the alert for literary mate rial with human interest in it. At Angel’s Camp he made what was for him probably the greatest scoop of his career. For he heard Ben Coon tell the Jumping Frog story and he sensed that it would make a good story. He wrote it up, and it be came the cornerstone of Mark Twain’s literary fame. Most of the days at Angel’s Camp were spent by Mark and Jim and Stoker in the barroom of the dilapidated tavern. Here they found themselves in the company of a frequenter of the tavern, Ben Coon, a former Illinois River pilot, a solemn, fat-witted person, who dozed by the stove, or told slow, endless stories, without point, or application. Listeners were a boon to him, for few came and not many would stay. To Mark Twain and Jim Gillis, hoY/ever, Ben Coon was a delight. It was soothing and comfortable to listen to his end less narratives, told in that solemn way, with no suspicion of humor.18 Coon himself, seemingly, did not see point in his yarns. But Mark and Jim, playing billiards in the tavern, saw real human interest in the Jumping Frog story, a yarn v/hich they, seem ingly, had not heard of before but versions of which had been 1 p> Paine, Biography, p. 271. 190 printed in California newspapers before this time.-1 - 9 Twain recorded in his notes, around the first of February, the incident of Ben Coon’s Jumping Frog story: Coleman with his jumping frog— bet a stranger $50.— Stranger had no frog and C. got him one:— In the meantime stranger filled C’s frog full of shot and he couldn’t jump. The stranger’s frog won. Since he went to the trouble of recording these details of Ben Coon’s story in his notes, it seems reasonable to con clude that Twain had not heard the Jumping Frog story pre viously, or read versions which had appeared in print. Other literary material was gathered by Twain during his sojourn in the Tuolumne hills. The germ of ”The Californian’s Tale,” and of many other stories and sketches of later years, was found here. But the Jumping Frog story from Angel’s Camp proved most useful of all the material. For variety and with a purpose in mind, Mark took Dick Stoker to dine at the Frenchman’s on February 3. He wanted Dick to see how the Frenchman did things: Had ”Hell-fire” soup and the old regular beans and dishwater. The Frenchman has 4 kinds of soup which ^ A version of the folk tale appeared in the Sonora Herald on June 11, 1853. This is reprinted in Oscar Lewis’s If rhe Origin of the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. A later version, by Samuel Seabough7 appeared in the San Andreas Independent, December 11, 1858. Another variant, 1 t Frogs Shot without Powder,” written by Henry P. Leland for the New York Spirit of the Times of May 26, 1855, is reprinted in Appendix B of De Voto’s Mark Twain’s America. Twain’s Notebook, p. 7. 191 he furnishes to customers only on great occasions. They are popularly known among the boarders as "Hell-fire,” "General Debility," "Insanity," and Sudden Death," but it is not possible to describe them.21 The days at Angel’s Gamp came to an end on February 25, 1865, when Mark and Jim and Dick walked over the mountains to Jackass Hill in a snowstorm, the first Mark had ever seen in California, and he was struck by the beautiful view from the mountain tops. That night he was back in San Francisco again, at the Occidental Hotel, where he found letters from Artemus Ward asking Mark to write a sketch for Ward’s new book which was soon to come out. "Too late— ought to have got the letters three months ago," he writes in his notes.22 The letters from Ward were dated in early November. Twain answered, explaining the circumstances of his absence from San Francisco. He also prepared the Jumping Frog story and sent it on to New York. When he returned to San Francisco, Twain resumed his correspondence to the Territorial Enterprise, and also began writing again for the Californian. He did not, however, write his Jumping Frog story for the Californian, or, if he did prepare the story for that publication, it was not, at any rate, printed, despite Bret Harte’s story of the circum stances, which is as follows: 21 Ibid.. pp. 7-8. 22 Paine, Biography, p. 274. 192 He had been away in the mining districts on some newspaper assignment in the meantime. In the course of conversation he remarked that the unearthly lazi ness that prevailed in the town he had been visiting was beyond anything in his previous experience. He said the men did nothing all day long but sit around the bar-room stove, spit, and "swop lies.’ 1 He spoke in a slow, rather satirical drawl, which was in it self irresistible. He went on to tell one of those extravagant stories, and half unconsciously dropped into the lazy tone and manner of the original narra tor. I asked him to tell it again to a friend who came in, and then asked him to write it out for "The Californian." He did so, and when published it was an emphatic success. It was the first work of his that had attracted general attention, and it crossed the Sierras for an Eastern reading. The story was "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras." It is now known and laughed over, I suppose, wherever the English language is spoken; but it will never be as funny to any one in print as it was to me, told for the first time by the unknown Tv/ain himself on that morning in the San Francisco Mint.23 Although Twain did no doubt tell Bret Harte the Jumping Frog story when he came back from Jackass Hill, the story did not appear first in the Californian. Both Merwin, as quoted above, and Pemberton, in his Life of Bret Harte, page 73, show Harte as extremely enthusiastic over the Jumping Frog story. Although Harte was not at this time editor of the Californian, he was still closely enough connected with it to have had great influence in bringing about publication of the sketch in the magazine. As it turned out, the Jumping Frog story did not appear in the Californian until December 16, 1865, when it was reprinted from the New York Saturday 23 Henry Childs Merwin, The Life of Bret Harte, pp. 39-40• 193 Press, which had published the story in its issue of November 18, 1865. There is, of course, the possibility that Harte actually was enthusiastic about the Jumping Frog story and suggested to Twain that he write it for the Californian, but that Twain, hoping to get the story into Ward’s book, preferred to write it for New York publication. As it was, the story arrived in New York too late for Ward’s book. Carleton, Ward’s publisher, handed the sketch to Henry Clapp, editor of the Saturday Press, who printed it in his publication. The printing of the Jumping Frog story in.the East was momentous in its significance to Mark Twain. Despite the fact that it had not arrived in time to be printed in Artemus Ward’s book, it nevertheless achieved wide publicity throughout the East and in the Middle West. It carried the name of Mark Twain to a reader territory which was of tre mendous importance to an aspiring author. Obviously, the Pacific Coast could offer no great inducements to the author who wished to achieve national or world-wide importance; only in the East could one expect to gain the publishing co operation so necessary to successful authorship. Previous to the publication of the Jumping Frog story in the Saturday Press, the only writing signed Mark Twain which had achieved anything near what might be called general circulation was the review of the play "Ingomar," a review which had been 194 written by Twain for the Territorial Enterprise and which had been reprinted by Yankee Notions in its issue of April, 1864. Certainly only a few eastern readers were familiar with the name of Mark Twain before the Saturday Press printed the Jumping Frog story. Nov/ national attention was gained as the sketch was reprinted and quoted in many publications and everyone who took a newspaper was treated to the tale of the wonderful Calaveras frog, and received a mental impress of the author*s signature. The name Mark Twain became hardly an institution, as yet, but it made a strong bid for national accept ance. 24 News of the great popularity of the Jumping Frog story was slow in getting back to Mark Twain, but at last the enthusiastic reports arrived. Much has been made of his supposed disappointment at having this "villainous back woods sketch" publicized in the East. All the discussion on this alleged disappointment appears to be based on a few comments Mark .Twain made in a letter to his mother and sis ter, written from San Francisco on January 20, 1866. In this letter he writes of his "uneventful" life, of his wish to be back piloting on the Mississippi, and includes an account of the publishing of the Jumping Frog story: To think that, after writing many an article a man might be excused for thinking tolerably good, those New York People should single out a villainous 24 paine, Biography» p. 278. 195 backwoods sketch to compliment me onl— “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog"— a squib which would never have been written but to please Artemus Ward, and then it reached New York too late to appear in his book. But no matter. His book was a wretchedly poor one, generally speaking, and it could be no credit to either of us to appear between its covers.25 This letter has apparently been taken at its face value by Mark Twain’s biographer and by his critics.- The opinion generally expressed is that Twain was keenly disappointed that this particular sketch had been the one to achieve eastern publication, rather than some other. Some of his critics would almost have one believe that he went around with a hang-dog expression, was ashamed to look his friends in the face, and was virtually prostrated by this artistic miscarriage. Paine says Mark Twain did not regard the sketch highly as literary material.26 Brooks sees in Mark Twain’s letter to his mother and sister about the Jumping Frog story "the bitter prompting of his creative instinct, in rebellion against the course into which he has drifted."27 De Voto, in his enthusiasm to refute Brooks at every turn, attacks Brooks for his supposed resentment at Twain’s writing of humor, but interprets the letter as showing conclusively 25 Paine, Letters, I, 101. 26 Paine, Biography, p. 277. 27 Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain, p. 116. 196 that Mark Twain was not proud of the Jumping Frog story. To this writer, the sentiment Mark Twain expressed in the letter to his mother and sister, concerning the Jumping Frog story, has this explanation: Twain was peevish and disappointed at not having achieved book publication for his Jumping Frog story. Hence, a period of fretfulness resulted in the expression of disappointment. That whatever hesita tion Twain might have had in accepting the Jumping Frog story as worthwhile literary material was short-lived is shown by his reactions to the story not long after its publication, and in later years. He was proud of the story when he vis ited the Sandwich Islands, he used the Jumping Frog title for his first book and the sketch for the leading contribution to that book, and he referred to the story with pride in letters and speeches many times in later years. Of course, the Jumping Frog story is not the greatest story ever written, as one would be led to believe by those who have not yet read it. But for those who have read the story some time ago and have been inclined to regard it lightly as literary material, perhaps a rereading would con vince them that it is far from being a poor piece of work. Perhaps one can find merit in the story through such a re reading; certainly it does have a real literary merit which has stood the test of time. It was during Bret Harte’s second period of editorship 197 of the Californian that this magazine reprinted the Jumping Frog story.In the December 9, 1865, issue of the Californian appeared the name of Francis Bret Harte, Editor. In the next weekfs issue was published the reprint of the Jumping Frog story, under the title, ”The Celebrated jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” As a "precede” to the story, the Californian made the following comment: Saturday Press introduces this sketch in the following complimentary manner: ”We give up the principal portion of our editorial space, today, to an exquisitely humorous sketch— 1 Jim and his Jumping Frog’— by Mark Twain, who will shortly become a con tributor to our columns. Mark Twain is the assumed name of a writer in California who has long been a favorite contributor to the San Francisco press, from which his articles have been so extensively copied as to make him nearly as well known as Artemus Ward.”29 Obviously, Bret Harte knew at that time that the Californian was not the first place of publication of the Jumping Frog story. Having struck a promising vein during his literary and philosophical prospecting in the Mother Lode country, Mark Twain came back to San Francisco prepared for more rapid ad vancement in his career of authorship. The interlude at Jackass Hill had given him new inspiration and a greater desire for literary achievement. Harte was editor of the Californian for three peri ods: September 10 to November 19, ”1864; Decmeber 9 to 30, 1865; April 28 to August 18, 1866. 29 Californian, December 16, 1865. CHAPTER VIII COVERING HIS FINAL STORY IN THE TOST Whatever Mark Twain’s early opinion of the Jumping Frog story may have been, the popularity it gained after pub lication in the Saturday Press gave substantial impetus to his plans for going East in search of more promising fields of authorship. On his return from the interlude at Jackass Hill, he had thought through his problems thoroughly enough to know that it was time to look for possibilities of more significant literary achievement. When word of the success of the Jumping Frog sketch reached him, he lost interest somewhat in his California connections. After his sojourn in the Tuolumne hills, he contrib uted again to the Californian. The first sketch, published March 18, 1865, was entitled "An Unbiased Criticism" and con cerned the California Art Union and "its moral effects upon the youth of both sexes carefully considered and candidly commented upon." Then there were two sketches of "Important Correspondence," one in the issue of May 6 and the other published on May 13. The correspondence was Between Mr. Mark Twain of San Francisco, and Rev. Bishop Hawkes, D.D., of New York, Rev. Phillips Brooks of Philadelphia, and Rev. Dr. Cummings of Chicago, concern ing the occupancy of Grace Cathedral. Illustrative of the facility with which Mark Twain could now handle even the simplest theme is the sketch, "How 199 I Went to the Great Race Between Lodi and Norfolk,” published in the Californian May 27, 1865. In this sketch Mark writes of the difficulties he encountered in trying to arrange for transportation to the ocean race course where the great con test was to be held. He went to all the livery stables and found that the teams had been engaged a week before, but that one horse remained in waiting to be attached to a dray, and an other was a saddle horse, of which Mark writes: Then they said they had a capacious riding horse left, but all the seats on him except one had been engaged; they said he was an unusually long horse, and he could seat seven very comfortably; and that he was very gentle, and would not kick up behind; and that one of the choicest places on him for observation was still vacant, and I could have it for nineteen dollars— and so on and so on; and while the passenger agent was talking, he was busy measuring off a space of nine inches for me pretty high up on the commodious animal’s neck. It seemed to me that the prospect of going to the races was beginning to assume a very ”neck-of-nothing” condition, but nevertheless I steadfastly refused the supercargo’s offer, and he sold the vacancy to a politi cian who was used to being on the fence and would natu rally consider a seat astride a horse’s neck in the light of a pleasant variety.1 Then Mark ran into Homestead, clerk of the Incidental Hotel, who invited him to take a drink. ’ ’ I cannot be positive,” writes Mark, ’ ’ but it is my impression that I either stated that I would, or else signified assent by a scarcely per ceptible eagerness of manner common to me under circumstances 1 Californian, May 27, 1865. 2 00 of this nature.” While they were drinking, Homestead re marked that he was going to the great race on Tuesday and that he had a vacancy. Mark jumped at the opportunity, wrung Homestead’s hand with heartfelt warmth and cordiality, and shed tears of gratitude. He promised to he on hand at the hotel sharply at ten o’clock Tuesday morning. As it turned out, Mark arrived at the appointed time, found a crowd of 150 men at the hotel, learned that they were all going to the great race and were all going with Homestead,- and the upshot of it all was that Homestead announced that he was going to walk and they could all go with him. ”1 have made a plain, simple statement of the facts connected with this outrage,” Mark writes, ’ ’ and they can be substan tiated by every man who was present upon that occasion. I will now drop this subject forever.” Beginning June 3, 1865, Twain conducted a department called "Answers to Correspondents” in the Californian. The first printing of the column was accompanied by this announce ment: All letters for this department should be addressed to Mr. Mark Twain, who has been detailed from the edito rial staff to conduct it. Courting Etiquette, Dis tressed Lovers, of either sex, and Struggling Young Authors, as yet ’ ’ unbeknown” to Fame, will receive espe cial attention.2. ^ Californian. June 3, 1865. 2 0 1 It is worthy of note here that at this time someone had the opinion that Mark Twain had reached the point of successful authorship where he was in a position to offer guidance to "struggling young authors," This may, of course, have been expressed entirely in a facetious mood, and yet there prob ably was some seriousness behind the announcement of the Californian, At the end of the second "Answers to Correspondents" column, published June 10, the conductor wrote as follows: Note.--Several letters, chiefly from young ladies and young bachelors, remain over, to be answered next week, want of space precluding the possibility of attending to them at present. I always had an idea that most of the letters written to editors were written by the editors themselves. But I find, now, that I was-mistaken.® There were four more of these columns conducted by Twain in succeeding weeks’ issues of the Californian. For the rest of the time he was in the West, he wrote only nine more sketches for the Californian, although that magazine re printed many of his sketches, from its own columns, from the New York Saturday Press, from the New York Weekly Review, from the Territorial Enterprise, and from the Sacramento Union. The last sketch which Twain contributed to the Californian concerned the manner in which the Smiths and the Joneses should be written up; it was entitled "Origin of Illustrious Men," and was published September 29, 1866. ® Californian, June 10, 1865. 2 0 2 On July 2, 1865, Mark Twain began contributing again to the Golden Era, the publication that he had deserted a year previously in favor of the more "high-toned" Californian. This time his contribution, entitled "Smith Brown Jones," consists of an article announcing that the Golden Era has had the good fortune of securing the services of the eminent Smith B. Jones, Esq., who has just arrived by steamer, as a weekly contributor to its columns. Two more articles fol lowed in the same series and with similar titles. Following the series of "Smith Brown Jones" articles, there was no contribution by Twain in the Golden Era until February 25, 1866, when two sketches were published, one en titled "Mark Twain on Fashions" and the other, "Mark Twain on California Critics." In the former he writes of the un certainty prevailing among the ladies of San Francisco re garding the wearing of hoops; in the article on critics he warns the actor, Edwin Forrest, that no matter how much praise he has won in the East and no matter how well he plays in San Francisco he will be given a drubbing by the California critics. The new wildcat religion of the San Francisco spirit ualists is adversely criticized by Mark Twain in an article in the Golden Era March 4, 1866. Mark had been upset by the fact that another spiritual investigator had passed his ex aminations at the seances of the Friends of Progress and had 203 been shipped, a raving maniac, to the Stockton insane asylum. He fears that the spiritualists are going too far; they should stick to the old standard religions. He does not take any credit because he never went crazy on Presbyterian- ism. The Presbyterians "go too slow" for that, and they don’t rant, and shout, and tear up the ground. They set a good example: Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don’t shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets fur tively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy— no fanaticism--no skir mishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre our neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old religions, and take no chances on wildcat.^ Spiritual seances attracted the interest of Mark Twain during the winter of 1865-66. He attended many of these in San Francisco, particularly those at Mrs. Ada Hoyt Foye’s. At Mrs. Foye’s seances Mark was appointed a member of the investigating committee. This made the ghosts a bit nervous, according to the Golden Era’s "Feuilleton" column of February 4. Twain wrote articles on these seances for the Territorial 4 Golden Era, March 4, 1866. 204 Enterprise and for the Golden Era. The Golden Era first re printed some of the Enterprise articles, then presented one of its own entitled "More Spiritual Investigations by Mark Twain,” In this sketch, Mark tells of happenings at a fire side seance that he had stumbled upon a night or two before. He describes some of the spirits that appeared, and concludes with a note of satisfaction: Very well; the Bulletin may abuse spiritualism as much as it pleases, but whenever I can get a chance to take a dead and damned Smith by the hand and pass a joke or swap a lie with him, I am going to do it. I am not afraid of such pleasant corpses as these ever running me crazy. I find them better company than a good many live people*5 The last of Mark Twain * s contributions to the Golden Era was a sketch entitled ’ ’ Reflections on the Sabbath,” pub lished March 18, 1866. It expresses in a facetious way the religious scepticism that was to be the subject matter of much of Twain’s writing in his later years. In this sketch he explains that he has not been to church for many months because he has been unable to get a pew, and, on occasion, has had to sit in the gallery, among the sinners. This he objects to, as he considers himself a brevet member of the Presbyterian church, having been sprinkled in infancy. He prefers the Presbyterian hell of fire and brimstone to the ’ ’ heterodox hell of remorse of conscience of these blamed ^ Golden Era, March 11, 1866. 205 wildcat religions,” Whereas the heaven and hell of the wild cat religions are vague and ill defined there is nothing mixed about the Presbyterian variety. The Presbyterian hell is all misery; the heaven all happiness— nothing to do. But when a man dies on a wild cat basis, he will never rightly know hereafter which department he is in— but he will think he is in hell any how, no matter which place he goes to; because in the good place they progress, pro-gress, pro-gress— study, study, study, all the time--and if this isn’t hell I don’t know what is; and in the bad place he will be wor ried by remorse of conscience.6 After his sojourn in the Tuolumne hills, Mark Twain resumed regular correspondence to the Territorial Enterprise, in addition to his writing for the Californian and the Golden Era, Files of the Enterprise for that period not be ing extant, one must depend on reprints of these articles in San Francisco newspapers and magazines for information as to 7 the character of the Enterprise correspondence. One of the Enterprise letters, ’ ’ Mark Twain’s New Year’s Day,” was reprinted in the Golden Era, In this letter, Mark relates his experiences in making the .customary New Year’s Day round of visits to the homes of friends and stran*- gers. He tells of how he sampled the wines and was finally successful in ’ ’coralling" a meal, and of how some of the ^ Golden Era, March 18, 1866. ^ There are also clippings of some of Mark Twain’s letters to the Territorial Enterpri se in Mark Twain’s scrap book, which is in Willard S. Morse’s collection. 206 ladies dressed "in character." He found Faith, Hope and Charity in one house, dealing out claret punch and kisses to the annual pilgrims. They had two kinds of kisses— those which you bite and "chaw" and swallow, and those which you simply taste, and then lick your chops and feel streaky. The only defect there was in the arrangement was that you were not permitted to take your choice. Some of the frequent censure which Twain heaped on the San Francisco police department is contained in an Enterprise letter entitled "What have the Police been Doing?" reprinted in the Golden Era on January 21, 1866. In a series of ironical questions and assertions in this letter he re bukes the police for having permitted an assaulted prisoner to die in his cell. He also finds fault with the department for assigning four officers, at a cost of five hundred dol lars a month, as nurses for a captain with a broken leg. A typical Mark Twain "bloody" story occurs in the Enterprise letters of this period. It was captioned "Mark Twain’s Kearny Street Ghost Story," and was reprinted in the Golden Era on January 28, 1866. It is in a class with two stories he had written previously, "The Empire City Massacre" and "The Great Prize Fight." It tells of disembodied spirits that have been on a rampage for more than a month in a San Francisco home, making it impossible for the family to keep a servant. 8 Golden Era. January 14, 1866. 207 The moment a new and unsuspecting servant maid gets fairly to bed and her light blown out, one of those dead and damned scalliwags takes her by the hair and just "hazes” her; grabs her by the waterfall and shakes her out of bed and bounces her on the floor two or three times. The spirits tramp about the house at dead of night. "They are a bloody lot." One of them came to the bedside of the young lady of the house one night: The ghost came and stood by the bed and groaned— a deep, agonizing, heart-broken groan— and laid a bloody kitten on the pillow by the girl’s head. And then it groaned again, and sighed, "Oh, God, and must it be?" and bet another bloody kitten. It groaned a third time in sorrow and tribulation, and went one kitten better. And thus the sorrowing spirit stood.there, moaning in its anguish and unloading its mewing cargo, until it had stacked up a whole litter of nine little bloody kittens on the girl’s pillow, and then, still moaning, moved away and vanished. When lights were brought, there were the kit tens, with the fingermarks of bloody hands upon their white fur— and the old mother cat, that had come after them, swelled her tail in’mortal fear and refused to take hold of them. What do you think of that? What would you think of a 'ghost that came to your bedside at dead of night and had kittens?^ Several of the Enterprise letters concerned Mark Twain’s experiences at spiritual seances. He writes of one occasion when four hundred ladies and gentlemen were present, "and plenty of newspaper people--neuters." He observed a "good-looking, earnest-faced, pale-red-haired, neatly dressed, young woman standing on a little stage behind a small deal table with slender legs and no drawers— the table, understand 9 Golden Era, January 28, 1866. 208 me," he explains. "I am writing in a hurry, but I do not de sire to confound my description of the table with my de scription of the lady. The lady was Mrs. Foye."-^ The let ter tells of the success which members of the group had in conversing with departed acquaintances. That Mark Twain was a figure of importance in the literary circles of San Francisco by 1866 is evidenced in a statement he makes in a letter, written on January 20, 1866, to his mother and sister: Though I am generally placed at the head of my breed of scribblers in this part of the country, the place properly belongs to Bret Harte, I think, though he denies it, along with the rest. At any rate, he was extended special honors when he was in vited to be one of a party of guests to make the initial trip of the new steamer "Ajax" to the Sandwich Islands. He did not accept the invitation, as he felt he could not neg lect his newspaper correspondence, but after the steamer had departed he was sorry that he had not gone on the voyage. With the regularity of his newspaper correspondence growing monotonous, Twain considered the possibility that some California newspaper might be willing to send him to the Sandwich Islands as its correspondent to write about the life, agriculture, scenery, commerce, and other features of the ^ Golden Era, February 4, 1936. 209 islands. He was well acquainted with the publishers of the Sacramento Union» and arrangements were soon made with that paper. The original plan was that he should remain in the islands a month and send twenty or thirty articles back to the Union. He began his first sea voyage on March 7, 1866, sailing for the Sandwich Islands on the second trip of the "Ajax.” The first four letters to the Union deal with inci dents on the passage. During the stormy trip Twain learned some of the language of the sea, particularly when Captain Godfrey was making sail: Let go the main-hatch. Belay! Haul away on your tops’l jib! Belay! Clew up your to-gallantsf1 spanker-boom halliards.1 Belay! Port your gaff-tops’l sky-scrapers.! Belay! Lively, you lubbers! Take a reef in the lee scuppers! Belay! Mr. Baxter, it’s coming on to blow at about four bells in the hog-watch; have everything taut and trim for it. BelayjH Mark got up at this point and started over to ask the captain if he didn’t think it would be a good idea to belay a little, but the sea was too rough and Mark fell down. In the first letter Mark begins making use of his fictitious friend Brown, whom he uses frequently in succeed ing letters. When Mark finds twenty-two passengers leaning over the bulwarks he also finds Brown there. The passengers are ^ Sacramento Union, April 16, 1866. 2 1 0 vomiting and remarking, "Oh, my God!" and then vomiting again. Brown was there,.ever kind and thoughtful, pass ing from one to another and saying, "That’s all right— That’s all right, you know— it’ll clean you out like a jug, and then you won’t feel so ornery and smell so rid iculous. "12 This was one of those less refined passages which Twain fre quently found it impossible to resist writing. The "Ajax" arrived at Honolulu on March 18, 1866. Mark thought he saw the king sitting in a two-horse buggy alone on the wharf, with big whiskers, leather complexion, and gold bands on his plug hat and his coat. But the specu lation was wrong; it was the king’s driver. Mark Twain be came immediately enthusiastic over Hawaii. He found no careworn or eager, anxious faces in the land of happy contentment— God what a contrast with California and Washoe. Everybody walks at a moderate gait but, to speak strictly, they mostly ride.^3 He met his friend Rev. Franklin S. Rising, and many other friends, who offered him Honolulu hospitality. There is much serious information in the Sandwich Is land letters. Twain no doubt felt a sense of responsibility in furnishing the readers of the Union something that would make it worth their while to read the letters. He was also grateful to the proprietors of the Union for giving him such a splendid assignment, and wanted to do his best to see that 12 Sacramento Union, April 16, 1866. ^ Twain’s Notebook, p. 16. £ 1 1 they got something substantial for their money. However, the letters are not, by any means, weighted down by this element of serious information; there are numerous lighter passages, as Twain frequently found that to him the most serious things were frequently the best subject matter for humorous treatment. By way of worthwhile information* the letters deal with the living habits of the people of the islands, with the Hawaiian legislature, with the royal family, with the whaling trade, and with,the death and funeral of her Royal Highness Victoria Kamamalu Kaahumanu, heir presumptive to the crown and sister to the king. There is also much infor mation about the sugar, coffee, and fruit plantations, and about labor conditions, and there is a prediction that California would some day have coolie workers. Twain writes enthusiasticallyof California’s prospects in relation to the Sandwich Islands. He feels that California is in a posi tion to ask that the world pay tribute to her, as she is about to be appointed to preside over almost the ex clusive trade of 450,000,000 people--the almost exclusive trade of the most opulent land on earth. It is the land where the fabled Aladdin’s lamp lies buried— and she is the new Aladdin who shall seize it from its obscurity and summon the genie and command him to crown her with power and greatness, and bring to her feet the hoarded treasures of the earth.^ * 1 A Sacramento Union, September £6, 1866. 2 1 2 Historical facts about the islands are given in' some detail in the letters. Legendary tales are likewise not overlooked. There are many fine passages of description: the Honolulu market place on a festive Saturday afternoon, the ruins of the city of refuge, the Nuuanu and Kalihi val leys, the great volcano of Kileaua. He finds the girls en trancing in their finery on Saturday afternoon, with fine black silk robes; flowing red ones that nearly put your eyes out; others as white as snow; still others that discount the rainbow; and they wear their hair in nets, and trim their jaunty hats with fresh flowers, and encircle their dusky throats with home-made necklaces of the brilliant vermillion-tinted blossom of the ohia; and they fill the markets and the adjacent streets with their bright presences, and smell like thunder with their vil lainous cocoanut oil.15 The solid information in the letters is given the sav ing grace of Mark Twain fs human interest treatment. There are frequent humorous passages. The steed Oahu becomes the progenitor of many other horses that Mark Twain is to write about. Then there is Mrs. Captain Jollopson, who describes her sad accident to Mark in the vocabulary of the whaling trade. Mrs. Jollopson had been on her way to market and "here comes a ship-keeper round the corner three sheets in the wind and his dead-lights stove in.” Mrs. Jollopson saw the danger of a collision: I backed off fast as I could, and sung out to him to port 15 » May 21, 1866. 213 his helm, hut it warn’t no use; he’d everything drawing and I had considerable stemway, and he just struck me a little ahaft the beam, and down I went, head on, and skunned my elbov/. Mark i s sympathet i c: I said, "Bless my life!" And she said, "Well you may say it! My! such a jolt! It started everything. It’s worse’n being pulled! I shouldn’t wonder if I’d have to be hove down— " and then she spread her hand alongside of her mouth and sung out, "Susy, ahoy!" to another woman, who rounded to to wait for her, and the two fell off before the wind and sailed away together,16 On two occasions during the Sandwich Islands sojourn, Mark finds himself called upon to cure his friend Brown of seasickness, according to the Union letters. The first time, Mark experimented with a variety of remedies: I talked to him for some time, but strangely enough, pathetic narratives did not move his emotions, eloquent declamation did not inspirit him, and the most humorous anecdotes failed to make him even smile. Finally, Mark got around to reciting a paraphrase of a pas sage from Shakespeare. The poem did the job, and in a minute or two Brown felt entirely relieved and comfortable, Pie then said that the anecdotes and the eloquence were "no good," but if he got seasick again he would like some more poetry.1^ Brown did, in fact, become seasick again one night, and the captain came rushing down to Mark for assistance because 16 Ibid.. May 22, 1866. 17 > August 18, 1866 214 Brown was calling frantically for poetry, Mark was soon on deck, groped his way to the sufferer, and recited a poem made up of alternate lines from "The Burial of Sir John Moore" and the ’ Destruction of Sennacherib," At the conclu sion of this poem Mark could see that his efforts had not been in vain, "fIt is enough, God bless you!’ said Brown, and threw up everything he had eaten for three days,"l® De spite the occasional inclusion of these less refined passages in his letters, Twain kept the general tone of his Sandwich Islands correspondence on a high level. Where he did inject a bit of crudity, it was of the type that readers, of the Union at that time probably thought very funny. The high point of the Sandwich Islands letters was reached in his report of the burning of the clipper ship "Hornet" at sea* The story was dated at Honolulu, June 25, 1866. Fortunately for Twain, he had the assistance of Anson Burlingame, United States minister to China, in covering this story. Burlingame, enroute to his post, had arrived in Honolulu, accompanied by his son Edward and by General Van Valkenburgh, minister to Japan. Mark had just returned from a tour of the islands and was sick in bed suffering from saddle boils when he received word that Minister Burlingame and his party were planning to visit him. Instead of waiting 18 Ibid.• October 25, 1866. 215 for the party to come to him, Twain crawled out of bed and drove to the American minister’s residence, where the party was staying. Twain explains the circumstances of the visit in a letter to his mother and sister: Hon. Anson Burlingame, U. S. Minister to China, and Gen. Van Valkenburgh, Minister to Japan, with their fam ilies and suites, have just arrived here en route. They were going to do me the honor to call on me this morn ing, and that accounts for my being out of bed now. You know what condition my room is always in when you are not around— so I climbed out of bed and dressed and shaved pretty quick and went up to the residence of the American Minister and called on them.1^ On the day this letter was written, June 21, 1866, iford came to Honolulu of the arrival at the island of Hawaii of nineteen*^ starving wretches, who had been buffeting a stormy sea in an open boat for forty-three days! Their ship, the "Hornet,” from New York, with a quantity of kerosine on board, had taken fire and burned in lat. 2 degrees-north and long. 135 degrees west.21 After mention of the ship tragedy in this letter to the Union, Twain had hopes of covering the story more completely in a later letter. The survivors were brought to Honolulu, but Twain was still sick in bed, and might never have been able to interview them if he had not received the help of Anson Burlingame. The Burlingame party came to Twain’s hotel, and he was carried on a cot, escorted by the legations of China Paine, Letters, I, p. 107. ^ It turned out that there were only fifteen sur vivors. Pi Sacramento Union, July 16, 1866. 216 and Japan, to the hospital where eleven of the "Hornet" sur vivors were being cared for. Burlingame did all the inter viewing; all Mark Twain had to do was take notes. The story of the "Hornet” disaster was written that night. Next morning the manuscript was rushed to a vessel which was just pulling away from the dock. The letter, a sensational newspaper scoop, was published by the Sacramento Union on July 19, 1866. Mark Twain had proved his abilities as a newspaper reporter; this letter was the most significant serious article he had written up to that time, and it added greatly to his prestige. To Anson Burlingame Mark Twain was deeply indebted, not only for the assistance in covering the "Hornet" story, but also for advice and encouragement which was given the younger man. Burlingame said to Twain: You have great ability; I believe you have genius. What you need now is the refinement of association. Seek companionship among men of superior intellect and char acter. Refine yourself and your work. Never affiliate with inferiors; always climb.^2 From a lesser man than Burlingame this advice would have been shed by Mark Twain like water from a duck’s back; it probably would have struck him as being ridiculous. As it is, the ef fect of this advice on Twain has probably been overemphasized. He was too democratic to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. Certainly in the West he preferred rubbing elbows with ^ Paine, Biography, p. 287. 217 humanity to an aristocratic aloofness to the life about him. Burlingame urged Mark Twain to travel. This was advice that Mark Twain could accept with real enthusiasm. Hence, when Burlingame suggested that he come to China soon, to write up that part of the world, he promised that he would. Although the story of the "Hornet” disaster was the high point of Mark Twain’s Sandwich Island correspondence, it was the subject matter of only one of his letters out of the total of twenty-five which he sent to the Union. Some sub jects became recurrent in the letters. Twain never could make up his mind definitely about the missionaries; sometimes he thought they were all right and probably had done the islands some good, whereas at other times he thought the missionaries had serious shortcomings. In his notes he writes: "More missionaries and more row made about saving these 60,000 people than would take to convert hell itself."23 Evidently Twain had been talked about a little during his days in Honolulu, as he records in his notes: All small villages are gossipy, but Honolulu heads them a little. They let me off comparatively easy, though I don’t thank them for it because it argues that I wasn’t worth the trouble of blackguarding. They only accused me of murder, arson, highway robbery and some other little eccentricities, but I knew nothing of it till the day I started. The missionary (I should say preacher) feature of insincerity and hypocrisy makes the atmosphere 2^ Mark Twain’s Notebook, p. 21. 218 of the place.^ Of the natives and their habits, Twain expresses a variety of sentiment. There is a frankness in his notes that is not shown in the letters: "Kanakas will have horses and saddles and the women will fornicate— two strong char- 2^5 actenstics of this people." The technique of the natives in eating "poi" engaged the attention of Mark and his friend Brown: Many a different finger goes into the same bowl and many a different kind of dirt and shade and quality of flavor is added to the virtues of its contents. One tall gen tleman, with nothing in the world on but a soiled and greasy shirt, thrust in his finger and tested the poi, shook his head, scratched it with the useful finger, made another test, prospected among his hair, caught something and ate it; tested the poi again, wiped the grimy perspiration from his brow.with the universal hand,., tested again, blew his nose--"Letrs move on, Brown," said I, and we moved.26 Twain’s sojourn in the Sandwich Islands came to an end on July 19, 1866, when he boarded a sailing vessel, the "Smyrniote," for San Francisco, after four months of a visit that was originally planned as a one-month sojourn. The ves sel was becalmed a good deal of the time, and it was not un til August 3 that it arrived in San Francisco. The Sandwich Islands had been a dreamlike interlude 24 ifria. > P.’ 23. ^ Ibid., p. 20. 2^ Sacramento Union, May 21, 1866. £ 19 in Mark Twain’s life, Tahoe, Jackass Hill, the Sandwich Islands; many times in later years he was to look hack with wistful longing for the happiness of those carefree days. Back in San Francisco, he writes: Aug. 13. San Francisco. Home again. No not home again— in prison again and all the wide sense of freedom gone. The city seems so cramped and so dreary with toil and care and business anxiety. God help me, I wish I were at sea again.^7 Literary development is clearly discernible in the Sandwich Island sojourn. The letters show a change from the lighter, less substantial writings of his previous Western experience. And there has come to Mark Twain’s view now a widened horizon that gives him a longing to travel, to write on a greater variety of subjects, to win more than a local fame. He is ready now for great adventure in the field of authorship. Thus, the reporting assignment to cover the Sandwich Islands constitutes another, and virtually the final, phase of Mark Twain’s western development. ^ Mark Twain’s Notebook, p. £9. CHAPTER IX THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE FRONTIER WEST With the covering of the Sandwich Islands assignment for the Sacramento Union, Mark Twain’s western development was, as has been said, virtually completed. He had come to the West unknown, a young adventurer without a definite ob jective, an apprentice in life and fortune who could turn only to whatever activity offered, hoping that it would re veal itself as genuine for him. On his return to San Francisco from the Islands, Twain sensed that the time had come for him to seek greater opportunities than had so far come within his experience. The thrills of the biggest news paper assignment he had ever had, the encouragement of Anson Burlingame, the great success of his twenty-five letters to the Union— all these had crystallized in his mmnd a plan for the immediate future: he would make a trip around the world and write on even a larger scale. This was now his whole objective; he was impatient to take care of loose ends in San Francisco and be on his way. If Twain was despondent at this time, as he is said to have confessed,^ it must have been because he could not find the means immediately to be off on the great adventure. ^ Paine, Biography I, 291. 2 2 1 But the opportunity was not far off* In the meantime, he went to Sacramento to settle accounts with the Union, whose proprietors were so enthusiastic about his Sandwich Islands letters that when Twain suggested a fee of $300 extra for his "Hornet" story they laughed and paid it. It was a high figure, especially since the letters had already been paid for at the regular rate, and Twain was no doubt joking when he asked for the extra $100 a column for the "scoopP story; but the Union proprietors were well satisfied to give him a good reward -for a job well done. During his last four months in the West, Twain did little writing. He sent one letter of news back to the Daily Hawaiian Herald. This letter, dated in San Francisco Septem ber 24, tells of the arrival of Queen Emma and her suite in San Francisco; of Twain being snubbed in Sacramento by Mr. John Quincy Adams (Alphabet) Warren, formerly of the Islands; and of his plan to go back to the Hawaiian Islands for the express purpose of eating Mr. Whitney, the editor of the Commercial Advertiser, who had said that Twain did not write the truth about the Islands and had run off with Father Damon’s History of the Islands. Mark feels that Mr. Whitney’s case is about hopeless: Mr. Whitney is jealous of me because I speak the truth so naturally, and he can’t do it without taking the lock-jaw. But he ought not to be jealous; he ought not to try to ruin me because I am more virtuous than he is; I cannot help it— it is my nature to be reliable, just as it is his 222 to be shaky on matters of fact— we cannot alter those natures— us leopards cannot change our spots. Therefore, why growl?— why go and try to make trouble? If he can not tell when I am writing seriously and when I am bur lesquing— if he sits down solemnly and takes one of my palpable burlesques and reads it with a funereal aspect, and swallows it as petrified truth,— how am I going to help it?2 There were only five more contributions to western publica tions before Mark Twain’s departure for the East. One was a ’ ’ Card to the Highwaymen” in the Territorial Enterprise, and another was his farewell letter to the editor of the Alta California. The other three were ’ ’ Interior Notes” written for the San Francisco Bulletin and published by that newspaper on November 30, December 6, and December 7, 1866. These letters were travel correspondence from Sacramento, Grass Valley, Red Dog, You Bet, Washoe, and San Jose. Though the writing he did in his final months in the West was not extensive, there was one activity that was of some consequence; he began his career as a lecturer. When he returned from the Islands he considered the possibility of using his experiences as subject matter for a lecture be fore a San Francisco audience. But he was hesitant and did not make up his mind definitely until he received the hearty encouragement of Colonel John McComb of the Alta California. He then hired Tom Maguire’s new opera house, wrote the 2 Daily Hawaiian Herald, October 17, 1866. 223 announcements himself, and made a tremendous success of his first real lecture, October 2, 1866, The gross return was $1,200, and the newspapers were enthusiastic in their praise, Mark Twain had come a long way since the time he had ap peared before the Nevada legislature as Governor of the Third House, though even then he had been enthusiastically applauded. Now his fame was coming to be something more than merely local, and he no doubt saw the possibilities be fore him out there in a wider field. The succeeding lectures that he gave in California and Nevada towns were as enthusiastically received as had been the one in San Francisco. In Washoe, excitement ran particularly high; Carson City, Virginia City, and Gold Hill welcomed him back with wild acclaim. But the boys in Virginia City saw their final chance to get back at him for the many practical jokes he had played on them a few years before. It was a bit of sentimentality they could not re sist. So they staged a fake robbery on a bitterly cold night when Mark and his manager, Denis McCarthy, were returning to Virginia City from a lecture at Gold Hill. The holdup was perpetrated on the Divide between the two towns, and to Mark it was an uncomfortably real affair, although McCarthy was in on it. The day after the fake holdup on the Divide, Twain wrote a "Card to the Highwaymen" for publication in the 224 Territorial Enterprise of November 11, 1866* He wrote seri ously, hoping to recover particularly the watch that had been presented to him as Governor of the Third House of the Nevada legislature by Judge Sandy Baldwin and Theodore Winters, In the same issue Dan de Quille had a paragraph on the robbery: Mark Twain Robbed After his lecture at Gold Hill last evening, Mark Twain and his agent (Mac) were coming on foot up to this city, when just as they were on the Divide, near the Montreal House, they were stopped by five highwaymen, and robbed of about $100 in coin and a valuable gold watch. Mark publishes a card on the subject in another column. This is no joke, but it is downright sober ear nest. There should be a little hanging done among these rascals. This is the boldest robbery yet.^ When Mark discovered that it was a practical joke which the boys had played on him he cancelled the return lec ture engagement that he had planned for Virginia City and left by Pioneer Stage for California. He was angry and did not hesitate to tell the boys what he thought of them. It was his customary reaction when the joke was not by, but on, him. He soon cooled down, however, and forgave his Washoe friends, though in later years he was to look back more than once with resentment at the practical jokers who had made use of him as a target. Perhaps Mark’s resentment at the Virginia City fake ^ Territorial Enterprise, November 11, 1866. 225 holdup oan be attributed to some extent to the fact that just previously, near Nevada City, on the same lecture tour, he had been the victim of another practical joke* Evidently he was being made the victim of a series of episodes, since he writes in a San Francisco Bulletin letter that between Grass Valley and Nevada City "began the series of practical 4 jokes with which I h^ve been assailed lately." The first of the series concerned a letter that Mark was to have de livered to a distinguished citizen of Nevada City. A man in the stage represented himself as the addressee, Mark was taken in by the deception, and the letter started on a cir cuitous route to the rightful man. Mark explains how the truth leaked out: One of the party said, "Why that fellow in the stage was named Duell— he don’t know enough to come in when it rainsJ” I said that that was what I thought in the first place, but after all that was as much intelligence as a practical joker requires— any idiot can tell a lie, and no practical joke is anything more than a spoken or acted deception. You can carefully analyze the best one you ever heard of and you will find that that is exactly all it consists of. The letter had passed through some fifty hands, and when Mr. S received it it was about worn out. How ever, I accepted the harmless joke, and some time or other when an opportunity offers, I will try to "get even" on the festive ass they call Duell. Returning .to San Francisco after his swing through California and Nevada towns, Twain delivered a second lecture, 4 San Francisco Bulletin, November 30, 1866. 286 the final one of the series, on November 16. Of the first lecture the San Francisco Bulletin had said, at the end of a laudatory review: The lecture was superior to Artemus Ward’s "Babes in the Wood” in point of humor. It evinced none of that straining after effect that was manifested by the great showman, and possessed some solid qualities to which Ward can make no pretensions. As a humorous writer Mark Twain stands in the foremost rank, while his effort of last evening affords reason for the belief that he can establish an equal reputation as a humorous and original lecturer. Of the final lecture the Alta California said the enthusiasm with which it had been received t f was a deserving testimonial to a humorist who has made his fame among us and is now about to take his departure."^ Tiie Alt8- California was not only vigorous in its praise of Mark Twain; it was willing to stand back of its faith in his ability. When Twain sailed from San Francisco 7 on the Opposition steamer, "America," Captain Ned Wakeman, at noon on December 15, 1866, he left under commission to the Alta Oalifornia for a series of letters during his pro posed trip around the world: "Mark Twain" goes off on his journey over the world ^ San Francisco Bulletin, October 3, 1866. 6 Alta California, November 17, 1866. 7 The "Captain Ned Oakley" of Houghing It; "Captain Stormfield" of "Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven;" "Captain Hurricane Jones" of "Rambling Notes of an Idle Ex cursion." 227 as the Travelling Correspondent of the Alta California, not stinted as to time, place or direction— writing his weekly letters on such subjects and from such places as will best suit him; but we may say that he will first visit the home of his youth— St, Louis--thence through the principal cities to the Atlantic seaboard again, crossing the ocean to visit the "Universal Exposition" at Paris, through Italy, the Mediterranean, India, China, Japan, and back to San Francisco by the China Mail Steam ship line. That his letters will be read with interest needs no assurance from us--his reputation has been made here in California, and his great ability is well known; but he has been known principally as a humorist, while he really has no superior as a descriptive writer--a keen observer of men and their surroundings— and we feel confident his letters to the Alta, from his new field of observation, will give him a world-wide reputation. Soon he would be in the East where he could say to Howells, the high priest of gentility: "When I read that re view of yours [of Innocents Abroad] I felt like the woman who said that she was so glad that the baby had come white;” where pious Olivia Clemens could smugly polish, purify, edit her husband and his words; where Howells, Aldrich, and Mrs. Clemens could grow faint with embarrassment over the old- fashioned string-tie which was still a favorite with Mark Twain; where effete Boston could stare straight ahead in frozen horror at his blasphemous Whittier birthday speech, one of the finest things Mark Twain ever did; where Oliver Wendell Holmes, the last of the Brahmins, on being thanked by Twain for a Holmes poem in honor of Twain on his fiftieth birthday, could write with his own hand and his own conceit: ^ Alta California, December 15, 1866. 228 Did Miss G-ilder tell you I had twenty-three letters spread out for answer when her suggestion came about your anniversary? I stopped my correspondence and made my letters wait until the lines were done.9 How far then would Mark Twain, son of the frontier, have wandered from his home in the West2 When Mark Twain departed from San Francisco after five and a half years in the West he had arrived at a sig nificant point in his artistic development. In those five and a half years he had traveled a long way from the young adventurer who had come on a "three months* pleasure trip” to the silver mines of Nevada. During his period in the West, Mark Twain had under gone a complete transformation. He had come to Nevada un known, undecided as to his objective im life. He had done some writing, but all of his attempts had been amateurish, premature. There had been no sustained effort at authorship, and although he was twenty-five when he arrived in Nevada he had not by any means decided upon authorship as a career. Examination of new material not previously available reveals that certain tendencies of his pre-Washoe writings carried over into this western period, however. Imong these were the predilection for humorous writing; the preference for writing travel letters rather than local items; the aptitude for 9 Paine, Letters, II, 466. 229 editorial controversy, and the love of a battle of words; the tendency to satirize individuals, often unjustly, for the sake of building a good story or making a point which in itself may have been justified. However, the use of exag gerated dialects, misspellings, and other similar elements of style were abandoned in Nevada and California. Before coming to Nevada, Mark Twain had served two apprenticeships, as printer and as a pilot on the Missisippi. In Nevada, after the pastoral interlude at Lake Tahoe had reconciled him to the "damnedest country under the sun," he took up the career of silver miner and stayed with it until he was thoroughly convinced that he could not be successful at it. Then he went to Virginia City to join the staff of the Territorial-Interprise and to take a vigorous part in the glamorous life of the Comstock Lode. Here, after three false apprenticeships, he chose authorship as his life work. The significance of the two years on the Territorial Enterprise in the western development of Mark Twain have not been overestimated in this study, I believe. He was associ ated with men from whom he could learn much. He was given a freedom of utterance that permitted him to try out his lit erary talents and thus enabled him to separate the good writings from the bad. He was not so bad a critic of his own work, despite what has been written of him, that he did not know what was worthwhile as contrasted with that which was 230 flimsy, or crude, or, in his own words, "hogwash.” He did not continue to write "Empire City Massacre" stories for the remainder of his days on the Enterprise« although Joe Goodman was so intent on giving Mark the free run of the newspaper that he might have kept on printing them indefi nitely. Twain himself determined that he could and would write better things. Yet the experience he gained in trying his hand was no doubt a valuable one for such a spirit as his. Contrast this with his later experience on the San Francisco Call, where editorial restraint forced him to give up what many other capable newspaper and magazine writers on the Coast would have considered a very fine position. On the Enterprise Mark Twain took up writing as a life career. On the Enterprise he adopted the pen name that was to achieve world-wide fame. Who can estimate the ulti mate significance of this one incident of choice of pen name? Surely it must be given a major rating among the varied ele ments of Twain’s literary development. That there was no "original Mark Twain" other than Samuel Clemens himself is revealed by the present writer’s study of Captain Isaiah Sellers’ log book, made available for the first time for scholarly examination, f.ive months after it appeared first in the Enterprise Clemens’ nom de plume appeared in the San Francisco Call. On July 9, 1863, the Call printed the first 231 article, either reprinted or directly contributed, with Mark Twain’s signature, to appear in any known publication outside of the Territorial Enterprise. Then came the first eastern notice of Mark Twain, when Yankee Notions reprinted from the Enterprise his review of ’ ’ Ingomar, the Barbarian.” Establishment of this point was made possible by the present writer through discovery of the April, 1864, issue of Yankee Notions in the Willard S. Morse collection. It was in Virginia City, in December, 1863, that Mark Twain first met Artemus Ward. This suggests the question of Ward’s influence on Twain. There is little evidence that Artemus Ward influenced Twain, except in an indirect way. By the time the two met, Twain had already made a reputation for himself on the Coast. The present writer’s investigation shows that Twain had written a series of letters for the San Francisco Call, he had contributed articles to the Golden Era, and many of his Enterprise articles had been reprinted by San Francisco publications. He was well enough known for the Golden Era, on September 27, 1863, to give its reprint of an Enterprise article the heading ’ ’ Mark Twain— More of Him.” When Ward came with the label, ’ ’ Wild Humorist of the Plains,” a similar title, ’ ’ The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” was conferred upon Twain, but it did not last. Twain did not have the mind, the manner, the method, the temperament of Artemus Ward. They were two different 232 spirits. Twain had one thing in common with Ward, as he had in common with John Phoenix, JosbBillings, and Petroleum V. Nasby; he was, at the time, chiefly concerned with humorous writing. There were certain conventional subjects, and cer tain extravagant and burlesque treatments of these subjects, which were conventional in newspaper humor of the time. Twain indulged in these to a small degree, but that he soon deserted the traditional devices in favor of his own style of presentation no doubt explains why, of the many humorists who flourished in his day, only Mark Twain remains. That any of these writers had any direct influence on Twain can not be admitted when one makes a comparison of their works with the writings of Twain during his western period. If, occasionally, he borrowed an inspiration, from whatever source, he usually had the artistic aptitude to improve on it. There was some indirect influence by Artemus Ward that has significance, however. Ward had the gift of friendship, and when he came to Virginia City the members of the Enterprise staff found in him a congenial companion. Twain enjoyed the comradeship immensely, and was therefore willing to take advice from Ward, who, instead of setting himself above Twain, encouraged him as a brother humorist. Twain felt then, no doubt, that he could follow in the footsteps of this man who was winning popular acclaim. A chain of linked circumstances then continues from this Virginia City 233 companionship to the publication of the lumping Frog story and to Twain1s beginnings—on the lecture platform* There has been widespread acceptance of the fiction of Bret Hartefs influence on Mark Twain, This appears to be based generally on a passage in a Twain letter to Thomas Bailey Aldrich dated January 28, 1871: But I did hate to be accused of plagiarizing Bret Harte, who trimmed and trained and schooled me patiently until he changed me from an awkward utterer of coarse grotesquenesses to a writer of paragraphs and chapters that have found a certain favor in the eyes of even some of the very decentest people in the land— and this grate ful remembrance of mine ought to be worth its face, seeing that Bret broke our long friendship a year ago without any cause or provocation that I am aware of.^-0 This was indeed extravagant praise for the man who was drop ping his western friends right and left, usually on the basis of his having borrowed money from them. And what did Twain have to thank Harte for? Just one thing: Harte was either editor of, or star contributor to, the Californian while Twain was in San Francisco, and was helpful in getting many Twain sketches into the magazine. This, however, does not prove influence. It was probably the Californian, a high quality publication, that had an effect in toning Twain’s articles and increasing their literary excellence, rather than the influence of any individual. Twain was shrewd enough to play up to both Harte and the Californian in order 10 Paine, Letters, I, 182-183. 234 to achieve publication in what was undoubtedly the finest literary journal in the West at that time. Whatever Harte’s alleged influence might have been, it was in actuality not strong enough to keep Twain from writing the "Kearny Street Ghost Story," or other sketches that were not submitted to the Californian and that no doubt offended Harte1s finer sensibilities, if he read these sketches. This less refined writing, much of it in the Sandwich Islands letters, came after the fictitious influ ence allegedly began. Neither was this influence strong enough to prompt Harte to see that the Jumping Frog story was published first in the Californian, although he had heard it told by Twain before it was submitted to eastern publishers. From what has been written about the influence of Harte on Mark Twain, one might suppose that there was a sud den and violent change in Twain fs writing immediately after he came in contact with Harte. No such sudden change is evident in the western writings; there is simply a normal development whereby Twain broadened his scope and improved by degrees the quality of his writing style. That Harte should have sought Twain’s articles for the Californian is not re markable; it is not unusual for editors to seek the work of good writers for their publications, with no question of per sonal feelings or influence involved. 235 Although Twain no doubt felt under some obligation to Harte during the California days, his estimate of Harte, outside of the "influence” passage, was not a high one. There is a likelihood that Twain, like other westerners, had Harte pretty well labeled from the beginning as an impossible person, but played up to his position rather than to the man. And Twain never could take even the good advice of a person whom he did not respect, whereas he seldom hesitated to take bad advice from his friends. In later years, away from the possibility of enjoying any practical benefit through Harte*s benevolence, Twain was realistic enough in his judgment of the man. On one occasion when Frank Harris praised Harte, Twain denounced him and told a story about how he had cheated his publishers. "I told the publishers," he said, "that they ought to have put him in prison. A man should be honest, above everything. Harte had no enthusiasm fpr the success of others; he was envious, covetous of honors bestowed even upon those who con sidered themselves to be his friends. Finally, though personal friendship is not necessarily a test of literary influence, it may possibly be relevant to note that in the 515-page volume of The Letters of Bret Harte. assembled and edited by Geoffrey Bret Harte, there is not a H Edward Wagenknecht, Mark Twain: The Man and His Work, p. 165. 236 single letter to Mark Twain. So much for Harte’s influence on Mark Twain, an influence which was probably not equal to that of many another of Twain’s friends and editorial asso ciates in Nevada and California. Regardless of Bret Harte’s relationship to Mark Twain, however, the Californian did play a major part in Twain’s literary development during his western period. But it was still only one of the several channels through which Twain’s writings reached the public. There were also the Territorial Enterprise, the San Francisco Call, the Golden Era, the Napa County Reporter (three San Francisco letters in the winter of 1865), the Sacramento Union, the Hawaiian Herald, the San Francisco Bulletin, and the Alta California. These publica tions and many others also carried reprints of numerous Twain items. An important factor in Mark Twain’s western develop ment was his growth as a personality. He had not been long on the streets of Carson City, after his arrival by Overland Stage in August, 1861, before he was standing out as one dis tinct from the crowd. On the Enterprise he was given com plete freedom to develop this individuality; for this the East took revenge, later, by shanghaiing him into gentility. When he adopted his nom de plume, the name Mark Twain imme diately had a personality behind it; it was not simply another writer’s pen name. The name was no doubt a good one, but what would it have amounted to without the personality behind it? Its effectiveness lay chiefly in the dynamic spirit whose individuality it expressed* From the very earliest western days, Twain became the chief figure in groups with which he became associated* His was an eager, vigorous, en thusiastic, dynamic spirit that could not survive in the background. He lived the western experience to the full, and his response to it in his writings was personal and emotional Twain was never one to step aside and let life drift by. As a journalist, he wrote about what he saw and heard in the life about him and how it affected him. That Mark Twain enjoyed the position of importance that he occupied soon after he came West is shown particu larly in his letters. As early as August, 1863, he wrote home that he was "prone to boast of having the widest reputa- 12 tion, as a local editor, of any man on the Pacific Coast." And his writings from the first were highly personal. He lived close to his material, received his subject matter and his inspirations from realities about him. He made himself an important actor in the drama of the West. It is a vital factor in the growth of Mark Twain as a writer and as a man that he had the opportunity to live in the frontier West, where for five and a half years that vigorous personality was ^ Paine, Letters, I, 91. 238 permitted to develop in its own way. Had Mark Twain teen only a humorist in the West, there would have been no odium attached; he was capable of writing humor— good humor. But from the beginning he was more than a humorist. During the western period he became an accomplished social satirist, and with a gradually broad ening scope he wrote artistically with a variety of effects, from the coarsest burlesque to fine descriptive and informa tional articles. That much of his lifefs work was in embryo in the West is shown by a study of a quantity of previously unreprinted material. Many of the cruder writings of Mark Twain in the West he wrote in the role of a debunker. Some he wrote just be cause he felt that way, just as he did when he called Laird a "cowardly sneak," a "craven carcass," "an unmitigated liar," and an "abject coward," in the duel correspondence which was discovered by the present writer reprinted in the Sacramento Union, although stories discovered in newspapers of the time indicate that no duel was actually fought. The frontier West probably did not draw Twain out in the writing of coarseness any more than did other parts of the world. He was pretty well away from the West, with its "Doleful Ballad of the Rejected Lover," which he and Steve Gillis intoned in San Francisco’s byways, when he wrote "1601" and when he made his speech to the Stomach Club in Paris. Paine’s suggestion 239 that Twain’s taste was so unreliable that he needed the edit ing assistance of Mrs. Clemens and W. D. Howells is not veri fied in the western record. Twain could have kept on in the West with the cruder type of writing, but his artistic sense pointed the better way. Yet, after all, the cruder products of Mark Twain’s pen are so small a part of his total output that they must be given a distinctly minor place in an ap praisal of his work. In the West Mark Twain was a journalist. Gradually it became more and more evident that he was throwing off "pearls which ought for the eternal welfare" of his race, "to have a more extensive circulation than is afforded by a local daily paper,as he himself wrote. In December, 1866, the Coast no longer offering him the best opportunities, he went to examine the larger field, though even then he was on assignment for the Alta California and intended to return to San Francisco after a trip around the world. The innocent went abroad, however, and stayed. The West lost its son, but the world, including the West, gained by the loss. Paine, Biography, pp. 243-44. BIBLIOGHAPHY BIBLIOGHAPHY Newspaper and magazine files have been consulted* at the following libraries: Nevada State Library, for the Territorial Enterprise; University of Nevada Library, for the Territorial Enterprise, the Gold Hill Daily News, the Nevada Magazine; Bancroft Library of the University of California, for the Territorial Enterprise, Virginia City Union, San Erancisco Call, San Francisco Bulletin, Alta California, Golden Era, Californian, Sacramento Union; University of California Library, for the Golden Era; Willard S. Morse’s collection, for miscellaneous items; the Clarke Library, for the Californian; the California State Library, for the Californian Illustrated Magazine and the Golden Era, The Hillcrest edition of the writings of Mark Twain has been used for works not separately listed in the bibliography. Angel, Myron, editor, History of Nevada. Oakland: Thompson and West, 1881.- Armstrong, C. I., "Mark Twain's Early Writings Discovered," Missouri Historical Heview, XXIV (July, 1930}. Bancroft, H. H., History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming. Works, Vol. 25. San Francisco: The History Company, 1890. Bliss, Walter, Twainiana Notes from the Annotations of Walter Bliss. Edited with introduction by Frances M. Edwards; Hartford: The Hobby Shop, 1930. Brashear, Minnie M., Mark Twain, Son of Missouri. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934. Brooks, Van YJyck, The Ordeal of Mark Twain. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company. Revisededition, 1933. Brownell, George H., "Mark Twainiana," American Book Collec tor, III (March, 1933). Clemens, Clara, M^ Father Mark Twain. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931. Clemens, Cyril, editor, Mark Twain Anecdotes. Webster Groves, Missouri: Mark Twain Society, 1929.. 242 Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, Charles Honoe, editor; Chicago: Pascal Covici7 Inc., 1928. ______ , The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. John Paul (pseudo); New York: C. H. Webb, 1867. , Letter to the California Pioneers. Oakland: Dewitt and Snelling, 1911. ______ , Mark Twain* s Autobiography. V/ith an Introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine; 2 vols.; New York: Harper and Brothers, 1924. , Mark Twain*s Letters. Arranged with Comment by Albert Bigelow Paine; 2 vols; New York: Harper and Brothers, 1917. ______ , Mark Twain*s Speeches. With an Introduction by William Dean Howells. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1910. ______ , What Is Man? New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1917. Clemens, Will M., Mark Twain: His Life and Work. San Francisco: Clemens Publishing Company, 1892. Cummins, Ella Sterling, The Story of the Files. San Francisco: Issued by World’s Fair "CommissTon of California Columbian Exposition, 1893. De Quille, Dan (William Wright), "Artemus Ward in Nevada,” Californian Illustrated Magazine, IV {August, 1893), 403- 406. , "Reporting with Mark Twain,” Californian Illustrated Magazine, IV (July, 1893), 170-1781 " Derby, Captain George Horatio (John Phoenix), Phoenixiana; 2 vols.; Chicago: The Caxton Press, 1897. De Voto, Bernard, Mark Twain*s America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1932. Doten, Alf., "Early Journalism in Nevada," The Nevada Magazine, ?sTinnemucca, Nevada, I, 3 (October, 1899), 182-184. Falk, Bernard, The Naked Lady or Storm Over Adah. London: Hutchinson and Company, Ltd., 1934. 243 Fisher, Henry W., Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field. Tales They Told to a Fellow-Correspondent. New York: Nicholas L. Brown, 1922. Gillis, William R., Gold Rush Days with Mark Twain. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1930. ______ , Memories of Mark Twain and Steve Gillis. Sonora, California: The Banner, 1924. Glasscock, Carl B., The Big Bonanza. Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill Company,~T931. Goodwin, C. C., As I Remember Them. Salt Lake City: Salt Lake Commercial Club, 1913. Harte, Geoffrey Bret, The Letters of Bret Harte. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926. Hazard, Lucy Lockwood, The Frontier in American Literature. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1927. Henderson, Archibald, Mark Twain. London: Duckworth and Company, 1911. Hittell, Theodore H., History of California. Vol.. Ill; San Francisco: N. J. Stone and Company, 1898. Howell, John, editor, Sketches of the Sixties: by Bret Harte and Mark Twain. San Francisco: John Howell," 1926. Howells, W. D., My Mark Twain. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1911. “ James, G. W., "How Mark Twain Was Made," reprinted from National Magazine, February, 1911. , "Mark Twain and the Pacific Coast," Pacific Monthly, XXIV (1910}, 115-134. Johnson, Merle, A Bibliography of the Work of Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens. New York and- London: Harper and Brothers, 1910. Lawton, Mary, A Lifetime with Mark Twain. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1925. Leacock, Stephen, Mark Twain. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1933. 244 Lewis, Oscar, The Origin of the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 1931. Lorch, Fred W., **A Source for Mark Twain*s *The Dandy Frightening the Squatter,*** American Literature, III (1931), 309-313. Lyman, George D., The Saga of the Comstock Lode. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934. McMurtrie, Douglas, A Bibliography of Nevada Newspapers, 1858 to 1875 IncTusive. Mainz: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1935. ______ , A History of California Newspapers. New York: Plandome Press,” T927. Meine, Franklin J., Tall Tales of the Southwest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,' 1930. Merwin, Henry Childs, The Life of Bret Harte. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911. Meyer, Harold, **Mark Twain on the Comstock,** Southwest Review, XII (1927), 197-207. Mighels, Henry R., Sage Brush Leaves. San Francisco: Fdward Bosqui and Company, 1879. Millard, Bailey, **Mark Twain in San Francisco,** Bookman, XXXI (June, 1910), 369-373. — ~ Paine, Albert Bigelow, Mark Twain: A Biography. 4 vols.; New York: Harper and Brothers, 1912. ______ , Mark Twain* s Letters. 2 vols.; New York: Harper and Brothers7 T9l7. ______ , Mark Twain* s Notebook. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935. ______ , A Short Life of Mark Twain. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1920. Pattee, Fred. Lewis, A History of American Literature Since 1870. New York: The Century Company, 1915. ______ , Mark Twain. New York: American Book Company, 1935. 245 Pemberton, T. Edgar, Life of Bret Harte. London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1903. Potter, John Kelly, Samuel L. Clemens, First Editions and Values. Chicago: The Black Archer Press, 1932. Rabb, Kate Milner, editor, Wit and Humor of America. 6 vols.; Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1907. Rourke, Constance, American Humor. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1931. Schonemann, Friederich, Mark Twain Als Literarische Person- lichkeit. Jena; Verlag der Frommanschen Buchhandlung. Waiter Biedermann, 1925. Seitz, Dan C., Artemus Ward: A Biography and Bibliography. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1919. Sherman, Stuart, "Mark Twain,” Cambridge History of American Literature. Vol. Ill; New York: G. P. Putnam*s Sons, T92T:------ Stellman, L. J., Mother Lode. San Francisco: Chronicle Pub lishing Company, 1935. Stewart, George R., Jr., A Bibliography of the Writings of Bret Harte in the Magazines and Newspapers of California, 1857-1871. Berkeley7 California: University of California PressT 1933. ______ , Bret Harte, Argonaut and Exile. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1931. Stewart, William M., Reminiscences. Edited by George Rothwell Brown. New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1908. Wagenknecht, Edward, Mark Twain: The Man and His Work. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1935. White, Edgar, "Mark Twain*s Printer Days," Overland Monthly, LKX (1917), 573-576. White, Frank M., "Mark Twain as a Newspaper Reporter," Outlook, XCVI (1910), 961-967. Vsfright, William (Dan De Quille), History of the Big Bonanza. Hartford, Connecticut: American Publishing Company. San Francisco, California: A. L. Bancroft and Company, 1876. 246 Young, John P., Journalism in California. San Francisco: Chronicle Publishing Company, 1915. APPENDICES APPENDIX A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF MARK TWAIN IN THE NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES OF NEVADA AND CALIFORNIA, 1861-1866 Arrangement of items in the bibliography is alphabetical The reprints that follow are arranged chronologically to show Mark Twain’s development as a writer in the West. The seventy- two items starred in the bibliography are here given book re printing for the first time, with the following exceptions: "Answers to Correspondents," Californian, June 3, 1865, part of which appeared in the Jumping Frog; parts of two Sacramento Union letters, April 20 and 21, 1866, which were rewritten for the Jumping Frog; "Mark Twain Among the Spirits," Territorial Enterprise, November 4, 1866, which was rewritten for the Jumping Frog; the Empire City massacre story, Territorial Enterprise, October 31, 1863, which was edited for Paine’s Biography. Places of publication of previously reprinted items are indicated in parentheses after the name and date of the item in the bibliography. Alta California San Francisco 1866 December 14 *So-Long 15 *Address. "Mark Twain’s" Farewell. Delivered at Congress Hall, San Francisco, December 10, 1866. The fifty Holy Land Excursion Letters to the Alta California, published from August 25, 1867, to May 17, 1868 were rewritten for Innocents Abroad, 1869. Bulletin San Francisco 1866 November 30 *Mark Twain’s Interior Notes December 6 *Mark Twain’s Interior Notes 7 *Mark Twain’s Interior Notes 7 *Mark Twain Mystified Californian San Francisco 1864 October 1 A Notable Conundrum (Sketches of the Sixties) 8 .Concerning the Answer to That Conundrum (Sketches of the Sixties) 15 Still Further Concerning That Conundrum (Sketches of the Sixties) 248 Californian (continued) 1864 October 22 29 November 5 12 19 December 3 1865 March May June 18 f/hereas— ("Love’s Bakery” and "Aurelia’s Unfortunate Young Man") (Part in Jumping Frog, complete in Sketches of the Sixties) A Touching Story of George Washington’s Boyhood (Jumping Frog) Daniel in the Lion’s Den— and Out Again All Bight (Sketches of the Sixties) The Killing of Julius Caesar Localized (Jumping Frog) A Full and Reliable Account of the Extra-ordinary Meteoric Shower of Last Saturday Night (Sketches of the Sixties) Lucretia Smith’s Soldier (Jumping Frog) An Unbiased Criticism (Sketches of the Sixties) 6 Important Correspondence. Between Mr. Mark Twain of San Francisco, and Rev. Bishop Hawks, D. D., of New York, Rev. Phillips Brooks of Philadelphia, and Rev. Dr. Cummings of Chicago, concern ing the occupancy of Grace Cathedral (Sketches of the Sixties) 13 Further of Mr. Mark Twain’s Important Correspondence (Sketches of the Sixties) 27 *How I Went to the Great Race Between Lodi and Norfolk *Answers to Correspondents (Some in Jump ing Frog) Discarded Lover Arabella Persecuted Unfortunate Arthur Augustus Answers to Correspondents (Some in Jump ing Frog) Amateur Serenader St. Clair Higgins, Los Angeles Arithmeticus, Virginia, Nevada Ambitious Learner, Oakland Julia Maria Norn de Plume Melton Mowbray, Dutch Flat Laura Matilda Professional Beggar Answers to Correspondents (Some in Jump ing Frog) 3 10 17 249 Californian (continued) 1865 June July August 26 October 28 November 18 December 2 23 17 Moral Statistician Simon Wheeler, Sonora Inquirer Anna Maria Charming Simplicity Literary Connoisseur Etiquetticus, Monitor Silver Mines 24 Answers to Correspondents (Some in Jump ing Frog) True Son of the Union Socrates Murphy Arithmetieus, Virginia, Nevada Young Mother Blue-Stocking, San Francisco Agnes St. Clair Smith 1 Answers to Correspondents (Some in Jump- ing Frog) Young Actor Mary, Rincon School Anxiety, S. F. Mark Twain Gold Hill News 8 Answers to Correspondents (Some in Jump ing Frog) Inquirer, Sacramento Student of Etiquette Mary, Rincon School The Facts Concerning the recent trouble between Mr. Mark Twain and Mr. John William Skae of Virginia City— Wherein it is attempted to be proved that the former was not to blame in the matter (Part in Jumping Frog,, complete in Sketches of the Sixties) Real Estate Versus Imaginary Possessions, Poetically Considered (Sketches of the Sixties) On the Launch of the Steamer Capital (This includes "The Entertaining History of the Scriptural Panoramist," which was published in Beadle*s Dime Fun Book, No. 3, 1866; later in Jumping Frog) "Mark Twain" Overpowered (Sketches of the Sixties) The Christmas Fireside. For good little girls and boys by Grandfather Twain (Jumping Frog) 23 Enigma (Sketches of the Sixties) 250 Californian (continued) 1866 April 7 August 25 September 29 Call San Francisco 1863 On Linden, Etc. (Sketches of the Sixties) The Moral Phenomenon (Sketches of the Sixties) Origin of Illustrious Men (Jumping Frog) July August September November December 1864 September Dramatic Chronicle 1865 - - 9 "Mark Twain’s" Letter Virginia City, N. T., July 5, 1863. 15 "Mark Twain’s" Letter Virginia City, N. T., July 12, 1863. 18 "Mark Twain’s" Letter Virginia City, N. T., July 16, 12 M. 23 "Mark Twain’s" Letter Virginia City, N. T., July 19. .30 "Mark Twain’s" Letter Virginia City, N. T., July 26. 6 "Mark Twain’s" Letter Virginia City, August 2, 1863. 13 "Mark Twain’s" Letter Virginia City, August 8, 1863. 30 "Mark Twain’s" Letter Steamboat Springs, August 20, 1863. 3 "Mark Twain’s" Letter, Carson City, November 14, 1863. 19 "Mark Twain’s" Letter (22|*"Mark Twain" on Murders (Reprinted in Golden Era) 2 * Death— Robbery Carson, December 1 11 * Assassination in Carson Carson, December 10 6 * A Small Piece of Spite San Francisco - Earthquake Alamnac (Reprinted in Golden Era, October 22, 1865. Jumping Frog) Golden Era San Erancisco 1865 September 20 How to Cure a Cold (Jumping Frog) October 11 The Great Prize Eight (Wit and Humor of America) 1864 June 26 Evidence in the Case of Smith vs. Jones (Wit and Humor of America) 251 Golden Era (continued) 1864 July 1865 July 1866 March 3 *Early Bising as Begards Excursions to the Cliff House 2 *Smith Brown Jones 9 *S. Browne Jones 16 *S. Browne Jones February 25 25 4 11 11 18 *Mark Twain on Fashions *Mark Twain on California Critics *Mark Twain on the New ?fild Cat Beligion *Mark Twain on Boot-Blacks *More Spiritual Investigations by Mark Twain *Beflections on the Sabbath, by Mark Twain 25 Hawaiian Herald Honolulu 1866 October 17 *An Epistle from Mark Twain Napa County Beporter 1865 November 11 Letter— San Francisco, November 8, 1865 Similar Accident A Daniel Come to Judgment The "Addisonianst f Amusements Jump’s Last Letter— San Francisco, November 23, 1865 On Guard of a Bender Benkert Cometh Kip, Kip, Hurrah! Death of Gen. De Pussy Letter--San Francisco, November 30, 1865 Webb’s Benefit Banished Wretched Summerville Too Bad Parts of these letters are reprinted in Cornelius Cole (California Pioneer and United States Senator), by Catherine Coffin Philips, San Francisco. Printed by John Henry Nash, 1929. December 2 Sacramento Union IQ64 May 26 *Duel Correspondence with Laird (Beprinted ^rom Territorial Enterprise) 25 2 Sacramento Union (continued) 1864 May- 26 26 *Duel Correspondence with Laird (Re printed from Territorial Enterprise) *Duel Correspondence with Laird (Re- printed from Territorial Enterprise) April 16 ^Honolulu March 18 Climatic 17 * « tt 19 The Ajax Voyage Con tinued 18 * tt tt Still at Sea 19 * 1! tt —— Our Arrival Elaborated a Little More 20 * 1t tt — Board and Lodging Secured 21 * ft tt — — Coming Home From Prison 24 * tt tt. —— The Equestrian Excur sion Concluded May 21 * tt April — Off 22 * ft tt — Sad Accident 23 * tt tt — The Whaling Trade 24 * tt tt — — Paradise and the Pari (Joke) June 20 * ft May 23 Hawaiian Legislature 21 * ft tt 23 Legislature Continued July 16 * ft June 22 "Home Again" 19 * tt tt 25 Burning of the Clipper Ship Hornet at Sea 30 * tt tt 30 A Month of Mourning August 1 * tt July 1 Funeral of the Princess 18 * tt tt — At Sea Again 24 *Kona tt — Still in Kona 30 *Kealakekua Bay 1866 Great Britain’s Queer Monument to Captain Cook September 6 * tt July — A Funny Scrap of His * tory 22 tt tt — The Romantic God Lono 26 ^Honolulu Sept. 10 The High Chief of Sugardom October 25 *Kilauea June — A Notable Discovery November 16 *Volcano House June 3 The Great Volcano of Kileaua Part of the letter published by the Union on April 20 is re printed in the Jumping Frog under the title, "Honored as a Curiosity in Honolulu." Part of the letter published on 253 April 21 is reprinted in the Jumping Frog under the title, "The Steed ’Oahu.’" The letter published on July 16 was rewritten for Harper*s Magazine, December, 1866, appearing later in Library of Universal Adventure, 1888. The letters for April 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 were reprinted in the Union, March 21, 1921. Territorial Enterprise 1866 November 4 — 1X Virginia City *Card From Mark Twain *Card to the Highwaymen Letters from Mark Twain to the Territorial Enterprise. From Mark Twain’s Scrap Book, which is in Willard S. Morse’s col lection. The date given is the date shown on letters, not the date of publication. 1863 December 13 1865 December 11 13 19 20 Carson Third House— Reported by Mark Twain in Phonographic Short Hand (Thompson and West’s History of Nevada) Our Carson Dispatch— Second Session (By Telegraph? "Mark Twain" on the Ballad Infliction (Reprinted in Californian, November 4, 1865. This item is starred in list of Californian reprints) San Francisco Personal "Christian Spectator" The Police Judge Trouble More Romance Telegraphic San Francisco Managerial Not a Suicide Reopening of the Plaza More Fashions— Exit "?feterfali" San Francisco Caustic Thief Catching I Knew It! MacDougal vs. Maguire Louis Aldrich Gould and Curry San Francisco The New Swimming Bath 254 Territorial Enterprise (continued) 1865 December 20 Buckingham Mining Corporations Major Barren Sam Brannan The "Excentrics" MacDougal vs. Maguire Nursery Rhyme Uncle Joe Trench 22 San Francisco How Long, 0 Lord, How Long? Editorial Poem Facetious Mayo and Aldrich Financial Personal Mock Duel— Almost "More Wisdom" 23 San Francisco Extraordinary Delicacy Shoot ing Another Enterprise Spirit of the Local Press Gardiner Indicted 29 -San Francisco The Black Hole of San Francisco Busted Inspiration of Louderback Personal 1866 January 8 San Francisco "Whiteman Mighty Unsartain" The Opening Nights The Portraits The Mint Defalcation 11 San Francisco Gorgeous New Romance by Fitz Smythe Another Romance Precious Stones Premature A Handsome Testimonial The Californian Art Union Theatrical 24 San Francisco More Outcroppings Among the Spiritualists Personal How They Take It 28 San Francisco 855 Territorial Enterprise (continued} 1866 January 28 February 3 August 12 15 23 25 Bearding the Fenian in His Lair (Jumping Frog, under title, "Among the Fenians77/ Sabbath Recollections "Neddamode" San Francisco Personal More Cemeterial Ghastliness Rev. Charles Ellis More Outcroppings I Feel I’m Growing Mirk— Poem Take the Stand, Fitz Sraythe San Francisco Remarkable Dream Personal -Dogberry’s Lecture San Francisco Michael Liberality of Michael Liberality of His Heir The Fashions The New Play Personal San Francisco Funny Montana Literary Personal Specie and Currency San Francisco A Voyage of the Ajax Pleasing Incident Off for the Snow Belt After Them Theatrical Sacramento Sacramento Boot-Blacking Brief Climate Paragraph The Lullaby of the Rain Try to Out "Sass" the Landlord and Fail Mr. John Paul’s Baggage San Francisco An Inquiry About Insurance (Jumping Frog) Miscellaneous (Morse Collection) 1865 November — *"Ingomar" Over the Mountains. "The 256 Territorial Enterprise (continued) 1863 November — Argument” (Reprinted by Yankee Notions, New York, April, 1863. Also reprinted by Golden Era, November 29, 1863) 1865 November — Grand Theatrical Banquet (Theatrical - Barbecue at Occidental Hotel, San Francisco, November, 1865) — Steamer Departures Enterprise articles by Mark Twain reprinted in Californian, with date of that publication. 1865 November 4*”Mark Twain” on the Ballad Infliction 25 The Pioneer Ball. After Jenkins (Jump ing Frog) 25 *The Old Thing. What Cheer Robbery (in Territorial Enterprise, November 18) 1866 March 3 A New Biography of George Washington (Jumping Frog) 3 "Presence of Mind” (Jumping Frog) Enterprise articles by Mark Twain rejjrinted in Golden Era, with date of that publication. 1865 September 27 *A11 About the Fashions (San Francisco letter dated June 19) November 29 *Announcing Artemus Ward’s Coming 29 Play Acting Over the Mountains. The play of "Barbarian” by Maguire’s Dra matic Troupe at Virginia City. (Also reprinted in Yankee Notions, April, 1864. This item is starred under Territorial Enterprise, Miscellaneous) December 6 *A Tide of Eloquence 1864 February 28 *Washoe Wit. Mark Twain on the Rampage. Concerning Notaries May 1 *”Mark Twain" and ”Dan De Quille,” Hors De Combat 22 Information V/anted ("Information for the Million,” Jumping Frog) June 26 *"Mark Twain" m the Metropolis 1866 January 14 *Mark Twain’s New Year’s Day 21 *What Have the Police Been Doing? 257 Territorial Enterprise (continued) 1866 January El Fitz Smythe’s Horse (Beadle’s Dime Fun Book, 1866) E8 *Mark Twain’s Kearny Street Ghost Story 28 *Captain Montgomery. The Chapman Family. Miseries of Washoe Men. Busted, and Gone Abroad February 4 *Mark Twain Among the Spirits (Published in Territorial Enterprise, November 4. Rewritten for Jumping Frog) 11 Mark Twain a Committee Man. Ghostly Gatherings Down Among the Dead Men (Rewritten for "Among the Spirits" in Jumping Frog). A Phantom Fandango 18 *Mark Twain on the Signal Corps 18 *Mark Twain on Spiritual Insanity 18 *The Russian American Telegraph Company Enterprise articles by Mark Twain reprinted in San Francisco Bulletin,~~~with date of that publication. 186E October 15 *The Petrified Man (Published in Territorial Enterprise, October 5) 1863 October 31 *The Latest Sensation (Empire City Massacre story, which v/as published in Territorial Enterprise. Edited for Paine’s Biography of Mark Twain, Appendix C) APPENDIX B REPRODUCTIONS OF MARK TWAIN’S WESTERN WRITINGS NOT PREVIOUSLY REPRINTED P h o to sta t rep ro d u c tio n from „ . OAHCWfT L l B f l * , , S.F. B u l l e t i n 259 „ . Oct 15 1862 1 4 D a te ....................................................P g ........ — Col..... P h o to stated ....................................................................... by U N IV E R S IT Y O F C A L IF O R N IA L IBR A R Y • A W ashob Joke. — The Territorial Enterprise • has a joke of a "petrified m an” haring been found , on the plains, which the interior journals seem to be copying in good, faith. Our authority gravely says: A petrified m an was found some time ago in the mountains south of Gravelly Ford. Every limb and feature of the stony mummy was perfect, not even-excepting the left Ice, which has evidently been a wooden one during the lifetime of the own er—which lifetime, by the way, came to a close about a century ago, in the opinion of a savan who 1 has examined the defunct. The body was in a sit ting posture and leaning against a huge mass of eroppings; the attitude was pensive, the right thumb resting against the side of the n o se; the left thumb partially supported the chin, the fore finger pressing the inner corner of the left eye and drawing it partly open; the right eye was closed, and the fingers of the right hand spread apart. [!j This strange freak of nature created a profound sensation in the vicinity, and our informant states that, by request, Justice Sewell or Sowell of Hum boldt City at once proceeded to the spot and held , an inquest on the body. The verdict of the jury was that “ deceased came to his death from pro tracted exposure,” etc. The people of the neigh borhood volunteered to bury the poor unfortunate, | and were even anxious to do so ; but it was discov ered, when they attempted to remove him, that the w ater which had dripped upon him forages ; from the crag above, had coursed down his back and deposited a limestone sediment nnder him which had glued him to the bed rock upon which he sat, as with a cement of adamant, ana Judge S. refused to allow the charitable citizens to blast him from his position. The opinion expressed by , his Honor that such a course would be little less than sacrilege, was eminently just and proper. Everybody goes to see the stone man, as many as 300 persons having visited the hardened creature during the past five or six weeks. 260 MARK TWAIN-MORE OF SIM. ' A » ■ ' ‘ ‘ * ,L i • < . ■ ( “ A LAnT^AT THR ^IC* BOUSj" WJHTfS: ., . “ Enas. G o ld e n E r a —We are alld^llghted with the ‘ Letter .’ deseribingthe brilliant BalL.at Mr. Barron’s.'& I am a'Woahoe widow/was among* the favored ftiw, and Went. Sarah Smith shipped me in the toilettes. I suppose' I wasn’t very stunning, although Brigham& C <f. said I‘ looked ‘ swell,” and that * Bobergh' couldn’t get up anything bet* ter. Some'month's ago, when my spouse, now at Beese River, first brought me down from Virginia City to stop in San Francisco, I arrived in the nick of time to attehd one of those charming re unions which are all the rage in the Pacific Me tropolis. We have had several soirees since that) bnt nobody gave any acoount of them to the papers. It’s too bad. ' Now we are eagerly look ing forward to the nhxt' soiree', expecting the G o ld e n E r a to tell all about it. One of our b6arders' M ays she knows Florence Fane,‘ and means to invite h e r; but I can’t for the life of me get her to tell me the real name of yo^r charming feuilletonist. I hope she’ll eome. And may-be Mark Twain will stay in town, to be there too. There is Some talk of getting np a special gather ing in compliment to him. He’s such a favorite— stops herOTOr his health— hoping tO ( find out how to cure a cold. I am going to wear a new dress, made precisely after the pattern of one of those sw%et Paris Fashion Plates in the Oalfforhtd Mag azine. That Ball Dress in the' May nqtnber-Vl think it was— I ’ve kept it in my bondoir ever since. Then if Mark Twain is only there to see * , how happy, how happy; I shall be. (I don’t mean that for poetry— Like what you put in the G o ld e n E r a .) (T o take that license I am frep— I write with such facility.) But I have not told yon what I wanted. Mark Twain was at our party,.last June, and sent the Territorial ^Enterprise an ac count of the affair. My husband enclosed me the paper in which it appeared. I cut it out and you can copy it. Please do. I’ve been bothered to death to let everybody see it, qnd it’s, drea 7 red and torn.” ire it is . ’ LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN. ALL ABOUT THE FA8HI0N8. S a n F r a n c is c o , June 19. E d s. E n t e r p r ise I have just received, per Wells-Fargo, the following sweet scented'little note, written in a microscopic hand in the centre of a delicate sheet of p aper—like a wedding invitation or a funeral notice—and I feel it my duty to answer it. “ V ir g in ia , June 16. “ Mr M a rk T w a in :—Do tell us something about the fashions. I am dying to know what the ladifes of San Francisco are wearing. Do, now, tell ns all you know about it, won’t you? Pray,excuse brevity, for I am in such a hurry. B e t t ib . “ P. S.—Please burn this as soon as you have read it.” “ Do tell us” —and she is in “such a hurry.” H ell, I never knew a girl in my life who could write three consecutive sentences without itali cising a word. They can’t do it, you know. Now, if I .had a wife, and she—however, I don't think I shall have one this week, and it is hard ly worth while to borrow trouble. Bettie, my love, you do me proud. In thus re questing me to fix up the fashions for you in an intelligent manner, you pay a oompliment to my critical and observant eye and my varied and extensive information, which a mind less perfectly balanced than mine could scarcely contemplate without excese of vanity. Will I tell you something about the fashions ? I will, Bettie—you better bet you bet, Betsey, my darling. I learned tbesp expressions from the Unreliable ; like all the phrases which fail from his lips, they are frightfully vulgar—but then they sound rather musical than otherwise. 1 A happy circumstance has p u t it in my power to furnish you the fashions from headquarters —as it we^e, Bettie : I refer to the assemblage of fashion, eleganqe and loveliness called to gether in the parlor of the Lick House fast 'night - [a party given by the proprietors on the occasion of my paying up that little balance due on my board bill.] I will give a brief and lucid description of the dresses worn by several .of the ladies of my acquaintance who were present, Mrs. B. was arrayed in a superb speckled foulard, with the stripes running fore and aft, and with collets and caipailB to match; also, a rotonde of Chahtilly. laoe, embroidered with blue and yellow dogs, and birds and things,* done in ‘ cruel, and edged with a Solfer- ino fringe four inches deep—lovely. * Mrs. B. is tall, and graceful and beautiful, and the gen eral effect of her costume was to render her ap pearance extremely lively. Miss J. W. wore a charming robe polonais ol scarlet ruche a la vielle,'with yellow fluted flounces of rich bombazine, fourteen inches w ide; low neck and short sleeves; also "a Figaro veste o f bleached ddmestic—selvedge edge turned down with a back stitch, and trim med with festoons of bine-chicoree* taffetas— gay ?—I.reckon not. H er head-dress was the sweetest thing you ever sa w : a bunch of state ly ostrich plumes—red, and white—springing like fountains above each ear, With a crown be tween, consisting of a single fieur de solid, fresh from the garden—Ah, m ei Miss W. looked en- ebantingly»pretty ; however, there was nothing unusunr about that—I have seen her look so, jeven in a m ilder costnme. , Mrs. J. iirW . wore a heavy rat-colored bro cade silk, btddded with large silver stars, and trimmed with oigandie ; balloon sleeves of nan keen piquej gathered at the wrist, cut bias and hollowed outcom e at'the elbow ; also a bour- nous of black ^Ionium lace, scolloped; and em broidered in violent colors with a battle pieoe i representing the taking of Holland 'by the Dutch; low neck and high-heeled shoes; i gloves; pahnleaf fen; hoops; her heed •dress consisting of a simple maroon colored Sonteg, with festoons of blue illusion depending front At; upon her besom reposed a gorgeous bou- qtiet of reat sage brush impdrted n-om Washoe. M rs.-' W . looked regafry handsome. If every article of dress worn by her on this occasion bad been multiplied' seven tim 'iA , I do-not be* Ueve it would have improved her appearance any. Miss C. wore an elegant C hevm xdela Rebte (with ruffles and furbelows trimmed with bands of guipure ronod the bbttom), and a mbhatr Gar ibaldi s h irt; her unique head-dress 'was’ brbwn- ed with a graceful pomme de'terre (Llmefiok French), and she had her hair done np in papers—gredhbaoks. The effect was very rich, partly owing to the market value of tile mate- rial, and partly, to the general loveliness of the lady herself, , Miss A. H. wore a splendid Lncia de.Lammer^ moor, trimmed with green baize : Also, acream - oolored mantilla-shaped pdrdetisus, With a dfcep gOre in the neck, ana embellished frith a wide greque o f taffetas ribbon, and otherwise gar nished with rncbee, and- radishes and things. H er coiffure was a simple wreath of sordines on a sjriqg. . She was lovely to a fault, Now, frhat do you think of that effort, Bettie (I wish I knew your other name) for i n un sanctified newspaper reporter devoid of a mil liner’s education? Doesn't it strike you that there are more brains and fewer oysters jn my bead than a casual acquaintance with me would lead one to suppose? A b, well—what I don’t know Bet, is hardly worth toe finding out, I qjm tell you. I could have described the dresses ot all toe ladies in that party, but I was afraid to meddle with those o f strangers, because I might unwittingly get something wrOng, and givd offense. You see -strangers never exer ciseany charity in matters of this kind—they always get mad at the least inaccuracies oi, de* scription concerning their apparel, and make themselves disagreeable. But if yqu will just rig yourself up according to the modes I havp fam ished you, Bet, you’ll do, you know—you caa weather the eircus. • ’ ' You will naturally wish to be in te rn ed as to, the most fashionable style of male attire, and I may as well give you an idea of my own per sonal appearance at the party.. I wore one of Mr. Law lor’s shirts, and Mr. Eigdway’s vest, and Dr. Wayman’S coat, and Mr.' Camp’S hat, and Mr.' Paxton’s boots’ and Jerry Lobg’s white kids, and Judge Gilchrist’s cravat, and the Unre liable’s brass seal-ring, and Dr. Toll-road Mc Donald’s pantaloons—and if you have an id ea .that they are anyways short in the.legs, do you just climb into them once, Bweetness. The bal ance of my outfit i gathered up indiscriminately from various individuals whose names I have forgotten and have now no means’of ascertain ing, as J thoughtlessly erased the marks from the different garments this morning. B ut I looked salubrious, B., if ever a man did. Messrs Editors, 1 never wrote such a personal article as this before. I expect I had better go borne, now. Well, I have been here long enough, anyhow. I didn’t ' come down to stay always, in the first place. I don’t know of any thing more here that I want to see. I might ju st as well go home now as dot. 1 have been wanting to go home for a good while. I don’t ,see why I havn’t gone before this. They all say it is healthier up there than it is h ere/ I be lieve it. I have not been very well for a wepk. I don’t eat enough*, I expect. But I would stay here just as long as I pleased though, if I want- ' ed to. But I don’t. WelU I don’t care—I am going home—that is the amount of it—and very soon, to o - may be sooner. M a r s T wain. / P h o to s ta t re p ro d u ctio n fro m j- , , . . A A M M C F T LlWRAMY I S *F. B u l l e t i n ' ' 261 D ate . 3 1 . . . . 1 . 8 . 6 S ..........Pg ................Col.4.......... P h o to sta te d ....................................................................... by . U N IV E R S IT Y O F C A L IF O R N IA L IB R A R Y The Latest Sensation. A Victim to Jerem y Diddling T rustees— He 1 C uts his T h ro at from E ar to E ar, Scalps his ' W ife, and D ashes o u t' the B rains of Six Helples^ C hildren! * [F rom th e “ T errito ria l E n terp rise ” of 28th October.} F ro m A bram C urry, w ho a rriv ed h e re yesterday afternoon from C arson, w e h avd learned th e following p articu lars co ncerning a bloody m assacre w hich was c om m itted in O rm sby county n ig h t before last. I t 1 seem s th a t d u rin g th e p ast six m o n th s a m an nam ed P . H opkins, o r P h ilip H opkins, has been resid in g w ith Lis fam ily in th e o ld log house ju s t a t th e edge o f th e g reat p in e fo re st w hich lies betw een E m p ire City and D utch N ick’s. T h e fam ily consisted of I) ch ild ren —5 girls an d 4 boys—th e oldest of th e group, M ary, being 19 years old, an d th e youngest, Tom m y, a b o u t a year an d a half. Tw ice in th e p ast tw o m o n th s M rs. Hop kins, w hile v isitin g in Carson, expressed fears concern ing th e san ity of h e r h u sb an d , rem ark in g th a t of late he h ad been su b jec t to fils of violence, a n d th a t during th e prevalence o f one o f these he h ad th re aten e d to ' take h e r life. I t w as M rs. H opkins’s m isfo rtu n e to be given to exaggeration, how ever, an d b u t little atten tio n > was p aid to w h at she said. A bout 10 o ’clock on M onday evening H opkins <^a,Led in to C arson on horseback, w ith liis th ro a t c u t from ear < to ear, an d b ea rin g in h is h an d a reeking scalp from w hich th e w&rm, sm oking blood w as stiil d rip p in g , and fell in a dy in g condition in fro n t of th e M agnolia sa- , loon. H opkins ex p ired in th e course of five m inutes, w ithout speaking. The long re d h air o f th e scalp he bore m arked i t as th a t of M rs. H opkins. A n u m b e r of . citizens, headed by S heriff G asherie, m o u n ted , a t ouce an d ro d e dow n to H opkins’ house, w here a* ghastly scene m e t th e ir gaze. T h e scalpless corpse of Mrs. H opkins lay acro ss th e th resh h o ld , w ith h e r head split open a n d h e r rig h t h an d alm ost severed from th e w rist. N ear h e r lay th e ax w ith w hich th e m u rd e ro u s deed h ad b ee n com m itted . I n one o f th e bedroom s six or th e ch ild ren w ere found, one in bed an d th e others scattered a b o u t th e floor. They w ere all dead. T heir brains h ad ev id en tly been dashed o u t w ith a club, an d every m ark abo u t th e m seem ed to have been m ade w ith a b lu n t in stru m e n t. T he ch ild ren m u st h'ave struggled h a rd for th e ir lives, as articles of clothing an d b ro k en fu rn itu re w ere s're w n about th e room in th e u tm o st confusion. J u lia a n d E m m a, aged respectively 14 and 17, w ere fo u n d in the k itch en , b ru ise d a n d 'in s e n s ib le , b u t it is th o u g h t th e ir recovery is possible. Tho eldest girl, M ary, m ust have so u g h t refu g e in h e r te rro r in th e g arret, as h e r body wr>3 fo und th e re frig h tfu lly m utilated , aud the kn ife w ith w hich h t r w ounds h ad been inflicted still sticking in h e r side. The two g irls J u lia a u d Em m a, w ho h ad recovered sufficiently to bo able to talk y ester day m orning, state th a t th e ir fath er knocked th em dow n w ith a b ille t of w ood an d stam ped on them . They 1 th in k th e y w ere th e first attacked. T hey fu rth e r state th a t H opkins h a d show n evidence of d erangem ent all day, b u t bad ex h ib ited no violence. H e flew into a pas sion an d atte m p te d to m u rd e r th e m bcoause they ad vised h im to go to bed an d com pose h is m in d . C urry says H opkins w as a b o u t 42 years of age, an d a native of W estern P ennsylvania; he was alw ays affable ' a n d polite, and u n til very recen tly we h ad n ever heard of h;.s ill tre a tin g his fam ily. H e h ad been a heavy ow ner in th e b ee t m ines of V irginia a n d G old H ill, b u t w hen th e Sun F rancisco p ap ers exposed th e gam e of cooking d iv id en d s in order to b o lster u p o u r stocks he grew a fraid an d so ld o u t, a n d inv ested to an im m ense am o u n t in th e S pring Valley W ater C om pany of San Francisco. H e w as advised to do th is by a relative of his, one of th e ed ito rs of th e San F rancisco Bulletin, w ho had suffered p ecuniarily by th e dividend-cooking system as applied to th e D aney M ining Com pany re- 1 centiy. H opkins had n o t long censed to own in th e ! various c'aim s on th e Com stock lead, howeve’r, w hen | several d ividends wcro cooked on his Lowly acquired : property, th e ir v.’.iter lotaliy di i. d up. and slpriug Valley ' stock w ent dow n to nothing. It is p resu m ed th a t t.o s m isio rtu n e d ro v e him m ad and resu lted in his killing him self a n d th e g re a te r p ortion of h is lam ily. The new spapers o f S au F rau eisca p e rm iu e d th is w ater i com pany to go on borrow ing m oney and cooking divi dends, u n d e r cover of w hich cu n n in g financiers crep t o u t of th e lo ite rin g concern, leaving th e crash to com e upon poor and u n su sp e ctin g stockholders, w ith o u t of- te ring to expose th e villaiuy a t w ork. Wo hope tne fearfu l m assacre detailed above m ay prove the saddest re s u lt of th-.ir silence. [F rom the " T e rrito ria l E n te rp ris e ” o f 29th O ctober.J I lake ft all back, * * * * * M ask X ttai*. GOLDEN ERA, NOVEMBER 22. 1865. "MARK TWAIN" ON MURDERS In his letter from Washoe to the Morning Call, "Mark Twain," the humorous local of the Territorial Enterprise. says: "We average about four murders in the first' degree a month, in Virginia, but we never convict anybody. The murder of Abel, by his brother Cain, would rank as an eminently justifiable homicide up there in Storey county. When a man merely attempts to kill another, there, and fails in his object, our Police Judge handles him with pitiless severity. He has him instant ly arrested, gives him some good advice, and requests him to leave the country. This has been found to have a very salutary effect. The criminal goes home and thinks the matter over profoundly, and concludes to stay with us. But he feels badly he feels very badly, for days and days together." 263 GOLDEN ERA, NOVEMBER 29. 1865 Artemus Ward announces his coming to Washoe, and "Mark Twain” of the Territorial Enterprise sends him greeting: We understand that Artemus Ward contemplates visit ing this region to deliver his lectures, and perhaps make some additions to his big ”sho.” In his last letter to us he appeared particularly anxious to ”sekure a kupple ov horned todes; alsowe, a lizard which it may be persessed of 2 tales, or any komical snaix, an enny sich little uncon sidered trifles, as the poets say, which they do not interest the kommun mind. Further, be it nown, that I would like a opportunity for to maik a moddel in wax of a average size wash-owe man,with feet attached, as an kom- panion pictur to a waxen figger of a nigger I have sekured, at an large outlaye, whitch it has a unnatural big hed onto it. Could you alsowe manage to gobbel up the skulp of the layte Missus Hoppins? I adore sich foot-prints of atrocity as it were,muchly. I was roominatin on gittin a bust of mark Twain, but I’ve kwit kontemplatin the work. They tell me down heer too the Ba that the busts air so kommon it wood ony bee an waist of wax too git un kounterfit presenti ment.” We shall assist Mr. 'Ward in every possible way about making his Washoe collection and have no doubt but he will pick up many curious things during his sojourn. 264 DAILY MORNING CALL. SAN FRANCISCO. DECEMBER 2. 1865, DISPATCHES BY THE STATE LINE (Exclusively to the Morning Call) DEATH ROBBERY Carson, December 1. Hon. Charles S. Potter, member of the Constitutional Convention, from Washoe county, died at his residence at three oTclock P.M., to-day. The Conven tion adjourned over to-night, in consequence. A teamster was murdered and robbed on the public high way, between Carson and Virginia, to-day. Our sprightly and efficient officers are on the alert. They calculate to inquire into this thing next week. They are tired of these daily outrages in sight of town, you know. Twain. DAILY MORNING CALL. SAN FRANCISCO. DECEMBER 11. 1863. ASSASSINATION IN CARSON Carson, December 10. Joe Magee was assassinated in the St. Nicholas Saloon, at four oTclock this morning. The gun was fired through the window, from the street. The murderer is not known. It is thought Magee assassinated Jack Williams in Virginia last Winter. Mark Twain. 265 GOLDEN ERA. DECEMBER 6, 1865 A TIDE OF ELOQUENCE "Mark Twain," the Washoe co-humorist with "Dan de Quille" on the Territorial Enterprise. author of "How to Cure a Cold," the "Lick House Hop," the "Late Prize Fight," and such like wonderfully funny things in the Golden Era. lately attended a presentation affair at Virginia City, and distinguished himself— in his own words: "Afterwards, Mr. Mark Twain being enthusiastically called upon, arose, and without previous preparation, burst forth in a tide of eloquence so grand, so luminous, so beautiful and so resplendent with the gorgeous fires of genius, that the audience were spell-bound by the magic of his words, and gazed in silent wonder in each otherTs faces as men who felt that they were listening to one gifted with inspi ration (Applause.) The proceedings did not end here, but at this point we deemed it best to stop reporting and go to dissipating, as the dread solitude of our position as a sober, rational Christian, in the midst of the driveling and besotted multitude around us, had begun to shroud our spirits with a solemn sadness tinged with fear. At ten oTclock the curtain fell." G- o /cfe/j Gra-s /~e£> 2F, //£ 266 / WASHOE WIT. ! MASK TWAIN ONJTHE BAHPAGE. ' CONCERNIMNOTARIES. j ' Mark Twain, the • wild hnmoriat of the' *Sage Brush Hills, writes from Carson City to the Territoriai Enterprise, telling all about the Legislature, Governor Nye, atfdl the rest of mankind' at Nevada’ s Capital j H e s a js : . ! A strange, strange thing occurred here yesterday, to w it: • ’A MAN APPLIED FOR A NOTARY’S COMMISSION.1 , Think of it. Ponder, over it. He wanted^ a notarial commission—be said so himself. He was from Storey county. He brought, bis little petition along’ with him. ' H e brought it on' two stages. It is volumin ous. The County Surveyor is chaining it off. Three shifts of clerks will be employ ed night and day' on it/decypheking' the signatures and testing .their genuineness. They began unrolling the petition a t noon, and people cf strong mining proclivities at once commenced locating claims on it.' ' We are too late, you know. But .then they say the extensions are just as good as the. original. I-believe you. - < : ■ | Since writing the above, I have discov ered that the foregoing does not amount' to mpch as a sensation item, after all. The reason is, because there are seventeen1 hundred and forty-two applications for no-! tarysbips already on file in the Governor’s office. I was not aware of it, you know. There are also as much as eleven cords of petitions stacked up in his back yard. A watchman stands guard over this combus tible material—the back yard is not in-' sured. 1 Since writing the above, strange events have happened. I started down town, and had not gone far, when I met a seedy, or nery, ratty, hangdog-looking stranger, who approached me in the most insinuating manner, and said he was glad to see me. He said he had often sighed for an oppor tunity of becoming acquainted with me— that he had read my effusions (he called them “effusions,” ) with solemn delight, and had yearned to m eet'the author face to face. He said be was Billson—Billson of Lander—I might have beard of him. I " , told him I had—many a time—which was Ian infamous falsehood. He said “D—n it, old Quill-driver, you must come and take a drink with me a n d says I, “D—n it, old Vermin-rancb, I ’ll do it.” [I had him there.] We took a drink, and be told the bar keeper to charge it. After which, be opened a well-filled carpet-sack and took out a sbirt-collar and a petition. He then threw the empty carpet sack aside and un rolled several yards of the petition—“ just for a starter,” he said. “ Now,” says he, “ Mark, have you got a good deal' of influ ence with Governor Nye?” “U nbounded,” says I, with honest p rid e ; “ when 1 go and use my influence with Governor Nye, and tell him it will be a great personal favor to me if be will do so and so, he always says it will be a real pleasure to him—that if it were any other man—any other man in the world—but seeing it’s me, he wont.” Mr. Billson then remarked that I was the very man ; be wanted a little notarial ap pointment, and be would like me to men tion it to the Governor. I said I would, and turned away, resolved to damn young Billson’s official aspirations with a mild dose of my influence. I walked about ten steps, and met a cor dial man, with the dust of travel upon hiB! garments. He mashed my hands in his, and as I stood straightening the joints back into their places again, says he, “ Why, darn it, Mark, how well you’re looking!, T hunder! it’s been an age since I saw you. Turn around and let’s look at you good. ’Gad, it’s the same old Mark! W ell,how ’veJ you been—and what have you been doing, with yourself lately? Why don’t you; never come down and see a fellow? Every; time I come to town, the old woman’s surei to get after me for not bringing you out,' as soon as I get back. Why she takes, them articles of yourn, and slathers ’em, into her old scrap-book, along with deaths, and marriages, and receipts for the itch, and the small-pox, and hell knows what all, and if it warn’t that you talk too slow to ever make love, dang my cats if I wouldn’t be jealous of you. I would, by the eternal. But what’s the use fooling away time here ?—let’s go and gobble a : cock-tail.” This was old Boreas, from Washoe. I went and gobbled a cock-tail with him. He mentioned incidentally, that he wanted a notaryship, and showed me a good deal of bis petition. 1 said 1 would use my influence in his behalf, and re quested him to call at the Governor’s of fice in the morning, and gefhis commission, lie thauked me most heartily, and said he would.* [I think I see him doing of it.] I met another stranger before 1 got to the corner—a pompous little man with a croooked-haudled cane and sorrel mous tache. Says he, “ Iiow do you do, Mr. Twain—how do you do, sir ? I am happy to see you, sir—very happy indeed, sir. My name is Pardon me, sir, but I perceive you do not entirely recollect me —I am J. Bidlecome Dusenberry, of Esme ralda, formerly of the city of New York, sir.” “ W ell,” says I “I ’m glad*to m ee t; you, Dysintery, and—” “No, no—Dasen- berry, sir, Dusenberry I—yon—” “ Ob',' I beg your pardon,.” says I ; “ Dusenberry— 1 yes, I understand, no w ; but it’s 1 alPthe-l same, you know—Dusenberry, by any o th -, er name would—however, I see you have - a. bale of dry goods—for me, perhaps.” He said it was only a little petition; and p ro -1 ceeded to show me a few acres of it, ob serving casually that he was a candidate | in the notarial line—that he bad read my, lucum bratiohs (he'called it a ll' .that) with] absorbing interest, and he would Tike ,>.m ej to use my influence with the 'Gotfernor tin j his behalf. I assured-him his -commission] ,would be ready for him ’‘ as soon as it was, signed.' He appeared "overcome' with grit* ] litude, and insisted, an d in sisted ^an d bv-1 sisted, until a t last I went and todk a drink j with him. _ ; . - i*.. v G ! On the next corner I met Chief .Justice. Turner, on bis way to the' GoVernor’s office with a petition.-* H e said, “ God bless you, my deariellow —I ’m delighted to see you — ” and hurried on, after receiving, my solemn promise .that he should be a Notary, Public' if I could seeure his appointm ent. Next I met William Stewart, grinning in his engaging way, and stroking his-* prodi gious whiskers from his nose to his stom ach. Shndy Baldwin' was with him, and. they both bad measureless' petitions on a dray, with the names' a ll' signed In their own band writing. I knew those fellows pretty well, and I didn’t promise them ,roy influence. I knew if the Governor refused to appoint them; they would have an In junction on him in less than twenty-foufj hours, and.stop the issuance of any, move Notary commissions.- I met Jo h n B.,Wintrl ers, next, and Judge North, and Mayor Ar^. ick, and Washoe 'Jim, and John 0 . E arl;' and Ah Foo, and John H: Atchinslon, - and' Hong Wo, and Wells. Fargo, -and -Charley Strong, .and Bob Morrow, and Gen. Will iams, aifd seventy-two ‘other prom inent citizens of Storey county, with a long pack -1 train laden with their several petitions.. I examined their documents, and promised to use my influence toward proouring no-. ■ tarysbips for the whole trib e .'1 also drank with them. * • I wandered down* the street, convening' with every man I met, examining hia pe-' tition. It became a sort o f m onom ania• with me, and I kept it up for two hours'] with unflagging interest. Finally, I stum bled u p o n ' a pensive,' ■ travePw orn. stranger, leaning against an awning-pbst.' 1 went'up and looked a t him. H e .looked at me. I looked at him again/ and again he looked at me; I bent my* gaze upon h in r once more,'and saysT ,“ W e ' l l H e look-- ed at me very -hard, and says h e '“W e ll^ well ‘what ?” Says I, “ Well—I w ould like to examine your petition, if you please.” He looked very much astonished—I m ay ! say am azed:; When he'had recovered hwj presence of inind, he says'“what the devil do yon mean ?” J explained to ' him th at I : only wanted to glance .over bis petition1 ] for a notaryship. He said be believed I* ] was a lunatic—be didn’t like the unheal? I thy light in my eye, and he T didn’t want! me to come any closer to him. I asked ! him if he had escaped the epidemic, and be shuddered and said he didn’t know of any epidemic. I pointed to the large pla card on the wall :“Coaches will leave th e 1 Ormsby House punctually every fifteen! minute8,for the G overnor’s mansion, for th e ' accommodation of Notarial aspirants, e tc ,1 etc.—Scbemerhorn, Agent”—and I* asked] (COrjf) & 0 /der? £L r~6L~ /^e 6 2 f,/f 267 (Ccnirft-cm /pj.) ibim if be' didn’t ' know^enovigb'to * undo??] stand what that'meaQt ? I also pointedtQ j |tbe long procession of petition^a^en'icltv' lizens filing up the street toward , the Gov-3 ernor’s * house, and asked bit® if be twas not' aware that all those' fellows were'^O lng' !after notarial commissions—th at^tlrab al-' jance of the people had:alrea'dy gone','and' itbat'he and I bad the whole town to o u r-j Iselves?' H e was astonished again! . Than the placed b is'b an d 'u p b ii-h is h eart,'an d I swore a frightful oath that he had just ar-l Irived from o^er the mountains, and had no [petition,.and didn’t want a notaryship**' I [gazed upon him a moment in silent raptufo, } .and then clasped him to my breast. After '] t which, I told him it was my turn to treaty . by thunder. Whereupon, we entered a d e -1 serted saloon, and drank up its contents.1 We lajr upon a billiard table ,in a torpid' condition for many minutes, but at last my exile rose, up and muttered in a sepulchral 'voice, “ I feel it—0 Heavens, I feel it^ in . Ime veins!” “ Feel what?” says I, alarmed. Ibays be, “ I feel—0 jne sainted'motb'er 1-^ 'I feel—feel—a hankering to be a .N otary, 'P u b lic !” And he tore down several y ard s; of wall-paper, and fell to' writing" a peti-' tion on it. . Poor'devil—he h a d ‘ ’gotf { t> tt 'last, and got it bad. I was seized with the fatal diBtemper a moment afterward:1 ^1* wrote a petition with fran tich a ste , ap-; pended a copy of the Directory of Nevada Territory to it, and we fled down 'th e 'd e serted streets to the Governor’s office. • But I must draw the curtain upon these 1 harrowing scenes—the very memory "of J them scorches, my brain. Ah, this L egist, 'lature has much to answer for in cutting down the num ber of Notaries Public in this Territory, with their infernal new law. . Mark Twain. 268 YANKEE NOTIONS, NEW YORK, APRIL, 1864. DRAMATIC AND MUSICAL "INGOMAR" OVER THE MOUNTAINS. THE "ARGUMENT." During the Fall Season of Mr. Maguire’s Dramatic troupe at his new Opera House in Virginia City, the Ter- retorial Enterprise has indulged its readers with an extraordinary succession of humorous, pungent and peculiar critiques. The player-folk presented "Ingomar, the Barbarian," and "Mark Twain" did the piece after this funny fashion: Act I Mrs. Claughley appears in the costume of a healthy Greek matron (from Limerick). She urges Parthenia, her daughter, to marry Polydor, and save her father from being sold out by the sheriff the old man being in debt for assessments. Scene 2 Polydor— who is a wealthy, spindle-shanked, stingy old stockbroker— prefers his suit and is refused by the Greek maiden— by the accomplished Greek maiden, we may say, since she speaks English without any perceptible foreign accent. Scene 3 The Comanches capture PartheniaTs father, Ola Myron (who is the chief and only blacksmith in his native village), they tear him from his humble cot, and carry him away, to Reese River,, They hold him as a slave. It will cost thirty ounces of silver to get him out of soak. Scene 4 Dusty times in the Myron family. 'Their house is mortgaged— they are without dividends— they cannot "stand the raise." Parthenia, in this extremity, applies to Polydor. He sneeringly advises her to shove out after her exiled parent herself. She shoves! Act 11^*— Camp of the Comanches. In the foreground, several of .the tribe throwing dice for tickets in Wright’s Gift Entertainment. In the background, old Myron packing faggots on a jack. The dreary slave weeps— he sighs— he slobbers. Grief lays her heavy hand upon him. Scene 2 Comanches on the war-path, headed by the Chief, Ingomar. Parthenia arrives and offers to remain as a hostage while old Myron returns home and borrows thirty dollars to pay his ransom with. It was pleasant to note the varieties of dress displayed in the costumes of Ingomar and his comrades. It was also pleasant to observe that in those ancient times the better class of citizens were able to dress in ornamental carriage robes, and even the rank and file indulged in Benkert boots, albeit some of'the 269 latter appeared not to have been blacked for several days* Scene 5 Parthenia and Ingomar alone in the woods. "Two souls with but a single thought, etc." She tells him that is love. He "canTt see it." Scene 4 The thing works around about as we ex pected it would in the first place. Ingomar gets stuck after Parthenia. Scene 5 Ingomar declares his love-— he attempts to embrace her— she waves him off, gently, but firmly— she remarks, "Not too brash, Ing., not too brash, now!" Ingomar subsides. They finally flee away, and hie them to Partheniafs home. Acts III and IV-— Joy! joy! From the summit of a hill, Parthenia beholds once more the .spires and domes of Silver City. Scene 2 Silver City. Enter Myron. Tableau. Myron begs for an extension on his note— he has not yet raised the whole ransom, but he is ready to pay two dollars and a half on account. Scene 3 Myron tells Ingomar he must shuck himself and dress like a Christian; he must shave; he must work; he must give up his sword! His rebellious spirit rises. Be hold Parthenia tames it v/ith the mightier spirit of Love. Ingomar weakens— he lets down— he is utterly demoralized. Scene 4 Enter old Timarch, Chief of Police. He offers Ingomar— but this scene is too noble to be trifled with in burlesque. Scene 5-— Polydor presents his bill— 213 drachmas. Busted again— the old man cannot pay. Ingomar compromises by becoming the slave of Polydor. Scene 6 The Comanches again, with Thorne at their head! He asks who enslaved the Chief? Ingomar points to Polydor. Lo! Thorne seizes the trembling broker, and snatches him bald-headed! Scene 7 Enter the Chief of Police again. He makes a treaty with the Comanches. He gives them a ranch a piece. He decrees that they shall build a town on the American Flat, and appoints great Ingomar to be its Mayor! (Ap plause by the supes.) Scene 8 Grand tableau— Comanches, police, Pi-Utes, and citizens generally— Ingomar and Parthenia hanging to gether in the centre. The old thing. The old poetical quotation, we mean. They double on it— Ingomar observing "Two souls with but a single Thought," and she slinging in the other line, "Two Hearts that Beat as one." Thus united at last in a fond embrace, they sweetly smiled up at the orchestra and the curtain fell. The Golden Era, Sunday, / f r f a / y r 1, ISi&L \ 270 [. J “ WL^RK’ TW AINILAND ~liD A N -D E .. QUILLE,” H O B S D E COM BAT. Recent issues of the 2’ erritorial Enterprise give the particulars of a series of terrible calamities that have befallen two of the liter* ary celebrities of Silver L and: | Alarming Intelligence. , F rig h t f u l A ccident to D a n de Qu il l e .— Our time-honored confrere, Dan, met with a disastrous accident, Tuesday, while returning from American City on a vicious Spanish horse, the result of which accident is that at the present writing he is confined to his bed and suffering great bodily pain. He was com ing down the road at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, (as stated in his will, which he made shortly after the accident,) and on turning a sharp corner, he suddenly hove in sight of a horse standing square across the channel; he signaled for the starboard, and put his helm down instantly, but too late, af ter all; he was swinging to port, and before he could straighten down, he swept like an avalanche against the transom of the strange craft; his larboard knee coming in contact with the rudder-post of the adversary, Dan was wrenched from his saddle and thrown some three hundred yards,'(according to his own statement, made in his will above men tioned,) alighting upon solid ground, and bursting himself open from the chin to the pit of the stom ach; his head was also caved in ont of sight, and his hat was afterward ex tracted in a bloody and damaged condition from between his lungs; he must have bounc ed end-for-end after he struck first, because it is evident he received a concussion from the rear that broke his h eart; one leg was jam med up in his body nearly to his throat, and the other was so £orn and mutilated that it pulled out when they attempted to lift him in to the hearse which we had sent to the scene of the disaster, under the general impression that he might need i t ; both arms were indis criminately broken up until they were jointed like a bamboo; his back was considerably fractured and bent into the shape of a rail fence. Aside from these injuries, however, he sustained no other damage. They brought some of him home in the hearse, and the bal ance on a dray. His first remark showed that the powers of his great mind had not been im paired by the accident, nor his profound judg ment destroyed—he said he wouldn’t have cared a d— n if it had been anybody but him self. He then made his wilt, after which he set to work with that earnestness and single ness of purpose which have always distin guished him, to abuse the assemblage of anx ious hash-proprietors who had called on bus iness, and to repudiate their bills with his cus tomary promptness and impartiality. Dan may nave exaggerated the above details in some respects, ont he charged ns to report them thus, and it is a source of genuine pleas- ure to us to have the opportunity of doing it. Our nobie old friend is recovering fast, and i what is left of him will be around the brew- I eries again to-day, just as nsnal. C o u n te r S ta te m e n t. . A n Infamous Phoceeding. — Some three i days since, in returning to this city from Ame rican Flat, we had the misfortune to be thrown from a fiery untamed steed of Spanish extrac- | tion— a very strong extract, too. Our knee was sprained by our fall and we were for a day or two confined to onr room—of course knowing little of what was going on in the great world outside. Mark Twain, onr con frere and room-mate, a man in whom we trusted, was our only visitor daring our seclu sion. We saw some actions of his that almost caused us to suspect him of contemplating treachery towards us, but it was not until we regained in some degree the use of our maimed limb that we discovered the fall extent— the infamoasness of this wretch’s treasonable and inhuman plottings. He wrote such an ac count of onr accident as would lead the pub lic to believe that we were injured beyond ail hope of recovery. The next day he tied a small piece of second-hand crape about his hat, and putting on a lugubrious look, went to the Probate Court, and getting down on his knees commenced praying— it was the (first time he ever prayed for anything or to , anybody—for letters of administration on our estate. Before going to the Court to pray he had stuffed the principal part of our e s ta te - consisting of numerous shares in the Pewter- inctnm—into his vest pocket; also had secured our tooth-brush and had been using it a whole day. He had on our only clean shirt and best socks, also was sporting onr cane and smo king our meerschaum. Bat what most showed his heartlessness and utter depravity was the disposition he made of our boots and coat. Wheu we missed these we applied to Marshal Cooke. The Marshal said he thought he could find them for us. He went on to say that for sometime past he had noticed the ex istence of a suspicious intimacy between Twain and a nigger saloon keeper, who had a dead fall on North B street Proceeding to this place he found that he was correct in his conjecture. Twain had taken our boots and | coat to the darkey, and traded them off for a i bottle of vile whiskey, with which he got drunk; and when the police were about to snatch him for drunkenness, he commenced blabbering, saying that he was “ overcome for the untimely death of poor Dan.” By this dodge he escaped the lock up, but if he does not shortly give up our pewterinctum stock— which is of fabulous value— shell out our tooth-brush and take off our socks and best shirt, he will not so easily'escape the Territo rial Prison. P. S.—We have just learned that he stole the crape he tied about his hat from the door knob of Three's engine house, South B street. J u st R etrib u tion . M ark T w ain T akes a L esson in th e Ma n l y Aiit.—We may have said some harsh things of Mark Twain, but now we take them all back. We feel like weeping for him—yea, we would fall on his breast and mingle our tears with his’n. But those manly shirt front of his air now a bloody one, and his nose is swollen to such an extent that to fall on his breast would be an utter impossibility. Yesterday, he brought back all our things and promised us that he intended hereafter to lead a virtuous life. This was in the fore noon ; in the afterneon he commenced the career of virtue he had marked out for him self and took a first lesson in boxing. Once he had the big gloves oh, he imagined that he weighed a ton and could whip his weight in- Greek-fire. He waded into a professor of the “ manly art” like one of Howlan’s rotary batteries, and the professor, in a playful way he was, when he wants to take the conceit ont of forward pupils, let one fly straight out from the shoulder and “ busted” Mr. Twain in the “snoot,” sending him reeling— not ex actly to grass, but across a bench—with two bountiful streams of “ claret” spouting from his nostrils. At first his hose was smashed out till it- covered nearly the whole of his face and looked like a large piece of tripe, but it was finally scraped into some resem blance of a nose, when he rushed away for surgical advice. Pools of gore covered the floor of the Club Room where he fought, and he left a bloody trail for half a mile through the city. It is estimated that he lost several hogsheads of blood in ali. He procured a lot of sugar of lead and other cooling lotions and spent the balance of the bay in applying them with towels and sponges. After dark, be ventared forth with his nose swollen to the size of several junk bottles— a vast, in flamed and pulpy old snoot— to get advice about having it amputated. None of his friends recognize him now, and°he spends his time in solitude, contemplating his pon derous vermillion smeller in a two bit mirror, which he bought for that purpose. We can not comfort him, for we know his nose will never be a nose again. It always was some what lopsided; now it is a perfect lump of blabber. Since the above was in type, the doctors have decided to amputate poor Mark’s smeller. A new one is to be made for him of a quarter of veal. / PKHSftoAl UOBKUSPOiYDKlVOE. ' Several quite sharp notes appear in a late, number of the Virginia Enterprise, between Samuel Clemens, of that paper, and J. W. Wil mington and Jame3 Laird, of the Union office, ou account of the appearance in the latter journal of two articles which reflected some* what severely on Clemens. Clemens demanded of Laird, one of the publishers of the Union, a retraction of, dr satisfaction for, the alleged insults. The following correspondence ensued : O FFIC E OS THE 4’lHOINIA D a IL V USIOS, ) ViuoiNiAfMay 2 1 ,1S(!4. j Samuel Clemens: Jam es Laird has ju st handed me 1 your note of this date. Perm it me to say th a t I am the author of the article appearing In this morning’s Union. I am responsible for it. I have nothing to retract. Respectfully, J. A Y . 'WILMINGTON. E n t e r p r i s e O f f i c e , ^ S aturday evening, May 21, ISM. j Jaute? Laird—S ir: I wrote you a note this afternoon, > dem anding a published retraction of insults that ap peared in two articles in the U nion of this morning, or satisfaction. I have since received what purports to be a reply, w ritten by a person who signs himself “ J A V . AVilmingtou,” lu which he assumes the authorship and responsibility of one of said infamous ar tides. Wil mington is a person entirely unknown te me in the m atter, and has nothing to do with it. In the columns uf your paper you have declared your own responsi bility for all articles appealing in it, and any farther , attem pt to make a oatspaw of any other individual, and thus shirk ^responsibility th a t you had previously assumed, will sliow th a t you are a cowardly sneak. I now pert mptorily dem and of you the satisfaction due to a gentleman, without alternative. SAM. L. CLEMENS. O f f i c e o f t h e V i r g i n i a D a i l y I I n i o s , I V i r g i n i a , Saturday Evening, May 2 1 ,13G4. j Samuel Clemens, Esq : Your note of this evening is received. To the first portion of ic I will briefly reply, that Mr. J . W. Wilmington, the avowed author of the article to which von object,, is a gentlem an now in the employ of the U nion oilier, lie formerly was one of the proprietors of the Cincinnati E n q u ire r. He was Captain of a company In the Sixth O do Regiment, and 1 fought at Shiloh. His responsibility and character can be vouched for to your abundant satisfaction. For all editorials appearing in the U nion, the propri etors are personally responsible; for communications, they hold themselves ready, when properly called upon, either to give the name and address of the author; or, failing th at, to be themselves responsible. The editorial in the E n terp rise headed “ How is it? ” cut of which this controversy grew, was an attack made_ P h o to s ta t rep ro d u ctio n from S OAN^KOWT L.-AAAV D a t e ’ ^^Z^ pg...C o 1 .. P hoto stated ....................................................................... by U N IV E R SIT Y O F C A L IF O R N IA LIB R A R Y upon the prinleis of the Union. I t was replied to by a U nion piinter, and a representative of the printers, who in a communication denounced the w riter of that article as a liar, a poltroon end a puppy. You an nounce yourself as the writer of th at article which pro voked this communication, and dem and “ satisfaction” —which satisfaction the writer informs you, over his own signature, lie is quite reany to afford. I have r.o right, under the rulings of the code you have invoked, to step in and assume Wilmington's position, nor would he all .w me to do so. You demand of me, in your last letter, the satisfaction due to a gentlem an, and couple the demand with offensive remarks, AVnen you have earned the right to the title by complying with the usual custom, I shall be most lmppy to afford you any satisfaction you desire at any time and in any place. In short, W ilmington has a prior claim upon your at- ' tention. When he is through with you, I shall be a t j your service. If ycu decline to meet him after chal lenging him, you will prove yourself to be w hat he. has charged yon with being, “ a liar, a poltroon and a pup- I p y ,” and as such, ernnot of course, be entitled to the consideration of a gentleman. Respectfully, JAMES L. LAIRD. E n t e r p r i s e O f f i c e , V i i u i i n i a C i t y , I M ivy 21. I bfi-l—'. 1 o’clock p .m . j Jame3 L. Laird—S ir: Your reply to my note—in which I perem ptorily demanded satisfaction of you, without alternative—is ju st received, and to my utter astonishruA t you still endeavor to shield your craven carcass behind the person of an individual who in spite of your introduction is entirely unknown to me, and upon whose shoulders ycu cannot throw the whole re sponsibility. Y'ou acknowledge and reaffirm in this note that. “ For all editorials appearing in the U nion the proprietors are personally responsible.” Now, sir, had there appeared no editorial on the suhject indorsing and reiterating the slanderous and disgraceful insults heaped upon me in the “ communication,” I would have simply called upon you and demanded the name of Its author, and upon your answer would have de pended my further action. Rut the “ editorial" alluded to was equally vile and slanderous as the “ communi cation,” ana being an “ editorial ” would naturally have more weight in the minds of readers. It was the following undignified and abominably insulting slander appearing in your “ editorial ” headed “ The ‘ How is it ’ issue,” th at occasioned my sending you first an alternative and then a peremptory challenge : “ Never btfore in a long period of newspaper inter course—never before in any contact with a cotempo- rar.v, however unprincipled he might have been—have we found an opponent, in statem ent or in discussion, who h ad no gentlemanly sense of professional p ropri ety, who conveyed in every word, and in every purpose of all his words, such a groveling disregard for truth, decency and courtesy as to seem to court the dtstlnct’on only of being understood as a vulgar liar. M eeting one who prefers falsehood; whose instincts are all toward falsehood ; whose thought is falsification; whose aim is viUification through insincere professions of hon esty ; one whose only m erit is thus described, and who evidently desires to be thus known, the ob^ stacles presented are entirely insurm ountable, and whoever would touch them fully should expect to be abominably defiled.”— U nion, M a y iU t. i You assume in your last note, that I “ have chal lenged Wilmington,” and that he has informed me, “ over his own signature,” that he is quite ready to afford me “ satistaction.” Both assumpiions are ut terly false. I have twice challenged you, and you have twice attem pted to shirk the responsibility. A V il- mington’s note could not possibly be an answer to my demand for satisfaction ftom you; and besides, his note simply avowed authorship of a certain “ communica tion ” that appeared simultaneously with your libelous “ editorial,” and stated th at its author had “ nothing to retract.” For your gratification, however, I will rem ark th a t AViJmington’ s case will be attended to in due time by a distant acquaintance of ids who is not willing to see him suffer in obscurity. In the mean tim e, if you do not wish yourself posted as a coward, you will at once accept my perem ptory challenge, which I now reiterate. SAM. L. CLEMENS. O f f i c e o f t h e V i k g i n i a D a i l y U n io n - , I M o n d a y M o r n i n g , May 2 d , 1304. f Samuel Clem ens: In reply to your lengthy communica- I tion, I have only to say vbat in your note opening this j correspondence, you demanded satisfaction for a com munication in I he U nion which branded the writer of an article in the E nterprise as a liar, a poltroon and a puppy. You declare yourself to be the w riter of the JCniorprine anicle, and the avowed author of the U nion communication stands ready to afford satisfac tion. Any attem pt to evade a meeting with him and force ono upon me will utterly fail, as 1 have no right undo? the rulings of the code to m eet or hold any com munication with you in this connection. The threat of being posted as a coward cannot bavo the slightest effect upon the position I have assumed In the matter. If you think this correspondence reflects credit upon you I advise you by all means to publish it. In the I meantime you must excuse me from receiving any more long epistles from you. JAMES L. LAIRD. I denounce Laird as an unmitigated liar, because he says I published an editorial in which I attacked the printers employed on the U nion, whereas there is nothing la th at editorial which can be so construed. Moreover, he is a liar on general principles, and ftom natural iustinct. I denounce him as an abject coward, I because it has been stated in his paper that its proprie- j tors are responsible for ail articles appearing in its columns, y et he backs down from that posl-ion; be cause he acknowledges the “ code,” but will not live up to It; because he says himself that he is responsible for I all “ editorials,” and then backs down from that also; i and because he Insults me in his note m arked “ IV,” : and y e t refuses to fight me. Finally, he is a fool, be- I cause-he cannot understand th at a publisher ia bound to stand responsible for any and all articles printed by him , whether he wants to do it or not. SAM. L. CLEMENS. ! I There was no fighting at last accounts. o fc/f/ 7 /Ircc * - / i / fj ( a y /f fi o 272 “ M A R K T W A IN ” IN_THEMETROPOLIS' ‘ . The Sage-Brush Hum orist from Silver-* Land, “ Mark Twain,’ ,? has come to town,1 * t * -* ‘ / A j and stops at the Occidental. H e discourse^ the Territorial Enterprise: ,. - • * •>) | - “ To a Christian who has toiled' months and m onths in Washoe ; whose hair bristles! from a bed of sand, and whose sonl is cak ed with a cem ent of alkali d u s t; whose] nostrils know no perfnm e b u t i;the rank qdor of sage-brush—and whose eyes know, trio landscape, but barren mountains and. desolate p la in s; where the winds blow, and the sun blisters, and the broken sp irit of the contrite heart fiads jo y and peace] only in Lim berger cheese and 'lager beer —unto such a Christian, verily the Occi-j dental H otel is Heaven on the half shell.! He may even secretly consider it to be! Heaven on the entire shell, but his religion teaches a' sound Washoe. Christian th at if would be sacrilege to say it. 4 H ere you are expected to breakfast on1 -salmon, fried oysters and other substantial^ from 6 till half-past 12 ; you are required to lunch on cold fowl and so forth, from half-past 12 until 3 ; you are .obliged to skirmish through a dinner comprisiog such, edibles as'the world produces, and keep it up, from 3 until half-past 7 ; you are then; compelled to lay seige to the tea-table from half-pa9t 7 until 9 o’clock, at which hour, if: you refuse to move upon the supper works, and destroy oysters gotten up in all kinds| of seductive sty les. until 12 o ’clock, the. landlord will certainly be offended, and you m ight as well move your trunk to some' other establishm ent. [It is a pleasure to me to observe, incidentally, that I am on good terms with the landlord yet.] W hy don’t you send Dan down into the .Gould & Curry mine, to see whether it has ipetered out or not; and if so, when it will! be likely to peter in again. ♦ The extraord-, inary decline of that stock has given rise: to the wildest surmises in- the Way o f’ ac counting for it; b u t among th e itrt there is ‘harm in but one,.which is the. expressed, belief on the,part of a few that the,bottom ’has fallen out of the mine. , Gould A Curry! (is climbing again, however, 1 *! It has been many a day since San Fran-] cisco has Been livelier times in h e r theatri-1 ,cal departm ent than a t p resen t ' Large an-] dierices are to be found nightly at the Qpera House, the Metropolitan, the Acad-, ferny, of Music, the American, the New Idea, |and even the liusenm, which is not as good, ‘a one as Barnum ’s. The Circus company, also, played a lucrative engagement, but' ,they are gone on their travels now. The graceful, charming, clipper-built Ella Zo- yara was very popular. • - } j ^ Miss Caroline Richings has play ed during th e-p ast fortnight a t Maguire V , Opera ] House to large and fashionable audiences^ [and has delighted them beyond measure] with her sweet singing. It sounds improb a b le , perhaps, b u t the statem ent is true,' nevertheless. \ ■ - 1 ‘ You will hear of the Metropolitan, now,I from every vistor to Washoe. I t opened? under the management of tb.e new leesees,j Miss Annette luce and Ju lia Dean Hayne,' with a company who are as nearly ail stars as it was possible to make it. F o r instance! —Annette Ince, Emily Jordan, Mrs. Judah, Ju lia Dean Hayne, Jam es H. Taylor, Frank] Lawlor, H arry Courtaine and Fred. Franks,, (my favorite Washoe tragedian, whose name they have put in small letters in the programme, when it deserves to be in cap-' itals—because, w hatever p art they give! him to play, don’t he always play it w ell ? i and does he not possess the first virtue of a comedian, which is to do humorous things with grave decorum and without seeming to know th at they are funny. , The birds, and the flowers,' aridthe"Chl- riameri; and the winds, and the sunshine,1 'and all things that go to m ake life happy,1 tare present in San F rancisco' to-day, ju st ,as they are all dayB in the year. There fore, one would expect, to b ear these things spoken of, and gratefully, and d isa greeable m atters of little consequence al lowed to pass without comment. I say, cino would suppose that. B ut don’t yoaj .deceive youreelf—any one who supposes! 'anything of the kind, supposes an absurdi ty. The m ultitude of pleasant things byl which the people of San Francisco aresur-i rounded are n o t talked of a t all. N o— they damn the wind,, and they dam n the dust, and they give all their attention to 1 damning them well, and to all eternity.! The blasted winds and the infernal dust— ' these alone form the eternal topics of con-1 versation, and a mighty absurd- topic it! seems to one ju st o u t of W ashoe. There] isn’t enough wind here to keep breath in! my body, or dust enough to keep sand in' my craw. But it is human nature to find' fault—tb overlook that which is pleasan t to the eye, and seek after that which is dis tasteful to it. You take a stranger in to 1 the Bank Exchange and show him the mag-] nificent picture of Sampson and Delilah, and what is the first object he notices?— Sampson’s fine face and flaming eye? or the noble beauty of his form ? o r the love ly, half-nude Delilah ? or the m uscular Philistine behind Sampson, who is furtively’ admiring her charms? or the perfectly counterfeited folds of the rich drapery be low her knees? or the sym m etry and tru th to nature of Sampson’s left foot? No, sir, the first thing th at catches his eye is the scis sors on the floor at Delilah’ s feet, and the first thing he says, “ Them scissors is too modern—there w arn’t no scissors like th a t in them days, by a d—d sig h t!” M a r k T w a in . ipe/c/e,y /r' /-a i/v/t/ 3, /ft? " / / — written for the g o l d e n e r a . \ / / EARLY RISING, >\ I A S R E G A R D S i E X C U R SIO N ST O T H E CLIFF HOUSE. 1 BY MAMTWAIN. I E arly to bed , and early to rise, H akes a m an L eallby, w ealthy and wise, j — Benjam in Franklin. I don’t see it — George Washington. Now both of these are .high authorities— very high and respectable authorities—but I 'am with General Washington first, last, and all the time on this proposition. Because I don’t see it, either. I have tried getting up early, and I have tried getting up late—and the latter agrees with me best. As for a man’s growing any wiser, or any richer, or sny healthier, bv getting up early, I know it is not so ; because I have got up early in the station-house many and many ai time, and got poorer and poorer ;for the next half a day, in consequence, in- jstead of richer and richer. And sometimes, on the same terms, X have seen the sun rise jfonr times a week up there at Virginia,' and (so far from my'growing healthier on account of it, I got to looking’bine, and pulpy, and [swelled, like a* drowned man, and my rela tions grew alarmed and thought they were ■going to lose ine. ,They( entirely despaired of my recovery, at one time, and began to grieve [for me as one .whose days .were numbered— j whose fate was sealed—who was soon to pass away from them forever, and from the glad Wnshine, and the birds, and theodorousflow- 'ers/and murmuring brooks, and whisperiog winds, and all the cheerful scenes of life? and go down into the dark and silent tomb—and they went forth sorrowing, and jumped a lot in the graveyard, and made up their minds to igrin and bear it with that fortitnde which is the-true Christian’s brightest ornament. •• | You ob'serve that I have put a stronger test on the'maHer than even Benjamin Franklin contemplated, and y e t.it would not work. Therefore, how is’ a man to grow healthier, and wealthier; and' wiser by going to bed early and getting np early, when he fails to faccomplish-these (things even when'he does 'not go to bed at all ? 'And as far as-btfcoming \viser is concerned/ you "might put all the wisdom I acquired in these experiments in your eye, without obstructing your vision any to speak of. As I said- before, my voice is with George Washington’s on this question. Another philosopher encourages the world to get up'at* sunrise because “it is the early bird that^ catches the worm*./ i' It'is’ a seductive proposition, and well cal culated to trap the^unsospeetlhgV. .But its at-! tractions .are all^ wastedJoh, me. because if have no m ^fqr^tM jw w m ^X f^rhad, I would adopt the Unreliable^ plan. He , was much! interested in this q^uitprpverb, and directed the powers of his great mind to its considera tion for three or four consecutive hours. He1 was supposing . a case. He was supposing/ (for instance, that he;really wanted the worm | — that the,possessioh of the, worm was acta-, lally necessary to t h is. happiness— that he [yearned for it 'and hankered*-aftfer, 'jt, there fore,'as much as a ' mauycdwW "yearn for and (hanker after- a .worm, under such--circum- istances—and he was supposing, further, that | he was‘ opposed to ’getting'np early in order to catch it (which was much the more plans- ible of the two suppositions). Well, at the iend of three or fonr hours’ profound medita- jtion upon the subject, the Unreliable rose up | and said “ If he^ were so anxious about, the woYm.and he couldn’t get along without Ihim, and’he didn’t want to get np early in the .morning to catch him—why then, by George) ,he would just lay for him,the.night.before V 1 1 never would have thought of that. I looked i at the youth, and said tp ,myself,!he is tnqli- jcious, and\ dishonest,-add undhandsome, and does not smell - good— yet hoW>'<quiek!y do 'these tVivigf demerits disappear in th^ shadow when th e glare from his great intellect shines out above tb em ! ; ' ) J I have always heard that the only time in the day that a trip’ to the Cliff HonBe could be thoroughly enjoyed, was early in the morning; (and I suppose it might be as well to withhold an adverse,impression while the flow-tide of public opinion continues to set in that direction.) I tried it the other morning with Harry, the stock-broker, rising at 4 a . m ., to delight in the following described things, to w it: A road unencumbered by carriages, and free from wind and dust; a bracing atmos phere ; the gorgeous spectacle of the 6un in the dawn of his glory'; the fresh perfume of flowers still damp with dew ; a solitary drive on the beach while its smoothness was yet unmarred by wheel or hoof, and a vision cf white sails glinting in the morning light fa r out at sea. These were the considerations, and they seemed worthy a sacrifice oi seven or eight hontB’ sleep. ~W e sat in the stable, and yawned, and gaped, and stretched, until the horse was hitched np, and then drove out into the brac ing atmosphere. (When another early voyage is proposed to me, I want it understood that there is to be no bracing atmosphere in the programme. I can worry along without it.) In half an hour w«Twere so thorongly braced up with it that it was just a scratch that we were not frozen to death. Then the harness came unshipped, or got broken, or something, and 273 1 1 waxed colder.and drowsier while Harry [fixed it. I am not fastidious about clothes, 'bnt I am not used to wearing fragrant, sweaty ■ horse-blankets, and not partial to them, (either , * 1 am not prond, though, when I am freezing, and I added*the horse-blanket to my overcoats, and tried to wake np and feel' iwarm -and cheerful. It was useless, how ever—all my senses slumbered, and continued to slumber,’save the sense of smell. * When my friend drove. past suburban gar dens and said the flowers never exhaled so |Sweet an 'odor before, in his experience, I dreamily but honestly endeavored to think so too, but in my, secret soul I whs conscious that they only .smelled like horse-blankets. (When another early voyage is proposed to me,' I want it understood that there is to be (no “ fresh perfume of flowers” in the-pro gramme,” either. I do not enjoy it. My senses .are not attuned to the flavor—there is too ,much horse about it and not enongh eau de (cologne.) ' The' wind was cold and benumbing, and blew with such force th at'w e could hardly 'make headway against it. It came straight from the ocean, and I think there are ice bergs out there somewhere. True, there i was not much dust, because the gale blew it (all to Oregon-in two m inutes; and by good fortune, it blew ho gravel-stones, to speak of — only one, of any consequence, I believe—a three-cornered one—it struck me in the eye. ; I have it there yet. However, it does not matter— for the future I suppose I can man- 1 age to see tolerably' well out of the othef. I (Still, when another early voyage is proposed tto me, I want it understood that the dost is to be put in, and the gravelleft out of the pro gramme; j might want my other eye if I con tinue to hang on until my time comes; and be sides,,I shall not mind the dust much here after, because I-have only got to shut one “ eye, now. when it is a ro u n d A No, the road was not encumbered by c T t riages—we bad it all to ourselves. I supp0^ the reason was, that mo3t people do not 1 ft, to enjoy themselves too much, and therefor, they do not go out to the Cliff House in ^ cold and the fog, and the dread silence aaj solitude of four o’clock in the morning. XW are right. The impressive solemnity of socj a pleasure trip is only equalled by an excnr- sion to Lone Mountain in a hearse. ever of advantage there may be in bavin, that Cliff House road all to yourself,we b ng but to my mind a greater advantage w onldtj", in dividing it up in small sections among tf c , entire community ; because, in consequent of the repairs in progress on it jnst now, it j, as rough as a corduroy bridge— (in a many places,) and consequently the less have of it, the happier you are likely to |* and the less shaken np and disarranged 0 1 the inside. (Wherefore, when anotljer ew |jj voyage is proposed to me, I want it understood that the road is not to be nnencnmbered via carriages, bat just the reverse— so that tb J balance of the people shall be made,to staD their share of the jolting and the desperati loneaomeness of the thing.) , 4J t , . j From the moment we left the-.itsbJe at most, .the fog was s6 thick that we could scarcely see fifty yards behind or before, oi overhead ; and for a while, O s’we approached the Cliff House, we could not see the horsea) all, and were obliged , to ^steer, by* his earn which stood np dimly oat of the dense whtj mist that enveloped him. Bat for those frie»3 ly beacons, we must have been Cast away a n d lost. ‘ ‘ ‘ • - j I have no opinion of a six-tnile ride in tM clondB; bat if I ever have to take another,! want to leave the horse in the stable and g « in a balloon. I shall prefer <to go in the after noon, also, when it is warm, so that 1 m a y gape, and yawn, and atretbh. if l an* drowsy without disarranging my'-frorse-blanket letting in a blast of cold wind. . * We could scarcely see'the sportive s e a l ! ont on the rocks, writhing and squirming lik e exaggerated maggots, and there was nothin; soothing in their discordant barking, to t spirit so depressed as mine was; , j Harry took.a cocktail at the* Cliff (|Ioase) b u t'I scorned such ineffectual stimulus; 1 yearned for fire, and there was none there;- they were abont to make one, but .the'bir-J keeper looked altogether top cheerful form* —I conld not bear bis annataral happiness in the midst of snch a ghastly picture of fog, and damp, and frosty surf, and dreary' solitude, I coaid not bear the sacrilegious .presence'of a pleasant' face at such a tim e; 1'it was to ej much like sprightliness a t a fuperal, and ** fied'from it down the ,amooth,*and vactnti beach. < , , - ,„-i \ i .1^ c ■ ■ » We had-that all to ourselves, ;t©0vlik»\m road—and I * wan t-it* divided np, aBoi h tR - after. 'We codld’ net drive4 in the sarf and seem'to'float abroad on the^'fm} 3ea, as one is*woht^to^dbdn the.annhy^ijp, noon, because' the very thought oijaggfdi that icy-looking water splashing On ,fggjr«j enough to' congeal your blopdt'altnfcjalfc saw h o wbite-winged ships • ^iling^rhy ocj the^biilowy:ocean, witb'ithe ipearlyVlgkt of m orninir ilM nM iillii ® the pearly( lighti” as the7Unreliabie%hi^ndj when I mentioned it to him aSierwemifjtlt, 'we saw got the sun in .the dawn of his^sryj for. the same reason. Hill aqdtbeaditgaiaet; andean were all wrapped in a .gbgetty.aw*- tie of'm ist, and hidden fromionri raattal'fif ion. [When an other early voyage,« prjji to me, I want7 it im&erBtood' that‘the la his glory, and the m orning‘Iigfit;J ,Mi„, ships a t sea, and all that so rt of- be left out* of the programme, so w e failtoiseethem ,, we ghalk not:ht;w d^a nally disappointed:] ecu ».J * f.'f.UiV We were K^daViciCles whehwtflW M k no . _ ......... sMce^' e , ^ ^ , . ^ ! soothing > blasphemy .» I (am now, but it was a great comfort to m e;<tkis, We could have had breakfast at' the?Oc’ #u House, bnt we did not want it; can statin of ice feel hunger? But we adjourned k't private room and ordered red-hot coffee,’ " * a $ it was a sort of balm to my troubled olid to observe th at the man who brought it ,vj* «i cold, and as silent, and as solemn as tkagriw itself. His gravity was so impressive, sod so appropriate and becoming to the m elancholy surroundings, that it won upon me ibd lbai- ed out some of the better instincts of oy | nature, and 1 told him he might ask a' b le a - { sing ii he thought it would lighten him o f any—because he looked as if he wanted to , very bad— but he only shook his head resign edly and sighed. • That coffee did the business for us. Itiu made by' a m asterartist, and it had not t faul t ; and the cream that came with it w m m rich and thick that you could hardly bin strained it throagh a wire fence. As the g en erous beverage Sowed down oar frig id , throats, our blood grew warm again, o u r muscles relaxed, our torpid bodies awoke W - life and feeling, anger and uncharitablenea | departed from as and we were cheerfol o n c e j more. We got good cigars, also, at th e I Ocean Honse, and drove into town over»I smooth road, lighted by 'the sun and o n - j clouded by fog. Near the Jewish cemeteries we turnedi; corner too suddenly, and got npset, bnt su s tained no damage, although the horse H i what he honestly could to kick the bujjj out of the State while we were grovelling in ; the sand. We weut on down to the steam er,) and while we were on board, the baggy w i» - apset again by some outlaw, and an ax le I broken. - I However, these little accidents, and all th e deviltry and misfortune that preceded them , were only just and natural consequences o f the absurd experiment of getting up at a*. hour in the morning when all God-fearing Christians ought to be in bed. I consider that the man who leaves his pillow, delibr 1 rately, at sun-rise, is taking his life in &: own hands, and he ought to feel proud if & e | don’t have to put it down again at the coro ner’s office before dark. Now, for that early trip, I am not tof healthier or any wealthier than I was before, and only wiser in that I know a good deal better than to go and do it again. And * ! for all those notable advantages, such as the sun in the dawn of biB glory, and the ships, and the .perfume of the flowers, etc., etc-, etc., I don’t see them, any more than m yself and Washington see the soundness of Benja min Franklin’ s attractive little poem. If you go to the Cliff House at any tin* after seven in the morning, you cannot fail t° enjoy it—but never start out there before daylight, under the impression that you are going to have a pleasant time and come back insufferably healthier and wealthier and w iror than your betters on account of it. Becao8 * if you do you will miss your calculation, sn o it will keep you swearing about it n g ® * straight along for a week to get even again. Put no trust in the benefits to accrue fro ® early rising, as set forth by the infatuate® Franklin—bat stake the last cent of yo® substance on the judgment of old George Washington, the Father of his Country, said “ he couldn’t see it.” . And you hear me endorsing that sentunw1 * M au k Tw ain- Photostat reproduction from S.F. Call u«.rarv Date .... $ 9 . p . i i . . . . 6 . . . 1 8 6 4 t.... Pg....l Col....?..... 27 5 Photostated - ....................................................... by U N IV E R S IT Y O F C A L IF O R N IA L IB R A R Y A S m a l l P i b c s o f S p i t e .—Some witless, practical joker made a false entry; a few daya sfco, on a slate kept at.tbe dead-bouae i for the information of the-public, eon Sem ins' dead bod tea found,'death* by aeeidebt,1 etc. The Alta, ^Bulletin, and Flag, admin iv-, tered a deserved rebuke to the Coroner’s understrappers, forpefmtttingthe entry*'to * remain there, and pass: Into tha newspapers- andmlsleadthe pubUe, ajad -fprthisreaeon ( the'Si ate Stsbeeu re’ movSlltto'm theoffieeV Now lt~ls-«oa Ja*r .iuAherdajrtor-aeati wem as these-to presume to deny to the publle,, .information. whleh^belongs .to -them,'‘and1 wblohtbey have a right to demand, merely ■tsr grad^n a’ridteuloua spite-sgatnat two or' rthree repoitere.'c It Is a matter.of.no eoaee-1 I quenoe to' reporters whether .the slate la , .kept there or not; but it is a matter o f eon-1 i sequence to the public at large, who are the real injured parties when the newspapers] tare denied the opportunity of convening it to them.- If the Coroner permits his eer-j vants to eloae the door against reporters, many a man may lose a friend in the Bay, or] by assassination, or suicide, «nl never hear; of it, or know anything, about it; in that case, the p u b l;c « n d their servant, the Coro ner, are the-victims, not the reporter.] Coroner Sheldon needs hot .to be told, that lie ia s' pnblie officer; that his do-i lues, and those of his underlings at-tbe| coffin- shop, belong to the people; that the, publie do not recognize his right or theirs to suppress the transaction* of his depart-, ment of the pnblie service ; and, finally, that: the people will notice the propriety of the' affairs of his offloe being hidden from them,: in order that the smalt-potato malice of his| employes against two or three newspaper: reporters may be gratified. Thoae employes, have always shown a etrong disinclination, to tell a reporter anything about their! ghastly shsre In the Coroner’s business,' and it was easy to tee that they longed fori some excuse to abolish that Blate.. Their i motive for such conduct did not concern reporters, but it might interest tfie publie [ ami the Coroner if they would explain it.: Those official • corpse-planters alwaya put on aa many airs as If the public and their i master, the Coroner, belonged to them, and they had a right to do as they pleased with j both- They told ua yesterday that their -Coronial affairs should henceforth be a sealed book, and they would give us no in formation. As if they—a lot or forty-dollsr understrappers— had authority to proclaim, that the affairs of a public office like the ■ Coroner’s abould be kept secret from the people, whose. minions they are! If .the. - credit of tbat Office suffers from their imper tinence, wfio is the victim, Mr. Sheldon or the reporters? We cannot suffer greatly,1 for we never succeeded in getting any In'ormation out of one of those fel lows yet. You 6ee the dead-cart leav ing the plare, and ask one of them * where it is bound, and without looking up, from his newspaper, he .grunts, lazily, and aays, “ Stiff," meaning that it ia going in quest of the corpse ot some, poor creature whose earthly troubles are over. You ask one of them a dozen questions calculated to throw more light upon a meagre entry in. the slate, and he invariably answers, “ Don't' know'* — aa if-the grand end and. aim of his pior-.existence waa not to know anything, and to come as near accomplishing hia mis sion as his opportnnitiea would permlt- They would vote for General Jackeon at the “ Body-snatchers’ .Retreat,” but for the misfortune that they “ don’t know” such a: person ever exi.-ted. Wbat do you suppose1 the pi oplc would ever know about bow their interests were belog attended to if the cm -* ploy to in all public offices were such uu-1 mitigated igcoramuses as . these ? One of thesefrllONa said to us yesterday, “ We -have-taken away the slu e; we are not going to give you any more information ; i fthe reporters have got too sharp— -by George, j they know morc’n toe d o!” God help' the reporter that don’t ! It la aa fervent a prayer as ever welled,up from the bottom- of our heart. Now, a reporter can start1 any day, and .travel through the -whole of the long list of employes in the public offl-1 era in this city, and in not a soli.ary ln-> ttance will he find sny difficulty in getting, any information whi:h the public have a I right to know, until he arrives at the inquest office of the Coroner. There ail knowledge concerning the dead who die in mysterious] ways snd mysterious places, and who may have friends and relatives near at hand who would give the world and all its wealth for1 even the poor.consolation of knowing their' fate, is denied us. Who are the sufferers byi this- eoatemptiole contumacy—we or tbei hundrs# thousand citizens of Ban Fran ciaeo ? The responsibility of thia state of] things rests with the coroner, and it is only right and just that he should amend it. ] P h o to s ta t re p ro d u c tio n from MNC*OKT UMAK'1 s ........... 276 Date ' ' ' a j . 2 7 . i a 6 5 Pg 9 01...1-2 , P h o to stated ........................................................................ by U N IV E R S IT Y O F C A L IF O R N IA L IB R A R Y (For tho Californian.) . HOW I WENT TO THE GREAT RACE BETWEEN j LODI AND NORFOLK. HERE can be no use in my writing any account what ever of tbe great race, because that matter has already been attended to in the daily papers. Therefore, I will simply describe to yon how I went to the race. Bnt before I begin, I would like to tell you abont Homestead—Benj. W. Homestead, of the Incidental Hotel. [I do not wish to be too severe, though, and so I use fictitious names, to prevent yonr finding ont who it is I refer to, and where his place of business is.] It will ease my mind to tell you abont him. You know Homestead, clerk at the Incidental Hotel, and yon know he has the reputation of being chatty, and sociable, and accommo- ; dating—a man, in fact, eminently fitted to make a guest feel ; more at home in the hotel than in his own house with his own wife, and his own mother, and his wife’ s mother, aiid her various (riends and relatives, and all the other little comforts that go to make married life a blessing, and create what is known as “ Sweet Home,’* and which is so deservedly popu lar— I mean among people who have not tried it. You know Homestead as that kind of a man. Therefore, yon wohld not suppose that attractive exterior of his, and that 1 smiling visage, and that seductive tongue capable of dark and mysterious crimes. - Very well, 1 will ask you to listen to a plain, unprejudiced statement of facts: ; On or about the 21st of the pretent month, it became apparent to me that the forthcoming race between Norfolk and Lodi was awakening extraordinary attention all over the Pacific coast, and even far away in the Atlantic States. I saw that if I failed to see this race I might live a century, perhaps, without ever having an opportunity to see its equal. , I went at once to a livery stable—the man said his teams had all been engaged a week before I called. I got the same answer at all the other livery stables, except one. They told me there that they had a nice dray, almost new, and a part of a horse—they said part of a horse because a good deal of him was gone, in the way of a tail, and one ear and a portion of the other, and his upper lip, and«one eye; and, inasmuch as his teeth were exposed, and be had a villainous cost in his remaining eye, these defects, added to his damaged ears and departed tail, gave him an extremely “gallus" and unpre possessing aspect—but they only asked two hundred and forty dollars for the turn-out for the day. I resisted the yearning I felt to hire this unique establish ment. Then they said they had a capacious riding-horse left, but all the seats on him except one had been engaged ; they said lie was an unusually long horse, and he could seat seven ! very comfortably ; and that he was very gentle, and would not kick up behind ; and that one of the choicest places on him for observation was still vacant, and I could have it for nineteen dollars—and so on and so on; and while the passenger agent was talking, he was busy measuring off a space of nine inches for me pretty high up on tbe commo dious animal’s neck. ^ It seemed to me that the prospect of going to the races was beginning to assume a very “ neck-or-nothing ” condi tion, but neyertheless I steadfastly refused the supercargo’s offer, and he sold the vacancy to a politician who was used to being on the fence and would naturally consider a seat astride a horse’s neck in the light of a pleasant variety. I then walked thoughtfully down to the Incidental, turning over in my mind various impossible expedients for getting out to the Ocean Race-Course. I thought of the hone-cars and the steam-cars, but without relief, for neither of these conveyances could carry me within four miles of the place. At the hotel I met the abandoned Homestead, and as nearly as 1 can recollect, the following conversation ensued : “ Ah, Mark, you’re the very man I was looking for./Take a drink ?” I cannot be positive, but it is my impression that I either ,stated that I would, or else signified assent by a scarcely perceptible eagerness of manner common to me under cir cumstances of this nature. «. While we were drinking, Homestead remarked, with con siderable vivacity : “ Yes, I was just looking for you. I am going out to the great race on Tuesday, and I’ve a vacancy and waut company. I’ d like to have you go along with me if you will.” I set my glass down with a suddenness and decision unusual with me on such occasions, and seizing his hand, I wrung it with heartfelt warmth and cordiality. It is humili- i ating to me to reflect, now,-that at that mpment I even shed I some tears of gratitude, and felt them coursing down the- backbone of my nose and dripping from the end of it. Never mind the remainder of the conversation—suffice it that I was charged to be at Abe Incidental punctually at ten o’clock on Tuesday morning, and that I promised to do so. Well, at the appointed time, I teas there. That is, I was as near as I could get—I was on the outskirts of a crowd that occupied all the pavement outside and filled the office inside. Young Smith, of Buncombe and Brimstone, ap proached me with an air of superiority, and remarked languidly that he guessed he would go to the races. He dropped his airs, though, very suddenly, and came down to my level when I told him I was going to the races also. He said he thought all the conveyances in town had been secured a week ago. I assumed a crashing demeanor of wealthy indifference, and remarked, rather patronizingly, that I had seen greater races—in Europe and other places—and did not care about seeing this one, bnt then Homestead had insisted so on my going with him that— “ The very devil!” eays young Smith, “give us your hand ! we’re compangyongs dew vo-yoj / ” (he affects the French, does ( 277 young Smith,)—“ I'm going with Homestead, tod, my boy !” j We grew cordial in a moment, and went around, armin- arm, patronizing the balance of the crowd. Bnt somehow, i every man we accosted silenced onr batteries as I had silenced J young Smith’s in the first place—they were all going with | Homestead. I tell yon candidly, and.in all seriousness, that, when I came to find tint that there were a hundred and fifty men there, all going to the races, and all going with Home stead, I began to think it was—was—singular, at the very least, not to say exceedingly strange. { But I am tired of this infamous subject—I am tired of this disgraceful narrative, and I shall not finish it. However, as I have gone this far, I vsi I quote from a con-] versation that occurred in front of the hotel at ten o’ clock, j The degraded Homestead stepped out at the door, and bowed, and smiled his hated smile, and said, blandly: j “ Ah, you are all here, I see. I am glad you are so| punctual, for there is nothing that worries me so much wbenj I am going on a little trip like this for recreation, as to bej delayed. Well, boys, time presses—let’s make a start.” “ I guess we’re all ready, Mr. Homestead,” said one gentle man, “ but—but how are you going ?” UV11«V IV VIJUjA i I have made a plain, simple statement of the facts con-! nected with this outrage, and they can be substantiated by; every man who was present upon that occasion. I will now. The depraved Homestead smiled, as if he were going to< say sometnincr very smart, and then, “ Oh,” says he, “ I’ m drop this subject forever. M ask Twain. P h o to sta t rep ro d u ctio n from a A V & x o r r S.F., Californian 2*7 8 D ate ...jJ .u n e - 3 - -1 8 6 5 " P g C01- 1 " 2 Photostated ....................................................................... by # U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L . '^ O R N I A L I B R A R Y ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. | Am. letters for this department should be addressed to Mr. M a r k T w a i i , who has been detailed from tbe editorial staff to condnct it. Courting Etiquette, Distressed Lovers, of either sex, and Struggling Young Authors, as yet “ unbeknown" to Fame, will receive especial uttcution. ] \ D i s c a r d e d L o v e r —“ I loved and still love, the beautiful Ed- witha Howard, and intended to marry her. Yet during my tempo- porary absence at Benicia, lust week, alas! she married Jones. Is my happiness to be thus blasted for life 7 Have I no redress 7" Of course you have. All the law, w ritten and unw ritten, is on your side. The intention and not the act constitutes crime— in other words, constitutes the deed. I f you call your bosom friend a fool, and intend it for an insult, it is an in s u lt; b u t if you do it playfully, and m eaning no insult, it is not an insult. I f you discharge a pistol accidentally, and kill a man, you can go free, for you have done no m urder— but if yoa try to kill a man, and manifestly intend to kill him, but fail utterly to do it, th e law still holds th a t th e intention consti tu ted the crime, and you are guilty of m urder. Ergo, if you had m arried E dw itha accidentally, and w ithout really intend ing to do it, you would not actually be m arried to her a t all, because the act o f m arriage could not be com plete w ith o ut the intention. A nd, ergo, in the stric t spirit of th e law, since you deliberately intended to marry E dw itha, and didn’t do it, you are m arried to her all the same—be cause, as I said before, the intention constitutes the crime. I t is as clear as day th a t E dw itha is your wife, and your redress lies in taking a club and m utilating Jo n es with it as m uch as you can. A ny man has a righf to protect his own wife from the advances of other men. B ut you have another alternative— you were m arried to Edw itha first, becauseof your deliberate intention, and now you can prosecute her for bigamy, in subsequently m arrying Joues. B ut there is another phase in this complicated case : You intended to m arry E d w itha, and consequently, according to law, she'is your wife— th ere is no getting around th a t— but she didn’t m arry you, and if she never intended to m arry you you are not her hus- [ band, of course. Ergo, in m arrying Jones, she was guilty of bigam y, because she was the wife of another m an a t th e tim e — which is all very well as far as it goes— but then, don’t you see, she had no o th er husband when she m arried Jones, and consequently she was not guilty of bigamy. N ow according to this view of th e case, Jo n es m arried a spinster, who was a widow a t the same time and another m an’ s wife a t the sam e tim e, and y et who had no husband and never had one, and never had any intention of g ettin g married, and therefore, of course, never had been m arried ; and by th e same reasoning you are a bachelor, because you have never been any one’s husband, and a married man because you have a wife living, and to all intents and purposes a widower, because you have been deprived of th a t wife, and a consum m ate ass for going Aff to Benicia in th e first place, while things were so mixed. A nd by this tim e I have g o t myself so tangled up in th e intricacies of this extraordinary case that I shall have to. give up any further attempt to advise you—I might got con fused and fail to make myself understood. I think I could take up the argument where I left off, and by following it closely awhile, perhaps 1 conld prove to your satisfaction, < either that you never existed at all, or that you are dead,1 now, and consequently don’t need the faithlesB. Edwitha—I think I coold do that, if it would afford you any comfort. Mil Mark Twaii*-S ir: I wish to call your attention to a matter' which has come to my notice frequently, but before doing bo, I m ay. remark, en passant, that I don’t see why your parents should have called you Mark Tw ain; had they known your ardent nature, they -would doubtless have named you Water-less Twain. However, Mark wbat I am about to call your attention to, and 1 do so knowing you to be “ capable aud honest" in your inquiries after truth, and that you can fathom the mysteries of Love. Now I want to know why, (and this is the object of my enquiry,) a man should proclaim his love in large gilt letters over his door and in his windows. Why does be do so 7 You may have noticed in the Buss House Block, one door south of the hotel qntrance an inscription thus: “ I Love Land." NoW if this refers to real estate he should not say “ love;", he should say “ like." Very true, in speaking of one’s native soil,1 we say, “ Yes, my native land Llove thee," but I am satisfied thati even if you could suppose this inscription had any remote reference to a birthplace, it does not mean a ranch or eligibly-situated town site. W hy does he do it 7 why does he 7 Yours, without‘ prejudice, Nomme dk P lume. Now, did it never strike this sprightly Frenchman that he * could have gone in there and asked tbe man himself “ why he does it,” as easily as he could write to me on the subject? But no matter—this is just about the weight of the impor tant questions usually asked of editors and answered in the, “ Correspondents’ Column sometimes a man asks how to spell a difficult word—when he might as well have looked in the dictionary ? or he asks who discovered America—when he might have consulted history; dr he asks who in the mis chief Cain's wife was—when a moment's reflection would have satisfied him that nobody knows and nobody cares—at least, except himself. The Frenchman’ s little joke is good, though, for doubtless “ Quarter-less twain,” would sound, like “ Water-less twain,” if nttered between two powerfnl brandy punches. But as to why the man in question lo\ei land— I cannot imagine, unless his constitution resembles mine, and he don’t love water. A r a b e l l a . — N o, neither Mr. Dan Setchell nor Mr. Ootts- chalk are married. I ’erhaps it will interest you to know that; they are both uncommonly anxious to marry, however. And; perhaps it will interest yon still more to*know th at in case thev do marry, they will doubtless wed females ; I hazard this, because, in discussing the question of marrying, they have, uniformly expressed a preference for your sex. I answer your’ inquiries concerning Miss A delaide Phillips in the order in 1 which they occur, by number, as follow s: I. N o. II. Yes. I I I . Perhaps. IV . “ Scasely.” P e r se c u t e d U n f o r t u n a t e .— Y ou say you owe six m onths’ board, and you have no m oney to pay it with, and your land Cco-'tf.y • • c p. j sr.'/ctfj 3y /?6s~ 279 lord keepa harrassing you about it, and you have made all the excuses and explanations possible, and now you are at a loss what to say to him in future. Well, it is a delicate mat ter to offer advice in a case like this, but your distress impels me to make a suggestion, at least, since I cannot venture to do more. When he next importunes you, how would it do to take him impressively by the hand and ask, with simulated emotion, “ Monsieur Jean, votre chien, comme se porle-il ?” Doubtless that is very bad French, but you’ll find that it will answer just as well as the unadulterated article. A r t h u r A u g u s t u s .—No, you are wrong ; that is the proper way to throw a brickbat or a tomahawk, but it doesn’ t an swer so well for a boquet—you will hurt somebody if you keep it up. Turn your nosegay upside down, take it by tbe stems, and toss it with an upward sweep—did you ever pitch quoits ? —that is the idea. The practice of recklessly heav ing immense solid boquets, of the general size and weight of prize cabbages, from the dizzy altitude of the galleries, is dan gerous and very reprehensible. Now, night before last, at the Academy of Music, just after Signorina Sconcia had fin ished that exquisite melody, “ The Last Bose of Summer,” one of these floral pile-drivers came cleaving down through the atmosphere of applause, and if she hadn’t deployed sud denly to the right, it would have driven her into the floor like a shingle-nail. Of course that boquet was well-meant, but how would you have liked to have been the target ? A sincere compliment is always grateful to a lady, so long as you don’ t try to knock her down with it. f / R E W O O U C E D BY P H O T O S T A T FRO M fxo.l&eA u v a . o„,e '7-Z- V ,6-7 OATE RE P R O O U C E D . . CALIFORNIA STATE LIBRAR 1^-,^ 280 -Broom A N E W C O N T R IB U T O R . We take pleasure in announcing to our readers that we have secured the services of the eminent Smith B. Jones, Esq., whose a r rival by the last steamer has already been announced, and who will henceforth contrib ute weekly to our columns. Mr. Jones needs no introduction from us. His brilliant effusions have charmed the liter ati of both Europe and America, and are familiar to all. Although the literary services of Mr. Jones have been procured by U3 only at a large pecuniary outlay—as will be seen by the subjoined correspondence—yet we heartily congratulate ourselves as well as our readers on the acquisition of our new con tributor. On Tuesday last, we addressed Mr. Jones the following n o te : E d it o r ia l R o o m s “ G o i.d bn E r a , ” 1 S a n F r a n c is c o , J u n e 2 7 t h , 1 8 6 5 . j S m it h B r o w n J o n e s , E s q ., C o n s e q u e n ta l H o te l. Dear S i r Seeing yo u r nam e in the list of a r r i vals by th e steam ship Sacramento, we ta k e the lib erty of addressing you a t th is early m om ent, to s e cure, if possible, th e productions of your pen for tbe colum ns of th e E ra . Rardon ua for the business tenor o f this note, and for any seem ing intrusion upon yo u r privacy. We are aw are th a t the im m ense lite ra ry labors to which you have been subjected for y ea rs p ast have som ew hat im paired y cu r h ealth , and th a t you have come to o u r golden shores to seek, in quiet and r e tirem en t, th a t re s t so m uch needed ; but our s ta n d ing as th e flrst litera ry paper of the Pacific coast— if not of th e world—dem ands of us th a t w e should not allow th e opportunity to pass unheeded. W hat w e ask is b u t a m ere dash ol your pen. O ur readers w ill b e grateful for a weekly contribution— h alf a column or m ore in length—to suit your own convenience of course—and for w hich we w ill be glad to pay you a t th e ra te o f two hundred and' fifty dollars per week. We hope o th e r engagem ents w ill n o t preclude your acceptance o f ou r offer. Should our term s not m eet your approval, please b in d yourself to no periodical until we hav e bad an interview . Very R espectfully, E d it o r s G o l d e n E r a . In reply, we received tbe following some what incomprehensible production, which, however, we place before our readers, con scious th at what flows from the pen of the gifted Jones— however erratic—must he es teemed as beyond price. C o n s e q u e n t a l H o t e l , ) S a n F r a n c i s c o , June 23th, 1865. £ E d i t o r s G o ld e n E r a — Gentlemen : In rep ly to your kind and flat tering n ote, allow m e to say a t once that I accep t your offer of th e SeD atorship. I do it advisedly, and without fear of contradiction. Hon. John C s says, “ close at once with them 1 ” John is a friend of mine—came out on the steamer—and, as I before remarked, advised me to appoint you next Senator—no —I mean you remarked me to advise you to appoint him in succession to Senator to be me. I'm afraid that is not quite clear. The fact is, I’m laboring under a slight indisposi tion, arising from change of water, I presume, although I ’ve taken but very little. I t’s funny about that water. I felt the change befor? we got in sight of the Heads. C s affects me in the same way, too. I mean, he effects the water in the same way. No, that’s not it, either. What I mean to say 13, the water affects him. I know it does. Said he, with tears in his eyes, “Jones, I love you. You are the apple of my eye—may we always be friends! Jones, vote for me 1” I assured him I would— that I always had from infancy. Shook my hand affectionately and asked me to go below. Immediately de scended to his state room, in second cabin, and took a glass of lemonade at my expense. Talked of old times—of our adventures on the voyage—last day board ship—grew con vivial, and took a glass of lemonade for which I paid. Said he was our only sober Senator, aDd sent for some lemonade—kindly allowed me to pay for it. Went on deck. John said, “ There Jones ! Can you see the Heads?” Felt annoyed—thought John was too famil iar—was indignant—rebuked him, “ Lemon ade doesn’t affect me in that way, of course I can see ahead!” ThiDk that went home. John smiled sar castic-said, “Don’t mean can you see ahead,. —but can you see the Heads ?” Told him “ couldn’t see anything else unless I stood on tip toe, or went on upper deck— which Cap’n didn't allow to second-class pas sengers. Saw at once lemonade affected my friend— laughed immoderateiy—said I had made a a joke. Abjured me above all things to vote for him. Called my attention to Lime Point. Said he was concerned in the swindle—or at least he thought ’twas him. Said United States wanted to buy Lime Point—owners anxious to sell—in fact very anxious to sell —big price— big thing—pulled wool overU . S— U. S. agreed to buy. Then he and Brod erick—but especially he— thought so at least —stepped in—advised U. S. not to buy— stood by U. S. like a brother. U. S. backed out—didn’t buy—saved millions—didn’t make a cent out of it himself—didn’t, ’pon his word. Asked me if I saw Meigg’s wharf on right— Meiggs his friend, but unfortunate. Said that wa3 Alcatraz on my left. Immediately turned to gentleman on my left—Mr. Alcatraz—was happy to meet him—sorry friend John hadn’t introduced him before. Think gentleman on lefthad a pain in stomach. Said intoxicated beast made him sick. Looked for intoxicated beast—didn’t see him—saw John—John look ed silly—asked me if I was sick, and if I didn’t want to go ashore—said he’d introduce Gov. Low to me—Gov. was friend of his— anxious to see him—I could vote for him, but he was tricky. Thought we’d better take a hack and he could dumfuozle Gov, every time. Called hack. Hack said twenty dollars. Told him I’d see him flrst 1 John said to hu3h —said he’d make contract with hack—was great on contracts. Then we made contract. Hack said where did he want to go. Told him yes, we would, and how did he know it ? Man said we would take him, ten dollars and the Russ House to us for three trunks—best carriage- in State—both white—had prefer ence for fast carriages that were white—al ways drove ’em. Told man ten horses too much, would he give us fifteen. Man with carriage imperti nent. Think man intoxicated. Said he was no member of CoDgress, and had no poor re lations. Know man was intoxicated. Tried to be funny—said I was drunk. John asked him to sing—carriage and I was to come in heavy on the chorus. Man failed to come to time. Said he couldn’t sing except on flute. All of him laughed—thought he was funny carriage—fact was, all six of him too drunk. John said ’twas time to go home—but would have one more game—ten cent ante and his deal. Low’3 chance wasn’t worth a cop per—he’d taken his straight. Also said he was sick—wished he hadn’t come, and asked policeman if he wa3 on it and to beware of bowl—intoxication was best policy, and he’d been a missionary once himself. Policeman very attentive. John wanted policeman to sing. Had great difficulty in getting police man in carriage. John felt bad—wanted to know where Gov. Low was—said policeman was dearest friend— gave policeman bis spec tacles. Began to think John was ’toxicated.l Said never min’ ole boy—may be happy yet. > Wanted to kDow if Russ Hotel dead-headed 1 me—didn’t cost him cent—asked policem an! to dine withjhim. Said if I paid, I’d better go to Consequental Hotel—chock up house—and pay greenbacks. Said he was glad the war j was over and would call policeman Gen. Mc Dowell and was glad to see him. Gen. McDowelt—I mean policeman—bor rowed two and half of me and said I was a ll, right. Think be had been drinking som e,bnt apologised to him. Consequental House ar-[ rived—said good bye to John—John wept! bitterly, and I am here, some sickly, bnt Truly Yours, S. B. J o n es, j 281 GOLDEN BRA, JULY 9, 1865 S. BROWNE JONES An astounding fraud practiced upon us.— The editor of the "Bohemian” the guilty party.— Criminal proceedings instituted against him. In our issue of last week we announced to our read ers that we had made an engagement with S. Browne Jones Esq., for weekly contributions to the Era, and gave the correspondence that passed between the editors of this paper and that gentleman. We have since discovered that the answer published over the signature of Mr. Jones vms written by Mr. Mark Twain, the Editor of the Bohemian, who by accident obtained information of the contents of our note to Mr. Jones, and basely took advantage of the knowledge so acquired, to not only impose upon us, but to injure the reputation of sev eral gentlemen of high position. Mr. Mark Twain may think that he has done something very funny. We shall endeavor to teach him, however, that such practical jokes cannot be played upon us with impunity. We intend to follow the mat ter up. Immediately upon the discovery of this imposition, we had Mr. Twain placed under arrest. He is now at liberty, on bail. His examination will take place sometime this week. We shall place before our readers, in our next issue, a full report of the proceedings, taken down by one of our corps of phonographic reporters. The following note from Mr. Jones will be of interest under the circumstances: Consequental Hotel, San Francisco, July 5th, 1865. Editors Golden Era— Gentlemen: I have the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of your note of the 27th ultimo, and should have replied long before this, had my health permitted. When I assure you that this is the first day that , o I have been able to leave my room since my arrival in Cal ifornia, you will be able to imagine my astonishment upon seeing in your issue of the 2d inst., a most singular com munication purporting to have come from me. 282 Your well-known character as journalists at once forbids the idea that you have taken the liberty of us ing my name in an improper manner, and I am therefore led to believe that some one has imposed upon you and abused ray confidence, I regret this from the fact that it not only places both you and myself in a ridiculous light, but also tends to bring odium upon a gentleman, whom I have every reason to esteem— a gentleman whose character in private life is untarnished— one who has passed through the seething corruption of public life and has come out undefiled— one whom his most bitter party antagonists confess to be without blemish, and who has so nobly and so jealously represented the interests of your glorious Golden State at our NationTs Capital. Add to all these virtues the remembrance of many personal acts of kindness, and you can appreciate ray distress upon read ing the communication referred to. I am happy to add, however, that I have traced out the imposter. To certain circumstances that occurred shortly after the receipt of your note, and which have been recalled to my memory, I am indebted for the dis covery. But here allow me the use of your columns to cor rect an injustice done in the moment of excitement at see ing my name so unceremoniously dragged before the public, and which I fear has caused a worthy gentleman of this community serious annoyance. An hour or two after I had received your note, my friend Mr. Conness called at my apartments, as usual, to inquire after my health, and brought with him a Mr. Pixley— a gentleman of no little distinction in your city, I have since ascertained— and introduced him to me as his friend, stating that Mr. Pix ley was an aspirant for Senatorial honors and would be glad of my support. Informed Mr. Pixley that, owing to my recent ar rival, I was necessarily ignorant upon the local politics of the state, and hence could not consistently enter into the approaching Senatorial contest. That otherwise, the mere fact of his endorsement by my friend Conness, was sufficient recommendation to me, and that I should have been pleased to render him any aid in my power. Mr. Pixley, I thought, felt somewhat piqued; at any rate, there was an awkirard silence that I at once pro ceeded to overcome by changing the subject, and my eye happening to fall on your communication, I passed it to Mr. Conness and asked his advice. 283 At this moment, a servant presented a card and immediately ushered in a gentleman, whom I requested to be seated for a moment. Mr. Conness.read your letter aloud and advised me to accept your offer at once, say ing he had been a constant reader of the Era since it was established, and that he frequently contributed to its columns. Other topics of conversation follo?/ed rapidly, until Mr. Conness and his friend Pixley took their leave. Now, when I saw the absurd production attributed to me, in your paper, on Sunday last, it immediately occurred to me that Mr. Pixley was the only person be sides Mr. Conness and myself, who v/as aware of the con tents of the note you addressed me, and that he must have written the article referred to, and I at once concluded that a petty spirit of revenge for the refusal of my sup port to his political schemes, prompted him to bring me into public ridicule by means of the imposition practiced upon you. I was all the more confirmed in this view of the matter upon calling to mind his irritated manner during the latter portion of our interview. According ly, I addressed him a note, expressing in terms not to be mistaken my indignation at his conduct, and demanding an explanation or the satisfaction due a gentleman. Mr. Pixley replied immediately through our mutual friend, Mr. Conness, who hastened to my apartments with flushed face, and assured me that I had made some terrible mis take, that Mr. Pixley was a gentleman of high tone, and far above such a dastardly proceeding, and hinting that he thought I had shown undue haste, and called upon me to substantiate my charges against Mr. Pixley. I immediately called the attention of Dir. Conness to the circumstances above related; thinking, of course, that he would agree with me in attributing the authorship of the obnoxious communication to Mr. Pixley. He replied: "You seem to forget there was a fourth person present at that interview. I have occasion to men tion it, as, the very next day, that individual called and desired me to lend my name to some swindling operation in petroleum stocks, and when I refused, threatened to ’show me up.’ It is to him we are indebted for the scandalous letter in the Era.T t 284 It was immediately clear to me that I had deeply wronged Mr, Pixley by my hasty and unjust conclusions. The presence of a fourth person at the interview had entirely escaped my memory, I begged Mr. Conness to make— in my name— the most ample apologies for my conduct, and to offer any reparation to Mr. Pixley. The latter gentleman— to his honor be it said— was so magnanimous as to perceive the error into which I had fallen, and desired— as public men tion had been made of his name— that I should make an ex planation through your columns. Now to the real author of this silly communica tion. After Mr. Conness and Mr. Pixley had left my apart ments, I gave my attention to the individual who had en tered as Mr.. Conness was about to read your note. This person— whose card I have unfortunately mislaid— gave his name as Swain or Twain— the latter I think— Mr. Marcus Twain— and represented himself to be the editor of the Bohemian newspaper, and said he had called to solicit contributions for which he would pay liberally. In reply to some questions as to the general char acter of the Bohemian, he said that paper was a religious journal, now in the forty-third year of its existence, and had a circulation throughout the world. I expressed some surprise at this, as I had not even heard the paper men tioned before, although I thought myself well posted in the literary world, but he assured me such was the fact. He said he had necessarily overheard the contents of your letter, and that he would not be able to pay me so large a sum as was offered, by you, as the Bohemian endeavored to live up to its principles, and gave away much in charity, and, therefore, had to depend to a great extent upon the charity of its contributors. Mr. Twain suggested that I take as a topic for my introductory article to the Bohemian, "Death, Hell, and the Grave”; stating that owing to the evil days into which we have fallen, many"of the readers of the Bohemian had backslidden and needed to be frightened back into the walks of righteousness; and that a few words of timely warning from a person of my known ability would help on the good work. 285 With shame I confess that I was completely deceived by this plausible young man, with his sanctimonious air and conversation, and I told him that I would give his ap plication serious consideration. I have since ascertained that the Bohemian is not a religious paper; and the bold impudence of this Mr. Marcus Twain astounds me. It seems he is in some way con nected with that newspaper. I do not know what course you intend to pursue. Be assured I shall not let this matter rest here. I in tend to prosecute this Mr. Marcus Twain, and have already entered a complaint against him in your municipal Court. In closing this lengthy but unavoidable explana tion, I cannot but express my surprise that gentlemen of your well known information.and literary attainments should have been for a moment deceived by this glaring im position, and can only attribute it to the hurry and con fusion attendant on the issue of a journal of the size and circulation of the Era. I must also add my regrets at being unable to ap pear before the good people of your city on the Fourth. The committee on the celebration waited on me and honored me with a request to deliver the Oration at the. Metropol itan theatre. I thankfully accepted their kind offer and prepared the Oration, but on Monday last I was so unwell that I gave my manuscript to John H. Dwinelle, Esq., who kindly volunteered to read it for me. I here return my thanks to Mr. Dwinelle; his masterly delivery added much to the beauty of the Oration. Allow me to say Messrs. editors, that I shall ac cept your offer with thanks, and shall be happy to be numbered among your contributors. I see you have fallen into the common error in re gard to my name. I spell the Brown with a final e, and never write my first Christian name in full, I am, Very Respectfully, S. Browne Jones. 286 GOLDEN ERA, JULY 16, 1865 S. BROWNE JONES Full Report of the Proceedings upon the Exam ination of Mark Twain on the Charge of Fraud in the Police Court. The Defendant Found Guilty and Sentenced to Forty-Eight Hours in the City Prison. Probably the largest and most respectable audience that was ever seen in San Francisco on a similar occasion met at the Police Court Room, on Thursday last, to wit ness the proceedings in the examination of Mr. Mark Twain, one of the editors of the Bohemian, upon the charge of un lawfully and maliciously defrauding the editors and pro prietors of this paper, by writing, and transmitting to them for publication, a communication purporting to come from the pen of ..the eminent S. Browne Jones, Esq., by means of which the proprietors of this paper were placed in a false position before the public, and ridicule brought upon S. Browne Jones, Esq., and other distinguished gentle men of this community. Mr. Mark Twain, who, upon giving bond, had been re leased from arrest, appeared with his usual unblushing ef frontery, and boldfaced impudence, attended by his counsel U. S. District Attorney Delos Freshwater,— who, it is said, writes nearly all the editorial matter of the Bohemian, as well as the News Note, and Philosophic Mining Press. We do not know but that we ought to do the Bohemian people the justice to say that they are heartily ashamed of the conduct of Mr. Mark Twain, and have endeavored to induce us to drop the prosecution of this matter. Even Mr. Mark Twain himself has tried— in an indifferent way, it is true— to buy us off. We rejected his offer with scorn. We deemed it due our readers, as well as our (sic) our selves, that this matter should be thoroughly investigated and the evil doers be brought to justice. Below we give a full report of the testimony e- licted (sic) on the examination, taken do?m by one of our efficient corps of Phonographic Reporters. The Prosecuting Attorney was assisted by Messrs. \\ Hall McCannister, Samuel M. Williamson and John W. Dwindle, who had been retained in the case of Mr. S. Browne Jones, Esq . 287 Among the spectators, we observed the Hon. Schuyler Colfax and party, who, being personal friends of Mr. S. Browne Jones, Esq., took great interest in the proceedings. S. Browne Jones, Esq., was the first ?fitness called on the part of the prosecution, and testified as follows: ”Am devoted to literature. Have been in California about two weeks, only. Arrived on the steamship Sacra mento. ‘ A few days after my arrival, I received a note from the editors of the G-olden Era, requesting me to write for that paper. The note read as follows— (published in full in our issue of July 2d.— Eds Era. I was unwell at the time; confined to my apartments. While holding the offer under consideration, my friends, Conness and Pixley, called on me. Mentioned the matter to them. While Mr. Conness was reading the note, the defendant, Mark Twain, called. Know the defendant at the bar to be the same person who called. Identify him by his sanctimonious air; also the strawberry mark on his left eye-lid. Mark on his nose is not a strawberry mark. DonTt know the facts, but should think that resulted from drinking. The simon-pure strawberry marks are usually found under the left arm— some exceptions. Think defendant’s true name is not lark Twain. Have been told that it is one of many aliases. Can’t say of my own knowledge. ”No one else was present at the.time .referred to, except Mr. Conness, Mr. Pixley, the defendant, and myself. Ho one else knew of the contents of the note. ’ ’Defendant said he had overheard the contents of the letter. He wanted me to write for the Bohemian. Said he was editor of the paper. On Cross Examination:— ’ ’’Twas about eleven o’clock in the forenoon when Mr. Mark Twain called. I had never seen him before. I had not been drinking. Seldom drink anything stronger than raw brandy. ’ ’The mark on defendant’s left eyelid is a true strawberry mark. Know all about strawberry marks. Wrote a treatise on them once. Yftien Edward Everett and I wrote for the New York Ledger, at $10,000.00 an article, we had frequent use for strawberry marks. Used them in histori cal characters. I made researches on the subject. Don’t know of my own knowledge that defendant is addicted to drinking.” 288 One of the editors of the Golden Era was the next witness called. He testified that as soon as the arrival of Mr, S. Browne Jones, Esq., was announced, he addressed him the note before referred to. ’ ’Received a reply next evening. Did not read it until it was in type. Thought Ttwas singular that Mr. Jones should write such a letter. The Era was just going to press. Didn’t notice particular ly the person who brought the manuscript to the Era office. ’Twas a boy. Think he is employed in the Bohemian office. Can’t swear to it. ”Am familiar with Mark Twain’s handwriting. It’s very scrawly— very much like this (referring to manuscript in question.) Can’t swear that this is Mr. Mark Twain’s writing. ’ ’Defendant was at one time employed by the pro prietors of the Era to compile and condense news items. Never trusted him with anything original, except obituary notices. He had a morbid desire to write such notices. He overdid the matter. Had to drop him. Defendant had three volumes of manuscript obituary notices. His object was, I believe, to have one ready for any emergency. The names of the deceased, as well as the dates, were left blank, ready to be filled in at a moment’s notice.” Mr. Conness was then called, as witness for the prosecution. ’ ’Called on my friend S. Browne Jones, Esq., at Con sequental Hotel, in this city and county (in reply to a question of Mr. Louderback’s). ”Mr. Jones had just received a note from the editors of the Golden Era. Saw the note. Read it aloud. While I was reading, defendant came in. Defendant must have heard me read the note. There was no one else present except Mr. Pixley. ’ ’Recognize the defendant as the same person who sub sequently called on me and desired me to lend my name to a Petroleum stock operation. He offered me five hundred shares of stock to induce me to become a trustee. He said ’twas a big thing, could make lots of money if I would only go in. I refused to have anything to do with it. De fendant said that was ’played out,’ for he knew I ’was on it.’ Threatened to ’blow on me,’ or something to that effect. 289 On Cross Examination:— "I might have drank with de fendant. DonTt remember. DonTt make it a rule to drink every hour. Am a Senator. Hope to be re-elected. Low*s chances for succeeding McDougall are not good. Low wouldn!t do as I told him. Knew heTd slip up. I have nothing to do with the Alta newspaper. I appointed Perkins Postmaster. He does about as I direct; if he didnTt, hefd lose his head. ’Tis not true that he edits the Bulletin. ”1 have nothing to do with the Flag now. Did at one time. Wrote all the political articles. I paid for the use of the columns. They wanted more; so they oppose me now. The per (sic) has no influence; has not, since I ceased writing for it. Would like to see my friend Pixley, or Sargent, succeed McDougall.” Mr. Pixley was then sworn. Said he called with Mr. Conness on Mr. S. Browne Jones, Esq. Was anxious to obtain his support. He was before the people as candidate for the II. S. Senate. HadnTt a doubt but that hefd be elected. Mr. Jones thought that he ought not to interfere, as he had come to this coast so recently. "While Mr. Conness and myself were at Mr. S. Browne Jones * apartments, defendant came in. Mr. Conness was reading' a letter from the publishers of some literary paper, asking Mr. S. Browne Jones to write for them. DonTt remem ber the name of the paper. Had my mind on other things. Was thinking of the Senatorship. Think the paper was the Golden Era; am not certain. Have written for that paper myself. fIDonft know much about defendant. He offered to come out for me in the Bohemian for a consideration. Among other things, I was to pay for his drinks at the Bank Ex change during the campaign. I paid the bill for one month. TTwas very large. He had not come out for me according to promise, and I refused to pay more. That was about two months ago. Cross-Examined;— "It is some time since I wrote any thing for the C-olden Era. The last contribution I made to that paper was a pastoral poem in thirty-nine stanzas of eight lines each, entitled TPixley and his Muel*. Would like to read it; ’twould not take long. Shall be pleased to send the court a copy with compliments of the author. £90 "At present I write the ’funny’ articles in the News Note and Philosophical Mining Press, and also the com munications in the Bulletin, entitled, Personal Remin iscences of the War, by a California Lady.f Edited the Flag at one time. Never had a contract to supply dogs to Gridley’s Hog Ranch. Am still a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Know I will be elected. DonTt care to say how much I paid for the place.” The Prosecution here rested, and Defendant's Counsel called Mr. C. H. W. Inigo to testify to the good character of the defendant. "Witness knew defendant. Had been associated with him on the Bohemian newspaper. Defendant had a good char acter as ’ far as he knew. Was generous to a fault. Knew the latter fact of his own knowledge. On one occasion he borrowed my best cotton shirt to go to the opera, and had it sent to the laundry before he returned it; he also paid one half the bill. ' "He can play draw poker equal to any man. Consider myself some at draw poker, but he can discount me every time. He won those sleeve buttons that he has on from me at draw poker. We are both interested in the Nicholson pave ment. The defendant does not write the ’Answers to Cor respondents T in the Bohemian. I write them myself— that is— the funny ones. Never wrote anything that wasn’t funny." At this stage of the proceedings, the Defendants Counsel arose and said that after consultation, his client had concluded to 'withdraw his plea of not guilty, and would throw himself on the mercy of the court. Whereupon the Court required the Defendant to appear for sentence on Saturday, July 15th. On Saturday morning, the Court said it had carefully reviewed the evidence, and taking into consideration all the facts, and it being the first offense charged against the Defendant, and also taking into consideration Defendant’s tender years, he had concluded to punish this first offense lightly— more so, perhaps, than it deserved— and admonished the Defendant to beware of a second departure from the paths of honor and rectitude. And then the Court proceeded to sentence him to forty-eight hours in the City Prison, on bread and water. 291 The Defendant seemed to have come to a sense of his position, for he shed tears profusely. We hope' this will be a lesson to him that will not have to be repeated. S. Browne Jones. P h o to s ta t re p ro d u c tio n fro m I -S.F. Californian j D ate ...^ .O .Y ...4 ...ia 6 5 ......................... - .........C0 I. 5 ^ 2 9 2 ! P h o to sta te d ........................................................................ by j U NIV ERSITY OF CALIFO RN IA LIBRARY “ M A R K T W A I N ” O N T H E B A L L A D IN F L IC T IO N . X T is bound to come ! There is no help for it. I smell it afar ufT— 1 see the signs in the a ir ! Every day and every hour of every day 1 grow more and more nervous, for with every m inute of waning time the dreadful infliction comes nearer and nearer in its inexorable march ! In another weelc, maybe, all Han F r neisco will be. singing “ W earing of the Green !” I know it. I have suffered before, and I know the symptoms. This holds off long, but it is partly th a t th e 'c a lamity may gather irresistible worrying-power, and partly be- ■ cause it is harder to learn than Chinese. But th at is ull tho worse ; for when the people do learn it they will learn it bad r -and terrible will be the distress it will bring upon the com m unity. A year ago “ Johnny came m arching home !” T h at song was sung by everybody, in every key, iu every locality, a t j all hours of the day and night, and always o u t of tune. It sent many unoffending persons to the S tockton asylum. T here $ a s no stopping the epidemic, and so it had to be per m itted to run its course and wear itself out. S hort was our respite, and then a still more m alignant distem per broke out 1 in the m idst of this harried and suffering comm unity. I tw a 3 | “ Y o u ’ll not forget me, m other, m other, m other, m othe- 1 ” ; with an ever-accumulating aggravation of expression upon each successive “ m other.” The fire-boys sa t up all night to ( sing i t ; and bands of sentim ental stevedores and m ilitia sol- | diers patroled the streets and howled its lugubrious strains. I A passion for serenading attacked the youth of th e city, and 1 they sang it under verandahs in the back streets until the dogs and cats destroyed their voices in unavailing efforts to lay the devilish spirit th a t was driving happiness from tbeir hearts. f J in a lly there came a season of repose, end the com- > inunity slowly recovered from the effects of the musical calam ity. The respite was not long. In an unexpected m oment they were attacked, front and rear, by a new enem y— “ W hen we were inarching through G eorgia!” Tongue cannot tell ( what we suffered while th is frightful disaster was upon us. Young misses sang it to tb e g u itar and the piano ; youugm en sang it to the banjo and th e fiddle ; th e un-blood-stained Sol dier yelled it wiih enthusiasm as he m arched jh ro u g h the im aginary swarups and cotton p lantations of the drill-room ; th e firemen sang it as they trundled their engines home from con flagrations ; and th e hated serenader tortured it with his dam-ned accord eon. Some of us survived, and some have gone the old road to a haven of re st a t Stockton, where tb e wicked cease from troubling aud th e popular songs are allowed. F o r th e space of four weeks the survivors have been happy. B ut as I have said before, it is bound to co m e! A rra h -n a - Pogue is breeding a song th a t will bedeck some m ountain with new-made graves ! In another week we shall be “ W ear ing of the G reen,” and in a fortnight some will be wearing of the black in consequence. T hree repetitions of this song will produce luuacy, and five will kill—it.is th a t much more viru lent than its predecessors. People are finding it hard to learn, b u t when they get it learned they will find it potent for harm. I t is W heatleigh's song. l i e sings it in A rrah-na- Pogue, with a sprig of sham rock in his hat. W heatleigh sings it with such aggravated solemnity as to make an audience long for the graive. I t is doled o u t slowly, and every note set tles deliberately to its place on o n e’ s heart like a solid iceberg — and by the tim e it is finished th e tem perature of th e thea tre has , fallen to tw enty-degrees. ; Think w hat a dead-cold w inter we shall have here when th is A rtie funeral melody, be comes p o p u lar! Think of it being perform ed at.m idnight, in lonely places, upon th e spirit-depressiug accordeonf Think of being driven to blow your brains out under such circum stances, and then dyiug to th e grave-yard cadences of “ W ear ing of the Green !” B u t it is bound to come, and w e may as well bow our heads and subm it with such degree of C hristian resiguation as we are able to com m and.— T errito ria l E n te r prise. P h o to s ta t re p ro d u c tio n from S. Fv,Cal if orni a h D ate . .1 .8 .6 5 ..........Pg...^.?...... C ol..3 . 293 P h o to sta te d by U NIV ERSITY O F C ALIFO RN IA LIBRARY | * • Mark T wain*,” in summing up the facts and theories of the What Cheer House robbery, says (correspondence Vir ginia E nterpriser N ov. 18th : j “ T h e Old T h in g .— A a usual, the A lla reporter fastens the [mysterious What Cheer robbery on the snme horrible person | whio knocked young Myers in the head with a slung-shot a [year ago and robbed his father’s pawnbroker shop of some {brass jewelry and crippled revolvers, in broad daylight; and he laid that exploit on the horrible-wretch who robbed the ' Mayor’ s Clerk, who half murdered detective officer Rose in a lonely spot below Santa Clara; and he proved that this same' monster killed lhe lone' woman in a secluded house up a dark alley with a carpenter's chisel, months before; and he demon strated by inspired argument that the same villain who chis- , elled the woman tomahawked a couple of defenceless women ’ in the most mysterious manner up another dark alley a few , [months before that. Now, the perpretrator of these veiled,, [crimes has never been discovered, yet this wicked reporter has taken the whole-batch and piled them coolly and relentlessly , upon the shoulders of one imaginary scoundrel, with a com- i fortable, ‘ Here, these are yours,’ and with an air that says ' plainly that no denial, and no argument in the case," will be ; entertained. And every time anything happens that is unlaw- ' ful and dreadful, and has a spice of mystery about it, this reporter, without writing to see if maybe somebody else didn’t do it, goes off at once and jams it on top of the old ■ > pile, as much as to say, ‘ Here—here’ s some more of your work.’ Now this isn’t right, you know. It is all well enough for Mr. Smythe^to divertsuspicion from himself— nobody ob- 1 jects to that-^-but it is not right for him to lay every solitaiy. ^ thing^on^this^mysterioas stranger, whoever he is—it is not right, you know. He ought to give the poor devil a show. The idea of accusing ‘ The"Mysterious ’ * of 'the'What'0 ^ 5 ^ burglary, considering who was the last boarder to. bed rtndihe ] first one up! ' [ * .... ■ t . * “ SmytW'is endeavoring to get on^the {detective police , j force. I think it will be wrongiog the community to give this . 1 man.such,a position -as that—now you know that yourself, j don’ t you ? He would nettle down on some particular fellow, 1 and every time there was a jwpe committed, or a steamship^ stolen, or an oyster c^llarrifled. or a church1 burned ddwn,*or ( a family’massacred; or, a ;blackenjl-tao, pupjstplen, hewouty,,.| march off with portentous mein and snatch that fellow and 1 say, * Here, you are at it again, you know,’ and snake him off to. the Station-House.’ » t. ■ i a.n 294 GOLDEN ERA, JANUARY 14, 1866 Reprint from Territorial Enterprise MARK TWAIN’ S NEW YEAR’S DAY There was a good deal of visiting done here on New Year’s Day. The air was balmy and spring-like, and the day was in every way suited to that sort of business. I say business, because it is more like business than pleasure when you call at a house where all are strangers, and the majority of one’s New Year’s calls are necessarily of that description. You soon run through the list of your personal friends— and that part of the day’s performances affords you genuine satisfaction— and then Smith comes along and puts you through your paces before a hundred people who treat you kindly, but whom you dare not joke with. You can be as easy and comfortable as a mud-turtle astraddle of a sawyer, but you must observe some show of decorum— you must behave yourself. Therefore, I had rather call on people who know me and will kindly leave me entirely unrestrained, and simply employ themselves in looking out for the spoons. When I started out visiting, at noon, the atmosphere was laden with a sweet perfume— a grateful incense that told of flowers, and green fields, and breezy forests far away. But this was only soda-water sentiment, for I soon discov ered that these were the odors of the barber-shop, and came from the heads of small squads of carefully-dressed young men who were out paying their annual calls. I took wine at one house and some fruit at another, and after that I begun to yearn for some breakfast. It took me two hours to get it. A lady had just given me the freedom of her table when a crowd of gentlemen arrived and my sense of propriety compelled me to destroy nothing more than a cup of excellent coffee. At the next house I got no further than coffee again, being similarly interrupted; at the next point of attack there were too many strange young ladies present, and at the next and the next, something always happened to interfere with my arrangements. I do not know, but perhaps it would be better to defer one’s New Year’s calls until after breakfast. I did finally corral that meal, and in the house of a stranger— a stranger, too, who was so pleasant that I was almost tempted to create a famine in her house. It used to be customary for people to drink too much in the course of their annual visits, but few offended in this way on this occasion. I saw one well dressed gentleman sitting on the curb-stone, propping his face between his knees, and clasping his shins with his hands; but he was the only caller I saw so much discouraged during the whole J 295 day. He said he had started out most too early, and I suppose he was right. Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms. Some of the ladies dressed ”in character” on New Year’s. I found Faith, Hope and Charity in one house, dealing out claret punch and kisses to the annual pilgrims. They had two kinds of kisses— those which you bite and ’ ’chaw” and swallow, and those which you simply taste, and then lick your chops and feel streaky. The only defect there was in the arrangement was that you were not permitted to take your choice. Two other ladies personated Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizebeth (sic); I also found a Cleopatra and a Hebe and a Semiramis and a Maria -Antoinette; also a Beauty and the Beast. A young lady, formerly of Carson, was the beauty, and took the character well; and I suppose Beecher was the Beast, but he was not calculated for the part. I think those are very neat compliments for both parties. When it came to visiting among strangers, at last, I soon grew tired and quit. You enter with your friend and are introduced formally to some formal looking ladies. You bow painfully and wish the party a happy new year. You then learn that the party desire that a like good fortune may fall to your lot. You are invited to sit down, and you do so. About this time the door-bell rings, and Jones, Brown and Murphy bluster in and bring the familiar fragrance of the barber shop with them. They are acquainted. They inquire cordially after the absent members of the family and the distant relatives of the same, and relate laughable adventures of the morning that haven’t got anything funny about them. Then they cast up accounts and determine how many calls they have made and how many they have got to in flict yet. The ladies respond by exhibiting a balance sheet of their own New Year’s Day transactions. Yourself and your friend are then conducted with funereal solemnity into the back parlor, where you sip some wine with imposing ceremony. If your human instincts get the upper hand of you and you explode a joke, an awful sensation creeps over you such as a man experiences when he catches himseif whistling at a funeral. It is time for you to go, then. New Year’s was pretty generally enjoyed here, up stairs and down. At one place where I called, a servant girl was needed, for something, and the bell was rung for her several times without effect. Madame went below to see what the matter was, and found Bridget keeping ’ ’ open house” and entertaining thirteen muscular callers at one batch. 296 Up stairs there had been only eleven calls received, all told. One chambermaid notified her mistress that extra help must be procured for New YearTs Bay, and she and the cook had made arrangements to keep open house in the kitchen, and they desired that their visitors should not be discommoded by interruptions emanating from above stairs. I am told that nearly all the Biddies in town kept open house. Some of them set finer tables than their mistresses. The reason was because the latter did not consider anything more than tea and coffee and cakes neces sary for their tables, (being church members,) but the former seized upon wines, brandies and all the hidden luxuries the closets afforded. Some people affect to think servant girls won’t take liberties with people’s things, but I suppose it is a mistake.— S. F. Correspondence of the Territorial Enterprise. G-olden Era, Sunday* J a n u a r y 21,. 1S66., m<* i n v - ^ Tfr . r— ^ -— ~J ' 1 __■ — - r_ " 297 iS/F. Oorrapondaux < z f (ke Tkrrttortol^Enterpritt s : ■ What have the Police been Doing ? Ain't they virtuous! Don’t' they take good care of the city ? Ia n o t,their con stant vigilance and efficiency shown in the fact that ronghs and rowdies here are awed ihto good conduct?— isn’t it shown in the fact that ladies even cn the back streets are safe from insult in the daytime, when they are under the protection of a regi ment of soldiers?— isn’t it shown in the fact that although many offenders. of im portance go unpunished, they infallibly snaffle every Chinese cbicken-thief that at- 'tempts to drive his trade, and are duly glorified by name in the papers for it?— isn’t it shown in the fact that they are ai ways on the look-out and keep out out of the way and never get run over by wagons and things? And ain’t they spry?— ain’t they energetic?— ain’t they frisky ?— Don’t ] they parade up and down the sidewalk at the rate of a block an honr and make every body nervous and dizzy with their frightful [velocity? Don’t they keep their clothes nice?—pnd ain’t their hands soft? And |don’tthey w8rk?— don’t they work like horses?— don’t they, now? Don’t theyj |smile sweetly on the women ? — and when] : they are fatigued with their exertions, don’t j they back up against a lamp post and go1 on smiling till they break plnm down ? j But ain’t they nice ? — that’ s it, yon know ! * — ain’t they nice? They don’t sweat— j you never see one of those fellows sweat. Why, if you were to see a policeman sweating you would say,, “oh, here, this poor man is going to die—because this sort of thing is unnatural, you know.” Oh, no j — yon never see one of those fellows j sweat And ain’t they easy and comfort-{ able and happy—always leaning np against a lamp-post in the sun, and scratching one' shin with the other foot and enjoying them selves? Serene ? —I reckon not. I don't know anything the matter with the Department, but may be Dr. Rowell ■ does. Now when Ziele broke that poor wretch’s skull the other night for stealing six bits’ worth of flour sacks, and had him 1 taken to the Station House by a policeman,j and jammed, into one of the cells in thej most humorous way, do you think there was anything wrong there ? I don’t Why should they arrest Ziele and > say, “Oh, I come, now, yon say you found this stranger 'stealing on your premises, and we know you knocked him on the head with your club—but then you-better go in a cell, too,' till we see whether there’s going to be any I other account of the thing—any account1 that migbn’t jibe with yours altogether, you know—you go ia for confessed assault* and battery, you know.” Why should theyj do that? Well, nobody ever said they, did. . j \ And why shouldn’t they shove that half senseless wounded man into a cell ^without jgetting a doctor to examine and, see how i badly he was hurt, and consider that next day would be time enough, if he chanced , to live that long ? And why shouldn’t the jailor let him alone when be found him * in a dead stupor two hours after—let him I alone'because he couldn’t wake him— couldn’t wake a man who was sleeping and with that calm serenity which is pecu liar to men W hose beads have been caved1 in with a club— couldn’t wake such a sub ject; but never suspeoted that there was' ianything unusual in the circumstance?! , Why shouldn’t the jailor do so ? ' Why cer- tainly-7-why shouldn’t h e 1 — the man was! an infernal stranger. He had no vote. Be ] sides, had not a gentleman just said hej stole some flour sacks ? Ah, and if be stole I .flour sacks, did he not deliberately p u t 1 himself outside the pale' of hum anity andj 1 Christian sympathy by that hellish n e t! I think so. The departm ent think so. There fore, when the stranger died a t 7 in the 'morning, after four hours of refreshing slum ber in that cell, with his scull actu ally split in twain from front to' rear, like an apple, as was ascertained by post mor tem examination, what the very devil do you want to go and find fault with the prison officers for ? You are always p u t ting in your shovel. Can’t you find some-1 body to pick on besides the police? It, takes all my time to defend them froni| people’s attacks. I know the Police Departm ent is a kind, humane and generous institution. Why, it was no longer ago than yesterday, that I was reminded of that time C aptain Lees broke his leg. Didn’t the free-handed, noble Departm ent shine forth with a daz zling radiance then ? Didn’t the Chief de tail officers Shields, W ard and tw o others to watch over him and nurse him and look after all bis wants with m otherly .solici tu d e -fo u r of them, you know—four of fhe very biggest and ablest-bodied m en on the force—when less g e n ero u s p e o p l? . w ould! have thought two nurses sufficient—bad} these four acrobats in active hospital ser-j vice that way in the most liberal m anner, j at a cost to the city of San Fraucisco of only the trifling sum of five hundred dol- > lars a m onth—the same being the salaries of four officers of the regular police force j a t $125 a month each. But don’t you know ' there are people mean enough to say that ( Captain Lees ought to have paid his own | nurae bills, and that if he bad had to do it j ,maybe he would have m anaged to w o rry , along on less than five hundred dollars I worth of nursing a month ? And don’t you know that they say also that interested | parties are always badgering the Super visors with petitions for an increase of the, police force, and showing such increase to be a terrible necessity, and yet they have always got to be hunting up and creating new civil offices and berths, aud making (details for nurse service in order to find 1 something for them to do after they get tnem appointed ? And don’f you know! that they say that they wish to god the city would hire a detachment of nurses and keep them where they will be handy in case of accident, so that property will not be left unprotected while policemen are absent oh duty in sick rooms. You can’t think how it aggravates me to bear such harsh remarks about our virtuous police force. Ah, well, the police will have their rew ard hereafter—no doubt. 298 GOLDEN ERA, JANUARY 28, 1866 Reprint from Territorial Enterprise MARK TWAIN’S KEARNY STREET GHOST STORY Disembodied spirits have been on the rampage now for more than a month past in the house of one Albert Krum, in Kearny street— so much so that the family find it impossible to keep a servant forty-eight hours. The moment a new and unsuspecting servant maid gets fairly to bed and her light blown out, one of those dead and damned scalli- wags takes her by the hair and just ”hazest f her; grabs her by the waterfall and snakes her out of bed and bounces her on the floor two or three times; other disorderly corpses shy old boots at her head, and bootjacks, and brittle chamber furniture— washbowls, pitchers, hair-oil, teeth- brushes, hoop-skirts— anything that comes handy those phan toms seize and hurl at Bridget, and pay no more attention to her howling than if it were music. The spirits tramp, tramp, tramp, about the house at dead of night, and when a light is struck the footsteps cease and the promenader is not visible, and just as soon as the light is out that dead man goes to waltzing around again. They are a bloody lot. The young lady of the house was lying in bed one night with the gas turned down low, when a figure approached her through the gloom, whose ghastly aspect and solemn carriage chilled her. to the heart. What do you suppose she did?— jumped up and seized the intruder?— threw a slipper at him? — ! T laid, T him with a misquotation from Scripture? No— none of these. But with admirable presence of mind she covered up her head, and yelled. That is what she did. Few young women would have thought of doing that. The ghost came and stood by the bed and groaned— a deep, agonizing, heart broken groan— and laid a bloody kitten on the pillow~by the girl’s head. And then it groaned again, and sighed, T T 0h, God, and must it be?” and bet another bloody kitten. It groaned a third time in sorrow and tribulation, and went one kitten better. And thus the sorrowing spirit stood there, moaning in its anguish and unloading its mewing cargo, until it had stacked up a whole litter of nine little bloody kittens on the girl’s pillow, and then, still moaning, moved away and vanished. When lights were brought, there were the kittens, with the finger-marks of bloody hands upon their v/hite fur— arid the old mother cat, that had come after them, swelled her tail in mortal fear and refused to take hold of them. What do you think of that? What would you think of a ghost that came to your bedside at dead of night and had kittens?— Territorial Enterprise. 8. F. Correspondence o f the Territorial Enterprise. “ 1 M B K T W M ” - . Captain-Montgomery. W henever he commenced helping any b o d y , Captain E<1. Montgomery never re la x e d his good offices as long a sito lp was [needed. .; , As soon as hp found th at,n o steam boat ever stopped to wood w ith old Mother IJtterback in the bend below Grand Gulf, Mississippi, , and c tbat she was poor and •needed asustance,-be began to stop there e v ery Jrip and take her little pile of wood ,and smile grim ly, when the engineers pro tested th a t it wouldn’t .barn any more than so many.icicles—and stop there again the very next trip. H e used to go ashore arid ; talk to th e old woman, and it flattered her (to the last degree to, be on such sociable term s with the high chief officer of a splen did passenger steamer. She would wel come, him to her shabby little floorless log cabin with a royal flourish, and make her jsixr gaw ky “gals” :fly around and make. I him | comfortable. He used, to bring bis j lady passengers ashore to be entertained •with Mother U tterback’s quaint conver sation. I do not know th at this incident iajvdrth ^recording, hilt • still,'as it m ay let in the light of instruction to some darkened mind, > I will jn st set down the circumstances of ] .one of Captain. Montgomery’s visits to 1 ’Mother IJtterback and her daughters.. Hei 1 brought some fine, ladies.wi tbbim , to enjoy the old,woman’s talk. - , / • - ’ ‘‘Good morning, Captain M ontgom ery1 ” [said 'sh e with .many a bustling bow and! •flourish ; “Good morning, Captain Mont gom ery ; good morning, ladies a l l ; how de do, C aptain Montgomery—how de do—: I how d e d o ?. .Sakes alive, i t . ’pears to me J t ’s b e n , years^sense I .seed you. F ly ;ardnhd, gals, fly around 1 You Bets, you ( 8lat, *hlghst - yoself ofFn itiat»candle-b‘ ox .and give it/to", the lady. How have you benVjCaptain Montgomery ?—make* yoself (a t home, ladies a ll—you_’Liza Jane, stsn* out of the way— move - y o self!. Thar’s-the [jug, help yoself, C aptain M ontgom ery;' take th at cob* out add make yoself free j .Captain Montgomery—and hidies all. You, {Sal, y o u h u ssy ,g it'u p f’m th ar this.m init,j ■and take some exercise! fo r-th e land’s I . . . > . ... i ■ .. '. ■ , (sake, ain’t yon. got no sense at all.t—settin’ th ar on that cold rock and you jes’ ben m arried .last night, and your pores ail open!” . . . .v * The ladies wanted to go aboard the boat, they bade the kind, hospitable old woman good by, and went away. But Captain Montgomery staid behind, because he knew how badly the old lady wanted to talk, and he was a good soul and loved to please her. Ah, th at was a good man waB Captain Ed.^Montgomery, and the moment-1 saw th at paragraph about him the other day I remembered how kind it was of him to P h o to s ta t rep ro d u ctio n from wsworr uMAHy S.*F ..(^lden. era................... D a te — Jaa-28 .1866 - p g .-6 .......... Coi.2-3. P h o to sta te d ....................................................................... by U NIV ERSITY O F C ALIFO RNIA LIBRARY always stop and b n y lh a t old Arkansan woman’s green wood and pay her the high-1 'est m arket prioe for it when he conld no m ore burn it than he could burn .an ice- tberg. I t waB so soggy, too, and wet, and 'heavy. I remember how, whenever he blew th e Whistle to -land there, the mate used to sing.out hoarsely and in bitterness of spirit, “L arboard ,watch—tu rn , o u t! Stand by, men, to take in some b a lla st!” But you can rest assured I am not sorry old C aptain'Ed, Montgomery is alive and {well yet.' ! The Chapman Family. - The old gentleman and the old lady must be seventy-Uve years old, now. They used! ito p lay with D an. Marble in New Orleans,! [twenty-five years ago ; earlier, they had a , theatre built in a “broad horn,” and floated jdown the Ohio and Mississippi, clear to'the: Belize, tying up every n ig h t and knocking R ichard-H I..end ways for the delectationj of "any num ber of graybacks that chose to come; from a dozen to a thousand, and sell- |lng tickets for money when they could, and taking Salt L ake currency wbSo they j couldn’t. They have played in .Canada and ail, oyer California and . W ashoe— .played everywhere in North America, I [may say, and l o !.. I come to tell you that fthey still “keep up their lick.” I have been honored w ith a letter from the old ( lady,, dated “ Helena, .Last Chance, Mon tana T erritory, December 16.” . She says[ ,they are just five miles from the Missouri ,river. ;1I Suppose they will build a ra ft in ’ the- spring and float*down the river,as- jtonishing the IndianB with Othello, Biohard, iJack Sheppard, etc., and .the next thing £we hear of . them they will be in New Or gleans again* The old lady further says “ We have a theatre and company;qf Den- |verites, and are;doing well. It is so cold th at the quicksilver all froze, or I .would | tell, yon how many degrees .below zero. I Provisions high.; salt, $1, p er. l b ; butter, $2 50 ; flour, $30, and it would not do for yon to be here, for tobacco is $ 6 a pound and scarce^ *. * * So cold th at 50 head ot ! cattle and 2 men who were herding them 1 froze to^death on the night of the. 14th. G reat deal-of suffering among miners who w ere o u t prospecting.^ This is a lively to w n ; adjoining camps deserted ; every-J body wintering here. • • * I p la y / the p art of R ichard Illrto -n ig h t. Next week I a p p ear as Mazeppa. We charge $1 50 (f o r rail scats.” The idea of the jolly, ^motherly old lady stripping to her Bbirt .and riding a fiery untamed Montana jack-j (ass up. flights of stairs and kicking up and: .cavorting > roung the stage on hjtn with the quicksilver frozen in the thermometers and the audience'taking brandy punches out of their pockets and biting them, same as people eat peanuts' in civilized lan d s! Why, there iB no end to the old woman’s energy. She’ll go through with Mazeppa! with flying colors ev en . if she has to do it! J 299 » ; t e i d e s , a ’ yard .lohg hahgit.g to h e r [jackass’s tail. , • Miseries o f Washoe, Men. i Those o f you who owe . th e Russ House for board and expect to save yourselvesj trouble when you come here by stopping] at the Occidental, look o u t ; Mr. H ard en burgh; formerly of the Russ, is in the office! of the Occidental now. A nd you who owe the Gosmopoliten apd propose to stop at the Ocoidentai, beware I for Mr. Smith,' formerly of the Cosm opolitan/is in the Oc-l cidental office now; 'A n d yon who owe the Ooc&ental.and think to sffirk-calam ity by patronizing the Cosmopolitan, go slo w ! for Mr. Olmstead and Mr. ChildB clerk a t the atter hotel now, instead o f the form er. You had better all come down to your work and go and bang out a t the Miners’ ^Restaurant They have gone and changed [things around so now that there it) no show for me anywhere. I want to keep my [friends out of trouble, though, and < so I sound the above note of warning. A m iraux was here from Carson the other day, b u t he [would not stay because his feelings w ere hurt. He said : * 1 went to the W hat'Cheer, and I found a fellow from the'B rooklyn there ; and I w ent to'the Occidental, and I found a fellow from the, Russ there ; and [then I w ent to the Cosmoppleton, and If there was one clerk there from the Occi dental there was a thousand.. I am not going-to stay-in this place—you hear me / Damn such a town.’ ‘ i * Basted, and. gone A broad. * The* t m—“Busted”—applies to most people -here. When a noted speculator breaks, you all hear of i t ; b u t‘ when Smith and Jones and Brown go under, they make 'no s tir ; they are talked about among a Ismail circle of gratified acquaintances, bi)t [they industriously keep op appearances, and the world at large go on thinking them as rich as ever. The .lists of rich stock ^operators of two years ago "have quietly sunk. beneath the wave and financially gone to the devil. Smithers, who owned a hundred and ninety-six feet. In. one of the big mines, and gave such costly parlies, [has se n t'h is family to Europe. Blivens, [who owned so' mnch in another big mine, and kept such fast horses,', has sent his fam ily to Germany, for their health, where 'they can sport a princely, magnificence on [fifty d o lla rs.a month. Bloggs, who was Ihigh-you-muck-a-muck of another great [mine[ has sent his family home to rusticate a while with his father-in-law. A ll the Inabols of ’63 are pretty much rnined, b u t they send their families foraging in foreign jdimes, and hide' their poverty under a show of “ appearances.” If a man’s family [start anywhere oh th e' steam er n o w / the public s a y : “ There’s the death rattle again [ —another Crce3us has gone in.” .These are sad /sad times. We are all “ busted,” and our families are exiled in foreign lands. P h o to sta t rep ro d u ctio n from ■ A N C H O F T U lM tA R V S.F.^lden.era.................... D a te .... E 9 b ..A ...1 8 L 6 6 P g .5 C ol....?.... ^ 0 0 P h o to s ta te d ......................................................... by U N I V E R S IT Y O F C A L I F O R N I A L I B R A R Y Mark Twain Among the S p i r i t s . There was an audience of about 400 la- dies and gentlemen present, and plenty of newspaper people—neuters. I saw a good-looking, earnest-faced, pale-red-hair ed, neatly dresBed, young woman standing on a little stage behind a small deal table with Blender legs and no draw ers—the ta ble, understand me; I am writing in a hur ry, but I do not desire to confound my description of the table with my descrip tion of the lady. The lady was Mrs. Foye. As I was coming up town with the E x aminer reporter, in the early p a rt of the evening, he said he bad seen a gam bler named Gus Graham Bhot down in a town in Illinois years ago, by a mob, and as probably be was the only person in San Francisco who knew of the circumstance, be thought he would "give the spirits Graham to chaw on awhile.” [IT. B. This young creature is a Democrat, and speaks with the native strength and inelegance of his tribe.] In the course of the show he wrote hiB old pal’s name on a slip of paper and folded it up tightly and put it in a hat which was passed around, and which al ready bad about five hundred similar doc uments in it. The pile was damped on the table and the medium began to take them up one by one and lay them aside, asking: “Is this spirit present?—or this?—or this?” About one in fifty would rap, and the per son who sent up the name would rise in his place and question the defunct. A t last a spirit seized the medium’s hand and wrote “ Gbs Graham’, backwards. Their the medium went skirmishing through the papers for the corresponding name. And that old sport knew his card by the back I When the medium came to it, after picking up fifty others, he rapped! , A committee man unfolded the paper and it was the right one. I sent for it and got it. It was all right. However, I suppose “all them Democrats” are on Bociable term s w ith the devil. The young m an got up and asked: “Did you die in ’51?—’52?—’53?—’54—” Ohoat- “Rap, rap, rap.” “Did yon die of cholera ? —diarrhea ? — dysentery ? — dog-bite ? — emall-pox ? —vio lent death ? • -----” “Rap, rap > rap,” Were you banged?— drowned?— stabbedf — shot?-----” “Rap, rap* rap.” “Did you die in Mississippi ? —Kentucky ? — New York ? —Sandwich Islands ? —Tex as ? —Illinois ? ----- ” “Rap, rap, rap.” “In Adams county • • ? —Madison ? —Ran dolph ? ----- ” “Rap, rap, rap;” It was no use trying to - catch the depart ed gambler, He knew his hand and played it like a M ajor. I was surprised. I had a very, dear friend, who, I had beard; bad gone to the spirit land, or perdition, or some of those places, and I desired to know something concerning him. There was something so awful, though, about talking with living, sinful lips to the ghostly dead, that I could hardly bring myself to rise and speak. But at last I got tremblingly up and said with low and reverent voice: “Is the spirit of John Smith present ? ” “Whack! whack 1 wback I ' whack!” ' God bless me, I believe all the dead-and damned John Smiths between hell and San Francisco tackled that poor little table at once! I was considerably set back— stun ned, I may say. The audience urged me to go on, however, and I said:: “What did you die of?” The Smiths answered to every disease and casualty that man can die of. “W here did you dieI.” They answered yes to every locality I could name while my geography held oat “Are you happy inhere you are !” There was a vigorous and unanimous “No !” from the late Smiths* “Is it warm there ? ” An educated Smith seized the medium’s hand and wrote “It’ s no name for it.” “Did you leave any Smiths in that place when you came away ? ” “Dead loads of them.” * / I fancied; I heard the shadowy Smiths chuckle at this feeble joke—the tare joke that there could be live loads of Smiths where all are dead. “How many Smiths are prese/it?” “ Eighteen millions—the procession now reaches from here' to the o^ber side o f China.” “Then there are many Smiths in the kingdom of the lost?” “The Prince Apollyon calls all newcom ers Smith on general principles; and con tinues to do so until be is corrected, if he chances to be mistaken.” “ What do lost spirits call their dread abode ?” “ They call it the SmithBonian Institute.” I got hold of the right Smith at last— the particular Smith I was after—my dear lost, lamented friend—and learned th at he died a violent death. I fearad as much. , He said his wife talked him to death. P oor ! wretch! But without any nonsense, Mrs. Foye’e seance was a very astonisbiig affair to me —and a very entertaining one. The He- aminer man’s “old pard,” tie gam bler, was too many for me. He mswered every question exactly right; ind his disem bodied spirit, invisible t> m ortal eyes, must have been prowling&round that hall last night. That is, unles this pretended spiritualism is only that other black a rt called clairvoyance, afbr all. And yet, the clairvoyant can on If tell what is in your mind—but once or twice last night the spirits brought farts to the minds of their questioners wb£h the latter had forr gotten before. Wei, I cannot make any thing out of it. I asked the Examiner man what be thoight of it, and he sa id /in the Democrat® dialect: “ Well, I don’t know—I dor t know—but it’s d— d fun ny.” He not mean th at it was laugha* ble he rflly m eant that it was perplexing* But su(® le the language of Democracy.— * Territorial Enterprise. P h o to sta t rep roduction from S. ?• Golden era 0,17uw*"r Date . . P a h . - 1 . 8 - 1866 Pg Col.. 7 301 P h o tostated ...................................................................... by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Mark ^Twain on the Sig-j ' nal Corps. •> j E Q U A L T O S P IR IT U A L IS M . “ j I saw something the other night which j surprised me more than my late investign- I tions of spiritualism. It was some- exam- ! pies of the methods by the United States I .Signal Corps to . telegraph information j from point to point on the battle-fields of | the rebellion. The Signal Corps “medi- | ums” were Colonel Wicker, of the Russian i Telegraph Expedition, and M r. Jerome, Secretary of M r. Conway of the same, i both'o f whom were distinguished officers t of Sigbal Corps throughout'the 'war.. Be- ; sides these two gentlemen there .are only ; two other members of the corps on :11m -C oast, v : ■ ■ ■ v In the late war a signal party W as al ways stationed, on the highest ’ ^avanable point oh the battle-field, andrby iwaying , 'flags they could ’ telegraph any 'desired 1 messages, word for word, to other -signal >stations ten miles off. At night, when torches were used, these messages have ■ been read forty milea away, with a power- : ful glass: The flag, or torch, is wared right, left, up and down, and each more- j ment represents a letter, of the alphabet,! I suppose, inasmuch as any villainous com- ’ bination of letters and syllables yon can j get up can be readily telegraphed.in; this ■ way with a good deal of expedition. These i gentleman ly speak* of sent m eeftU geS the Other nightWith fntlking4tickS,.Wi(bthefr i ^ and' Wen I their moostaelmB!1 It is a little too deep | for me. • One sat on one side of a large room, and'.ihb Other- at the opposite side. I .wrote a long septenoe and gave it to Jer ome— hemade afspr rapid pastes with his right arm like acrazy orchestra leader, and Colonel Wicker called off the sentence'1 word for word. I confess that I suspected there was collusion there. Bo I whispered m^next telegrami to Jerome — the passes wereinade as before, andColonel Wicker : read them Without a balk; I selected from a book a sentence whioh was lu ll of un common' and unpronounceable foreign words,- pointed it out to Colonel Wieker, and he 'telegraphed it across to Jerome without a blunder. Then I gave Jerome another? telegram; he- placed two fingers on his knees and raised up one and then the other for a while, and the Colonel read the message.* I furnished the latter with ihe following written telegram : ' . “General Jackson was wounded at first fire.” ( :. ;He; ■ went through', with a series of elaborate winks with his eyes, and that O tber: signal-sharp repeated the sentence correctly. I wrote: . ^Thirteen additional m um s of cholera ; reported this morning.” The accomplished Colonel telegraphed it to his- confederate by simply stroking his moustache. There most be a horrible imposition about-this thing somewhere, but I * cannot get at it. They say that when they are in lecture rooms ana par lors whence they are not close enough to speak to eaoh other, they ^telegraph their comment on the company with their fing ers, on their moostaohes, or by;gently re freshing themselves with a fan. The signal Corps was one of the most important arms of the military service in the late war. It saved m any- a battle to the Union that must otherwise have been loet. Tet many of the officers of the army did not believe in its efficiency, regarded it as an ornamental innovation, and bore it strong ill-will. At the battle of Win chester, the officer in command after Gen eral Shields/ was wounded bad pressing need of reinforcements. The reserve were in full view six miles away. The Acting General asked a signal offioer if he could order up a brigade. He said he could. “Then do it,” said the General; “but,” said be, “to make everything sure, I will dispatch an orderly for the rein forcements.” The signal officer set bis flags waving, and telegraphed : “Send up a brigade on the double-quick.” Before the orderly was a hundred yards off, the anxious General gazing through bis field- ; glass, saw a brigade wheel into tbe plain, peel their coats and knapsacks off and throw them down, and come sweeping across on the double-quick. “By G— r-. here they come 1 — send back the orderly,” said -the General— “but I didn’t think it could, be done.”—S. F. Car. Territorial Ear ierprise. ' Photostat reproduction from S.F. Golden era ® 'r Tu*n**y Date P eb ....ia. ..L8.66..............Pg....®.......Col...3 . 302 Photostated................................................................. by UNIVER8ITY OP CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Mark Twain on Spiritual Insanity. I (together with the Bulletin) have watch ed, with deep concern, the distress being wrought in our midst by spiritualism, dur-t ing the paBt week or two ; I (like the -Bul letin) have done all I could to crush out. the destroyer ; I have published full re ports of the seances of the so-called “ Friends of Progress,” and the Bulletin has left out three columns of printed par agraphs pasted together by its New York correspondent to make room for a report of the spiritualist L aura Cnppy’s lecture ; and I have followed in the Bulletin's wake and shouted every few days, “ Another Victim of the Wretched Delusion called Spiritualism !” and like th a t'p a p e r, have stated the number of persons it took to bold him and where his mother resided. In some instances which have come under myi notice, these symptoms are pe culiarly sad. How touching it was, on Monday evening, in the Board of Super visors—a body which should be a concen tration of the wisdom and intellect of the city—to see Supervisor McCoppin, bereft of his accustomed sprightliness, and sub dued, subjugated by spiritualism , rise in bis place, and with bowed head, and stoop ing body, and frightened eyes peering from under overhanging brows, ejaculate in sepulchral to n es: “ f e e — FAW— Fl’M !” G reat Heavens! to hear him say that and then sit down with thp air of a man who has settled a mooted question forever, and done the work in a solid,- substantial m anner. And it touched me to the very heart to see the Mayor of the city—a man of eom- mandihg presence and solemn dem eanor— get np and repeat the following, as if it were a p art of a litany : ' Three blind mice, ' See— how.they— run. The farmer’s wife, She cat off their tails ’ ‘ * With the carving knife, See—how—they run,” He then sat down and leaned bis face in his hands, and Dr. Rowell got'U p and said ' “Spiritual departm ent— paid spiritual department, when I was a Republican I poisoned rebels-^now I am a Democrat I- poison Republicans. Woe, woe, woe, un to the traducers of the new lig h t! woe, woe, woe,'to the enemies of the new lig h t! woe, woe, woe, unto them that hear the Cuppy and the Foye and the m inistering spirits' that fan us with invisible wings as they ^ sweep by, and w hisper-eternal truths in our ears—woe, woe, w o e!” “ Woe-haw, ^voe-baw,^ woe-haw-Buck, You D u k e/” said Mr. Ashbury, im pres sively. - * ‘ . Mr. McCoppin (counting on his fingers)— One ery—o-ery—ickery—A n n ; flllisy.-fal-l lallacy, Nicholas Jo h n ; queevy, quavy, Bnglish navy—stinklum, stanklum , Buck. Alas, my poor, poor country.” , Mr. Shrader said, with deep feeling, b u t J without gesticulation or stra in in g 'a fte r 1 effect: - - ' - - < ‘Let dogB delight to bark and bite, ' . For. ’tis their nature thug— , . ,. , • , ‘ -Your little hands were never'made* 1 To tear ont each others eyes with’” . - | My eyes filled with tears to see this body of really able men driveling in this foolish way, and as I w alked.'sadly out,' I s a id : “Thisis more spiritualism ; the BuUetin a n i I -will BoOn have to record the departure of fh e -B o ard -o f Supervisors ■ for Stockton. Poor o reatu res^to have) kept out of .the I 1 - * * k \ . L • - ’ , i 1 S asylum on one pretext.or another so Ions:, and then to fall'at last-through so weak a ‘ thing as, spiritualism .” ' ' —S. F. Correspondence Territorial Enterprise. M y s t e r io u s N e w s p a p e r M an .— In a' let to the.Territorial Enterprise, on “The Rus sian American Telegraph Company,” “Mark Twain” sa y s : “Colonel Conway has appointed ‘Brian McAllister,’ (Jer ome), late of the New Orleans Times, on bis staff, as his Secretary. The m an is ta l ented, and it'is well to have a- newspaper man on such an expedition—b u t then there, Is a graver considration than this to be taken in to account; there is m atter for thought, for calculatidn, for careful weigh ing here; there is room for hesitation, for doubt, for profound misgivings here— w i l l THE DRIED SALMON HOLD OUT? I WO aid not wantonly interfe > itb the hopes and am bitious dreams of the newspaper creature;. I would not wantonly crush cruah him to the earth—b ut I put it on broad nation al, educational, hum anitarian grounds, and ask : Is it well thus to jeopardize the suc cess of so mighty an enterprise as this? The m atter is worthy of the most serious consideration. This new spaper m an will trav el with the land party and transporta tion facilities will be extrem ely lim ited— the case w o.uld.be very different if.h e were going with the fleet, because then an extra ship—.But I suppose I have made myself Understood ?” 303 GOLDEN ERA, FEBRUARY 25, 1866 MARK TWAIN ON FASHIONS I once made up my mind to keep the ladies of the State of Nevada posted upon the fashions, but I found it hard to do. The fashions got so shaky that it was hard to tell what was good orthodox fashion and what heretical and vulgar. This shakiness still obtains in everything pertaining to a ladyTs dress except her bonnet and her shoes. Some wear waterfalls, some wear nets, some wear cataracts of curls, and a few go bald, among the old maidsj so no man can swear to any particular "fashion” in the matter of hair. The same uncertainty seems to prevail regarding hoops. Little "highflyer” school girls of bad associations, and a good many woman (sic) of full growth, wear no hoops at all. And we suspect these, as quickly and as naturally as we suspect a woman who keeps a poodle. Some who (sic) I know to be ladies, wear the ordinary moderate sized hoop, and some who (sic) I also know to be ladies, wear the new hoop of the "spread-eagle” pattern— and some wear the latter who are not elegant and virtuous ladies— but that is a thing which may be said of any fashion whatever, of course. The new hoops with a spreading base look only tolerably well. They are not bell-shaped— the "spread” is much more abrupt than that. It is tent-shaped; I do not mean an army tent, but a circus tent— which comes down steep and small half way and then shoots suddenly out horizontally and spreads abroad. To critically examine these hoops— to get the best effect— one should stand on the corner of Montgomery and look up a steep street like Clay or Washington. As the ladies loop their dresses up till they lie in folds and festoons on the spreading hoop, the effect presented by a furtive glance up a steep street is very .charming. It reminds me of how I used to peep under circus tents when I was a boy and see a lot of mysterious legs tripping about with no visible bodies at tached to them. And what handsome vari-colored, gold clasped garters they wear now-a-daysI But for the new spreading hoops I might have gone on thinking ladies still tied up their stockings with common strings and ribbons as they used to do when I was a boy and they presumed upon my youth to indulge in little freedoms in the way of ar ranging their apparel which they do not dare to venture upon in my presence now. P h o to s ta t re p ro d u c tio n from _ - , „ HAMCKOFT L i» i* a * v S.F. Golden era D a te .2 5 1 8 6 6 ....... 304 Col.. P h o to sta te d .................................. b y UNIV ERSITY O F C ALIFO RN IA LIBRARY Mark Twain on Califor nia Critic.-. ' J Edwin Forrest is coming here. Vcryi well—good bye, Mr. Forrest-. C ar crilic-s ■ ' will make you sing a lively tune. Tboy will soon let you know th at your great reputation cannot protect you on this coast. You have passed m uster in New York, but they will show you up here. They will make it very warm for you. They will tnake you understand that a man who has served a lifetime as dramatic crit ic on a New York paper may still be in competent, but that a California critic knows it all, notwithstanding be may have been in the shoemaking business most of his life, or a plow artist on a ranch. Yon will be the sickest man in America before you get through with this trip. They will sot up Frank Mayo for your model as soon as you get here, and they will say you don’t play up to him, whether you do or j not. And then they will decide that you | are a “bilk.” That is the grand climax of i all criticism. They will say it here, first,! and the country papers will endorse it aflerwards. It will, then be considered j proven. You m ight as well quit, then.^ You see, they always go into ecstasies with | an actor the first night he plays, and they! call him the most gifted in America the* I next morning. Then they think they have not acted with metropolitan coolness and, self possession, and they slew aroifnd on I ,the other tack and abuse bim like a pick-: pocket to get even. This was Band ! mann’s expeiience, Menken’s, H eron’s,. -Vestali’s Boniface’s, and 'many others! •I could name. It will be yours also. .You bad b etter stay where yon a r e ., You .will regret it if you come • Uferel .How would, iyou' feel ‘if they told you your playing (might answet - in .places of small conse- fquence but wouldn’t do In S anFranclsco ? [They will tell you that, as sure as you live.; ,And then Bay, in the most crashing way.] I “Mr. Forrest has evidently mistaken .the. character of this people. . .We will chari ta b ly suppose that this is the.case, a t' any •rate. We make no inquiry as to wbat kind -of people he has been in the habitjof play in g before, but we simply: inform him th at he is now in the midst of a -refined and -cultivated community, and one which will 'not tolerate such indelicate allusions as were made use of in the play of ‘Othello’ , last night. If he would.not play to empty j benches,tbis-m ust not be repeated.” They! always come the “ refined and cultivated” ) Jdodge on a'new actor—look out for it. Mr.j .Forrest, and do not let it floor you. Tbei boys know enough that it .is one of the] ;most effiective shots that can be fired at al stranger. Come on, Forrest—I will write I your dram atic obituary, gratis. A SAN FRANCISCO MILLIONAIRE. i They tell a Btory of M., a story which| shows that once in his life, a t any rate, he, grew lavish and reckless, and squandered hie money with a desperate prodigality., He had loaned one S., (I cannot recol-, lect his real name,) a thousand dollars or so, at about five per cent, a month, and! the man invested it in coal, expecting to 1 make a profitable speculation out of it. But the price of coal took a downward; itrack, and went falling, falling! falling, till it was not worth more than, half the sum' S. had borrowed of M. M. took the place. ,of S.’s shadow, and haunted him day and night. A t last the ruined speculator could! 'stand it no longer, and he sought the pri-( racy of his own cham ber and blew out his ibrains. He left M. a heavy loser, and Mj abandoned himself to frightful dissipation! for a single hour. He was worried by-his, loss and bothered by the. accusation that [ ihe was tbe prime cause of poor S.'s death. He'took sever&l friends into a cellar and 'treated them to a glass of lager apiece. They talked a while, and then g o t'u p to ; ■leave. The barkeeper reminded them that] tbe beer was not paid for yet. The guests) j moved up to the counter—each with his! tband in bis pocket, b u t M. advanced with ta wild light in his eye and waved them im pressively aside. He said: “No, I pays1 ,for all dis myself! Vot I cares for any-.1 dings now? My. friend is dead, shenlle* men—my friend vot I lofed. Poor S., he’s plode his prains out, and d idn’t pay me. •Vot I cafes for anydings now ? I lif, now,, after dis, shentlemen— I lif gay und spends my money—I safes no money to loan to people vot go und kill himself before he | he pay. No, I pays for dis peer myself— I I vill be gay und regulua—dam de expen-, su s !” ' i B ut that one fearful orgie was his first and his last. T h e . reflections of a cooler moment showed him that the “ expensus” vwere worthy of graver consideration. P h o to sta t reproduction from ’ » A W C « O F T k .ia * A * v S .* F « . . . G o l d e n . . e r a D ate . J d a r . . . 4 . . l £ £ 6 ............... P g ...5 ......... C oi.,.7..... 3 0 5 i P h o to stated ...................................................................... by U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A L I B R A R Y MARK TWAIN ' ON T ill! NEW .WILD.CAT5 • >. V** RELIGION'/ • * - > . A hother spiritual Investigator—G. UJ‘5 De-Merrit—passed his examination td-difcy>f ^ after a faithful attendance'oh theaeanbw^j of the Friends of Progress, andwh*iflrbip*? | ped,a raving maniac, to the insane ksyluinfj atS to ck to n —an institution which ia getf'J ting to be quite a College of Progress* ^ v;l - People grow exasperated over these fr£'>j quently occurring announcements of’mad* /; ness occasioned by fighting the tiger of 1 spiritualism, and I think it is not fa ir jlh e y ^ abuse the spiritualists 'unSparitfgly^but’ t ! can remember when Methodist camp meet* 1 ings and Campbellite revivals. .used'-to. ; stock tbe asylums with religious lunatics, ( j and yet the public kept their tem perA nd'J said never a word. We don’t cat bp when^j madmen are bred by the old'legitim ate r e ^ l gular stock religions, but jwe can’t allow 3 wildcat religions to .indulge'in such dia'as* ‘ j trous ’ experim ents.' I ;d o n o tre a lly o w u -j in the old regular stock, but I lean s tr o n g ^ ily toward it, and I naturally feel nom a J i little prejudioe against all wildcat religion*^ —still, I protest that it is not fair fo^ex-ji cuse the one and abuse the other for the '■ self-same rascality. I do not love the wild*.. . ] c a t/' but" a t th e same'time I dp not like to-;'] see the wildcat imposed bn merely because: i it is friendless... I know a great mahy spirj-j itu alists-g o o d and worthy- p efto n sw h o J sincerely and devotedly love tbelr-w hdf ^ cat religion, (but not regarding it las w i l l ’ d cat themselves; though; of/eburae,)^ym d*j I know th em ’to be ^ r s o n s iitevery^w ay/i worthy of respect.. They are m en o f : %u*yi! iness"habits'and good sense. ; , . . Now w h e n ls e e such-m enasthe^e, qul*; etly but boldly come forward abd 'cdhsentj to be pointed a t as supporters of.V religion, I almost feel, a s is it were p^t«j sumptuous in some of us,to assert without qualification that spiritualism iS'w ildoat.'/ And when-I see these Bame' ’ pew ons:bhef?; ishing, an d taking to tbefr boi^fbO sbnui^ and fondling this wildcat, w ith g e n u lt^ a fc tection and confidence, I-feet likesaying,:. “ Well, if this is a" wildcat ra lig lo ^ lif^ a tt^ ; out wonderfully like* th eo ld re g u lir,‘kfter^ all.” No—i t goes against th e ’ • grain i/b h ti; still, loyalty to m y'P re^ytoH an briogitt|^> up compels m eto stick to the P resbyterf& ^ decision that spiritualism -IsO eiU ier' mofeA nor less than wildpat!\ ' \ * I do n o l take any b re d itio ;my b e tte r ^ 3 balanced head because^! nevef wenVfcras^ ^ o n ^ P ^ b y t e r i a h h m l ' * * W e { g V 3 o b ^ s i b ^ f d ^ that . Ton never see usranting andsboh^j Ing.aud tearing.up tb'egrouhd:/Younbver^ heard ,'of aPreaby terian going- crazy SjwwP If ligion. /Notice us.and ..ypavwilL^^ho'y^jj we db u . We get up of. a Sunday»moradn|^: and put on. the.b'est rhMheW tw have'^b^ and trip cheei^uliy down to W n ;^ ej^ i^ ^ i n t o B o l e m n i t / a n d ' e n ^ . t h e x l w c ^ j i ^ y s tand'up, and duek^our - h e ^ k^'^ipaiy; down on-a hyinn book ptopped^^ytitej pewin front when the minister' pray*;* why stand up agaiu wh'ile^bnrf hir^’ fp|m i^^^ singing, ‘ and^jook in Um jliym n^b^k^^ check off the verises ~ to see tbat j they ’ d b n ^ sbirk any of tbe stanzas'; ^e;sit;eiufht|an^ grave while ihe minister Is p re& h ih g,^ ^ oount the ^aterfyb'jti^; h p n ! ^ |n ^ ^ ^ andoatchflies; 'wegrah O M ’totscndJ^m^ (nets'when the benedlctieii is b^un^tslr^V it is fimshed,* we. shove^ io Ifrenay^no fan^c^m^n6^r ld |im ^ e ^ j ^ everything [see any of \us Presby tbrl^'j^tM g jteweat]about.'religion and trylng tb;m m M a*/ tere the' nelghors.) Lek'us' all.be' contentji with the tried'. andsafh Otd; yb gu lar^ lions, and take ho chances b n“ wildcat^y.;^| GOLDEN ERA, MARCH 11. 1866 MARK TWAIN ON BOOT-BLACKS The boot-blacking facilities of.Sacramento are unsurpassed by those of any city in the world I should judge. There is a boot-blacking stand in. front of every saloon— which is to say there are boot-blacking stands all along. All these prominent localities which, in other cities, are usuaily sacred to the pea-nut interest, are here seized upon and held by the boot-black. These mute facts tell the stranger that Sacramento, which is now so irreproachably cleanly, has long and fearful at tacks of alternate mud and dust. In further evidence of this, I remarked that out of the one hundred and eighty- four gentlemen who lounged about the front of the Orleans Hotel when I came down and asked for breakfast at ten minutes past 12 o' clock to-day and didnTt get any, a hundred and seventy had their boots blacked. The other fourteen were undergoing the boot-blacking operation in chairs backed up against the neighboring walls. Now there was not a particle of dust in the air, and no mud under foot and nothing but inveterate habit could have made these people all go and get their boots blacked with such singular unanimity when there was no real necessity for it. I never saw a place before where everybody, with out exception, had their boots blacked. Every time I noticed, to-day, that my boots were attracting attention, I went and got them blacked. And I learned something. I learned that a Chinaman has no talent for blacking boots, and makes a miserable job of it. When you desire the ser vices of a real artist, always choose one of the three naturally gifted species of boot-blacks— a freedman, a colored citizen, or a nigger. They understand the business Photostat reproduction from MUCROFT U makv S.F. Golden era .................... 307 I Date . . M a r . l l . . . 18.66..... Pg-5 C0 I . . .7 .. ‘ P h o to s ta te d ............................................................. by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY M011E SPIRITUAL INVESTIGATIONS BY MARK TWAIN- I shall have this m atter of spiritualism • down to a sp o t/’ yet, if I do not go crazy in the meantime. I stumbled upon a p ri vate fireside seance a night or two ago, where two old gentlemen and a middle- aged gentlemen and his wife were commu nicating (as they firmly believed), with the (ghosts of the departed. They have met for this purpose every week for years. They do not “ investigate"—they have long since become strong believers, and farther investigations are not needed by them. I knew some of these parties well enough to know that whatever deviltry was exhibited would be honest, at least, and that if there were any humbugging done they them selves would be as badly humbugged as any spectator. We kept the investigations going for three hours, and it was rare fun. They set a little table in the middle of the floor, and set up a dial on it which bore the letters of tbe alphabet instead of the figures of a clock-face. An index like tbe minute band of a clock was bo arranged that the tipping of the table would cause it to move around the dial and point to any desired letter, and thus spell words. The lady and two gentlemen sat a t the table and rested their hands gently upon it, no other portion of their persons touching it. And the spirits, and some other mysterious agency, came and tilted the table back and forth, sometimes lilting two of its legs three or four inches from the floor and causing the minute-hand to travel entirely around the dial. These ,persons did n o t move the table them selves; because when no one’s hands rested upon it but the lady’s it tilted just the same, and although she could have borne down her side of the table, by an effbrt, it was impossible for her to Uft up her side with her hands sim ply resting on top of it. And then the hands of these persons lay perfectly im passable—not rose or fell, and not a tendon grew tense or relaxed as the table tilted.-*— whereas, when they removed their bands and I tilted the table with mine, it required such exertion that muscles and tendons rose and fell and stretched and relaxed with every movement. I do not know who tilted that table, but it was not the medium at any rate. It tired my arms to death merely to spell out four long words on the dial, but tbe lady and the ghosts spelled out long conversations with I out the least fatigue. ; The first ghost that announced his pres e n ce spelled this on the d ia l: “ My nam e :is Thomas Tilson,; I was a preacher. I have been dead many years. I know tb if man Mark Twain w ell!” I involuntarily exclaim ed: “ The very 'devil you d o t” That old dead parson took me by surprise when he spelled my name,' and I felt the cold chills creep over me.' Then tbe ghost and I continued the con versation : “ Did you know me on earth ?” “No. But I read what you write, every day, almost. I like your writings.” ‘ .‘Thank you. But how do you read it ? —do they take the Territorial Enterprise in h — or rather, in heaven, I beg yonr p a r don t ” “No. I read it through my affinity.” “ Who is your affinity t ” “Mac Crellish of the Alla / ” This excited some laughter, of course— and I will rem ark here that both ghosts and mediums indulge in jokes, conundrums, doggerel rhymes, and laughter—when the ghosts says a good thing he wags the mifi- ute hand gaily to and fro to Bignify laughter. “Did Mac Crellish ever know you ?” “No. He didn’t know m e,. and doesn’t suspect that he is my affiaity—but he is, nevertheless. I impress him and influence him every day. If he starts to do what I think he ought not to do, I change bis ' mind ” This ghost then proceeded to go into cer tain revelations in this connection which need not be printed. William Thompson’s ghost came up. Said he knew me ; loved me like a b ro th e r; never knew me on earth, though. Said he had been a school teacher in Mott street, New Y o rk ; was an assistant teacher when he was only fifteen years old, and appeared to take a good deal of pride in the fact. Said he was with me constantly. “ Well,” I said, “ yon get into some mighty bad company sometimes, Bill, if yon travel with me.” He said it couldn’t hurt him. One of the irrepressible Smiths took tbe stand, now. He told bis name, and said, “ I am h e re !” “Stanncb and true 1 ” said I. “Colors blue! and liberty forever 1 ” quoth the poetical Smith. The medium said, “Mr. Smith, Mr. Twain here has been abusing tbe Smith family— can’t you give him a bruAb ?” And Smith spelled out, “If I only had a brush !” and wagged tbe minute band in a furious burst of laughter. Smith thought i that was a-gorgeous joke. And it might be so regarded in perdition, where Smith lives, but will not excite much adm iration here. *&Tben Smith asked, “ Why don’t yon have some whiskey here?” He was informed that the decanter bad just been emptied, Mr. Smith said : “I ’ll go and fetch some.” In abont a minute he came back and sa id :' “ Don’t get impatient— just sit where yon are and wait till you see me coming with that whiskey 1” and then ebook a boister ous laugh on tbe dial and cleared out. A nd I suppose this old Smarty from h— is go ing around in the other world yet, b rag ging about this cheap joke. A Mr. Wentworth, a very intelligent person for a dead man, came and spelled out a “ lecture” of two foolscap pages, on the subject of “Space,” but 1 bavn’t got space to print it here. It was very beauti fully written ; tbe style was smooth, and smooth and flowing, the language was w ell chosen, and tbe metaphors and similes were apt and very poetical. The only fault I could find about the late Mr. W entwortjrs lecture on “Space” was, that there was nothing in it abont Space. The essayist seemed to be only trying to recon cile people to tbe loss of friends, by showing that tbe lost friends were unques tionably in luck in being 'lost, and there fore should not be grieved for—and the essayist did the thing gracefully and well but devil a word did be Ray about “Space.” Very well ; tbe Bulletin may abuse spiritualism as much as it pleases, b u t whenever I can get a chance to take a dead and damned Smith by tbe_ hand and pass a joke or swap a lie with him, I am go ing to do it. I am not afraid of such pleasant corpses as these, ever running me crazy. I find them better company than a good many liv« P h o to sta t reproduction from S.*\ Golden era D ate . A ? 6 6 .............. Pg.....?........Col.....6 .... 3 0 8 P hotostated ...................................................................... by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY REFLECTIONS ON THE SABBATH, BY MARK TWAIN. The day of rest comes but once a week, and sorry I am that it does not come oft- ener. Man is so constituted that he can stand more rest than this. I often think regretfully that it would have been so easy to have two Sundays in a week, and yet it was not. so ordained. The om nipot ent Creator could have made the world in three days just as easily as hem ade itin six, and this would have doubled the Sun days. Still it is not our place to criticise the wisdom of the Creator. When we feel a depraved inclination to question the judgment of Providence in-stacking up double eagles in the coffers of Michael Reese and leaving better men to dig for a livelihood, we ought to stop and consider that we are not expected to help order things, and so drop the subject. If all- powerful Providence grew weary after six days’ labor, such worms as we are might reasonably expect to break down iu three, and so require two Sundays—but as I said before, it ill becomes us to hunt up flaws in matters which are so far out of our juris diction. I hold that no man can meddle with the exclusive affairs of Providence and offer suggestions for their improve ment. without making himself in a manner conspicuous. Let us take things as we find them—though, I am free to conless, it goes against tbe grain to do it, sometimes. What put me into this religious train of mind, was attending church at Dr. Wads worth’s this morning. I had not been to church before for many months, because 1 never could get a pew, and therefore had to sit in the gallery, among the sinners. I stopped that because my proper place was down among the elect, inasmuch as 1 was brought up a Presbyterian, and consider .myself a brevet member of Dr. Wads worth’s church. I always was a brevet. I was sprinkled in infancy, and look upon that as conferring the rank of Arevet P res byterian. It affords none of tbe emolu ments of the Regular Church—simply con fers honorable rank upon tbe recipient and the right to be punished as a Prssbyterian hereafter ; that is, tbe substantial Presby terian punishment of fire and brimstone instead of this heterodox hell of remorse of conscience of these blamed wildcat religions. The heaven and hell of the wildcat religions are vague and ill defined but there i3 nothing mixed about tbe Pres byterian heaven and hell. The Presbyte rian hell is all misery ; the heaven all hap piness—nothing to do. But when a man ,dies on a wildcat basis, he will never rightly know hereafter which departm ent he is in—but he will think he is in bell any how, no m atter which place he goes to ; I because in the good place they pro gress,' pro gress, pro-gress—study, study, study, all the time—and if this isn’t hell I don’t know what i s ; and in the bad place he will be worried by remorse of conscience. Their bad place is preferable, though, be cause eternity is long, and before a man got half through it he would forget what it was he had been so sorry about. Natural ly he would then become cheerful again ; but the party who went to heaven would go on progressing and progressing, and studying and studying until he would final ly get discouraged and wish he were in .hell, where , he wouldn’t require such a splendid education. Dr. Wadsworth never fails to preach an able serm on; but every now and then, with an admirable assumption of not be ing aware of it, he will get off a firstrate joke and then frown severely at any one .who is surprised into smiling at it. This is not fair. It is like throwing a bone to a dog and then arresting him with a look just as he is going to seize it. Several peo-. pie there on Sunday suddenly laughed and as suddenly stopped again, when he grave ly gave the Sunday school books a blast and spoke of “ the good little boys in them who always went to Heaven, and the bad little boys who infallibly g o t drowned on Sunday,” and then swept a savage frown around tbe house and blighted every smile in tbe congregation. P h o to s ta t rep ro d u c tio n from r ' «AN$KOFT LiJM ARV (X CAA ^>ju u jl-X ~o U JkJU — trv-N D a te C ^ 0 ..t..!..^ ..» ...!..^ .^ ....... P g .....S - . C o l .. t ..... P liotostated ........................................................................ bv UNIV ERSITY O F C ALIFO RNIA LIBRARY 309 UN F I U N C U C O T O UNUWICa UUMW-NO. I . [ C O B B R S f O X D I M C E O f T H I C S I O H . ] On Board Steamer Ajax, I Honolulu (H. I.), March 18th. J ( Climatic. We arrived here to-day at noon, and while I spent an hour or so talking, tbe other passen gers exhausted all the lodging accommodations of Honolulu. So I must remain on board the ship to-night. It is very warm in the state room, no air enters the ports. Therefore, have dressed in a way which seems best calculated to suit tbe exigencies of tbe case. A descrip tion Qf this dress is not necessary. I may ob serve, however, that I bought th e . chief article of it at “ W ard’s.” There are a good many mosquitos around to night and they are rather troublesome; but it is a source of unalloyed satisfaction to me to know that the two millions I sat down on a minute ago will never sing again. . Sea-Going Outfit. .1 will “ bunch ” the first lour or five days of my “ log ” of this voyage and make up a few paragraphs therefrom. . We backed out from San Francisco at i p. m., all full—some full of tender regrets for severed associations, others full of buoyant anticipations of a pleasant voyage and a revivifying change of scene, and yet others full of schemes for extending their business relations and mak- inglarger profits. The balance were full of whisky. All except Brown. Brown had had a Couple of peanuts for lunch, and therefore one1 could not say he was full of whisky, solely, without shamefully transcending the limits of truth. . Our little band of passengers were as well and. thoughtfully cared for by tbe friends they left' weeping upon the wharf as ever were any simi lar party of pilgrims. The traveling outfit con ferred ujfon me began with a naval uniform, continued with a case of wine, a small assort ment of medicinal liquors and brandy, several boxes of cigars, a bunch of matches, a fine-tooth comb and a cake of soap, and ended with a pair of socks. [N. B.—I gave the, soap to Brown, who bit into it, and then shook his head and said thatj “ as a general thing, he liked to pros pect cunous foreign dishes and find out what they were like, but he couldn’t go th at” —and threw it overboard.] This outfit is a fair sam ple of what our friends {lid for all of us. Three of our passengers—old sea-captains, whalers— Captain Cuttle, Captain Phelps and Captain Fitch (fictitious names)—had bought eight gal lons of whisky, and their friends sent them eleven gallons more. [N. B.—Owing to head winds and a rough sea, this outfit did uot hold o u t; the nineteen gallons were ample for the proposed eight-day Voyage, but we were out up wards f f ten days, you see. The whalers were all dry and unhappy this morning.] • “ MaUtng Sail.” Leaving all care and trouble and business be hind in the city, now swinging gently around the hills am^ passing bouse by house and street by street out of view, we swept down through the Qoldsn .Gate and stretched away toward the shoreless horizon. It was a pleasant, breezy afternoon, and the strange new sense of entire and perfect emancipation from labor and re responsibility coming strong upon me, I went up on the hurricane deck so that 1 could have room to enjoy it. I sat down on a bench, and for an hour 1 took a tranquil delight in that kind of labor which is such a luxury to the enlight ened Christian—to-wit the labor of other people. Captain Godfrey was “ making sail,” and he was moving the men around briskly. He made short .work of tbe job, and his orders were marked by a felicity of language which chal lenged my admiration. Saia h e : “ Let go the main-hatch. Belay! Haul away on your tops’l jib ! Belay ? Clew up your top- gallants’l spanker-boom halliards 1 Belay! Port your gaff-tops’1 sky-scrapers! Belay! Lively, you lubbers 1 Take a reef in the lee scuppets! B elay! Mr. Baxter, it’s coming on to blow at about four bells in the hog-watch: have everything taut and trim for it. Belay!” The ship was rolling fearfully. At this point I got up and started over to ask the Captain if it wouldn’t be a good idea to belay a little for a change, but 1 fell down. I then resumed mv former seat. For twenty minutes after this 1 took careful note of how the Captain leaned his body hard to port when the ship lurched to starboard, and hard to larboard when she lurched to port, and then got up to practice a little. I only met with moaerate success, though, and after a few extraordinary evolu tions, fetched up against the mainmast. The concussion did not injuA the mast perceptibly, but if it had been a brjck house the case ipignt have been very different. I proceeded below, rather discouraged. Several Effects of theTurbment Sea; I found twenty-two passengers leaning over the bulwarks vomiting and remarking, “ Oh, my God!” and‘then vomiting again: Brown was there, ever kind and thoughtful, passing from one to another and saying, “ That’s all right—that’s all right, you know—it’ll clean you out like a jug, and then you won’t feel so ornery and smell so ridiculous.” The^sea was very rough for several days and nights, and the vessel rolled and pitched heavily. ■ All but six or eight of us took their meals in' bed constantly, and remained shut up in the state rooms day and night. > The saloons and decks looked deserted and lonesome. But gradually the sea-sick unfortunates convalesced until our dinper complement was augmented to fifteen or twenty. Tnere were frames or * ‘ racks ” on' the J tables to keep the dishes in their .places, b u t: they did not always succeed in doing it. An,oc casional heavy lurch would hoist out a dozen' and start them prospecting for the deck. Bjrown was bitterly opposed to tbe racks, and said he “ Wasn’t raised to eat out of them brick, moulds.” No rack would answer for soup. The soup plate had to be held in the hand and nicely tilted from side to side to accommodate the fluid to the pitching of the ship. The chairs were not fastened to the floor, and it was fun to sec a procession of gentlemen go sliding backwards to the bulkhead, holding their soup plates on a level with their breasts, and giving their whole attention to preventing tbe contents from splash ing out. They would come back with tbe flow- tiue and sail away again od the ebb. It would not do to set a glass of water down. The atten tive waiters kept bringing water to Brown, wbo was always talking, aiid would not see the glass set down in time to make bis remark h eard: “ Frank, don’t bring me any watery have to drink it at a gulp to keep it from spilling, and I’ve had more’n enough already.” And yet about once every two minutes some passenger opposite would put up his hands and shrink be hind them ana exelaim, “ Your water, Mr. Brown! yourwater! Look out for your water!” and lo, the suffering Brown would find his glass once more replenished and cantina: dangerously to leeward. It would be instantly Beized and emptied. At the end of a. quarter of an hour Brown had accomplished nothing in the way of dinner, on account of these incessant watery interruptions. The boy Frank brought another § lass of water, and said, “ Will you have some eefsteak, Mr. Brown ?” “ Take that water ■and go to blazes with i t ! Beefsteak! no I I’ve drank eleven gallons of water in fifteen min utes, and there ain’t room enough in me for a sirloin steak off’m a sand-fly!” Journal. Heaving my “ log,” I find the following en tries on my tablets: Wednesday, 7th—Left San Francisco at 4 P. m. : rough night. T hursday-W eather still rough. Passengers nearly all sick; only halt a dozen at breakfast out of thirty. Friday—Strong gale all night; heavy sea on this evening; black overhead. Saturday—W eather same, or more so. You can take that four-days dose of your in famous “ Pacific,” Mr. Balboa, and digest it; and you may consider it well for your reputation in California that we had pretty fair weather tho balance of tbe voyage. If we hadn’t, 1 would have given you a blast in this letter that would have made vour old dry bones rattle in your coffin—you shameless old foreign humbug ! Mark T wain. P h o to stat reproduction from S'OstAAUJUUii^^ UO" A , , V Date Pg.....'-k... C ol-i-T .? Photostated ................................................................... by U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A L I B R A R Y M.\ FQ AM IXO T O S A .N D W K U IH.I.M Fv— >0. 2. [ C o n n c t r o x n k x e e o r r i f t t; x 1 1» s . ] H o x o u li , March 1& , l f c .t;c. Tbr Ajax Vojagr (ontinurd-Tbf “ Old >or*wr\l Swell." Dn the S und ay following our d ep a rtu re we bad a line day, and no wind scarcely, vet the *en ran high ond the ship rolled a good deal. U pon inquiry, I learned ibal this wan caused by tbe “ old nor'w eat *well,” w hich resemble* any B roadw ay “ swell " in that it pula on a good m any air* ami conducts itself pretentiously even when it i* not able to “ raise the w ind.” Tbe old n o r’weat swell, produced by tbe prc- r a ilin g w in d from th a t quarter, is always pres en t iti these seas, ever drifting on its ctcrhal jo u rn e y across tbe w aters of the Pacific, year after year, ond ce ntu ry after century as well, no doubt, and piling its billows aloft careless w h eth e r it he storm or calm. Tbe wind and die swell both die o u t j u s t above the equator. A no ther wind and another swell com a up around Capo H orn from the opposite direction, and these die out ju s t below the eq uato r—so th a t a windless, w aveless belt is left at th e center of the earth, w hich m ark* the eq uato r as distinctly a* docs the little black line on the map. Ships drjfls idly on th a t glassy sea, u n d er th e flaming tu n of the tropics, for weeks together, w ithout a breath o f wind to flutter the droo ping sails or fan th e sw eltering and blasphem ous sailors, A Clast for Balboa, the Discoverer. Wc hear all our lives about the ‘‘gentle, stormless Pacific,” and about the “ smooth and' delightful route to the Sandwich Islands,” and about the “ steady blowing trades” that never vary, never change, never “ chop round,” and| i all the days of our boyhood we read how that infatuated old ass; Balboa, looked out from the top of a high rock upon a broad sea as calm1 .and peaceful as a sylvan lake, and went into an. ecstasy of delight,'like any other Greaser over any other trifle, and shouted in his foreign tongue and waved bis country’s banner, and named his great discovery “ Pacific” —thus ut-i tcring a lie which will go on deceiving genera-, tion after generation of students while tbe old1 ‘ocean lasts. If I had been there; with my ex:, perience, I would have said to this man Balboa! , “ Now, if you think you have made a sufficient .display of yourself, cavorting around on this conspicuous rock, you hod better fold up your old. 'rag and get back into the woods again, because iyon have jumped to a conclusion, and christ- 'ened this sleeping bov-baby by a girl’s name, 'without stopping to inquire into the sex of it. ^ F ro m all I can discover, if this .foreign per son had named this ocean the “ Four Months [Pacific,” he would have come nearer the mark, j I My information is to the effect that the Summer [months give fine weather, smooth seas and] isteody winds, with a month and a few days > good weather at the fag end of Spring and toe beginning of Autumn; and that for the other I 'seven or eight months of the year one can cal-1 culate pretty regularly on head winds . and side: winds and stern winds, and winds on the quar-. ter, and winds several points abaft the beam, .ana winds that blow straight up from the bot-( (tom, and still other winds that oome so straight | (down from above that the fore-stuns’l-spanker- jib-boom makes a hole through them ak clean ias a telescope. And the sea rolls and leaps and ichops ,and surges “ thortsbips” and up and. down and fore-and-aft by turns, when the gales are blowing:; and when they die out the old ■nor’west swell comes in and takes a hand, and stands a watch, and keeps up the marine earthquake until the winds are rested and ready to make trouble again. ( In a word,' the .Pacific is “ rough ” for seven or eight months in the year—not stormy, un derstand me—not what one could justly call stormy, but contrary, baffling and very “ rough.” ( 'Therefore, if that Balbos-constrictor had con- structed a name for it that had “ Wild,” or’ “ Untamed,” to it, there would have been a ms- > jority of two month* in the year in favor and in ] support of it. A WoN to' the Commercially Wise. , If the Pacific were always pacific and its 1 “ trades ” blew steadily the year round, there! would never be any necessity for ‘steamers be-i .tween Honolulu and San Francisco; but as it is, a trade is building up between the two ports, a considerable share of which is going to con-, . sist of fast freight and passengers, and only \ steamers can extend and develop this and con duct it successfully. You see we plowed I ' through the tangled seas and against the head I . winds this trip in n f—“ tffin ovor ten days, ar- l ten san r rancisoo a matter of Three weeks bd- ! fore. ■ The passage back, at this rate, is about five to seven-days longer for the clipper, but I not more than a day and a half or two days longer lor the Ajax. You can rest assured that in the tremendous trade that is to spring up be tween ^California and the Islands during* tbe > ■ next few years, the fast freight and passengers must be carried by’steamers for seven or eight months in the year. I will remark here that my information about the character of this ocean route is obtained from old ship-captains, one of whom has com manded in the packet trade for many years, and who has sailed these seas, whaling and other wise, for forty-six years. i But the main argument in favor of a line of] ’ fast steamers is th is: They would soon popu- late these islands with Americans, and loosen that French and English grip which is gradu ally closing around tnem,,ana which will result! j in a contest before many years as to which oil ‘the two shall seize and' nold them . I leave] America out of this contest, for her influence! 'and her share in it have fallen gradually away! until she. is out in the cold now, and does notl .ayso play third fiddle to this European element.] But it California can send capitalists down here in seven or eight days time and take them back in nine or ten, she can fill these islands' ftill of Americans and regain-her lost foothold.] .Hawaii is too .far away now, though, when it' 'takes a iqan tiyqnty d a/s to. cqme here andi itwenty-five or th irty to get hack again in a sail- 1 ing vessel/ | ; The steamer line ought to )> e established, even] lif it ehould lose money for two years. Your: State has never paid one single dollar of profit { to the United States— you are nothing but a burden and an expense to the country—but the [kingdom of Hawaii, without costing tbe United 'States a cent, has paid her, in customs, $400,000 [in k single year. i California’s profits from this -section can be [made greater and far more lasting than thosei from Montand. Therefore let your Merchants’! (Exchange look after the former just as earnestly j as they are doing with the latter. J Passing Away the Weary Time. > ' 1 In writing qbout sea voyages it Js oustopaaryj ' to state, with the blandest air of. conveying in.] I formation of rare freshness and originality, that] [anything, however trivial, that promises to spice the weary monotony of the voyage with a new sensation, is eagerly seized upon-and the most made of it by the passengers. I decline to in sult your intelligence by making this thread bare statement, preferring to believe you would easily divine the existence of the fact without! having to Ije told it, *. i W e had a bullock 'tied up on the forecastle, j and a box near by with two sheep and a pig ini it. These animals afforded a trifling amuse-] ment for us on our fair days, and when the op*, 'portunity offered'we used to go forward and] 1 worry them. The bullock was always down on ] i his beam-ends. If be ‘eyer dared to get up o n ! bis feet for a second in stormy weather, the I next lurch of the ship would “ snatch him bald-, headed,” as Mr. Brown expressed it, and flop! him flat on the deck; and in fair weather he. was seldom able to get up, on account of his sore bones, acquired through the bangs and bruises of his foul weather experiences. So the bullock lay down pretty much all the time from San Francisco to Honolulu—and ever as his wandering gase rested upon reeling men, and plunging snip’ and towering billow, his eloquent ;eye damned the weather. ' ’ Said Mr. Brown, once: -“ Lei’s go forward 'and twist the Captain’s tail.” ( “ Who? Captain Godfrey f ” •/ I “ ThunderI no; CaptainGordoq,” : “ W ho?” - • “ Why, the bullock—Captain Gordon. We call him Captain Gordon because be lays'down |* 0 much.” j 1 recognized the point of Mr. Brown’s fsce- i tiousness then. .Captain Gordon, a not undis- ‘tinguiabed aflioer of tbe Eastern armies, had { kept hjs room all the way, but as ho wo* u'nT well enough to prefer that'course to staggering .about the tossing decks, and had a right to do as he pleased anyhow, I reprimanded Brown on ithe spot for his Inconsiderate levity. ' The pig was polled and hauled and cuffed for •the amusemeht of the idle passengers, but un known to himself he had his revenge; for he imparted such a villainous odor of tbe sty to tbe hands and clothing of gny man who meddled with him. that that man could never drift tq windward o f a lady passenger withoqt suffering disgrace and hum iliation'under'the rebuke q T her offended -upturned nose. The pig hid no name. This was a source of ceaseless regret to Mr. Brown,' and he often spoke of it. At last one of the sailors named it, and Brown hap pened to .be passing by and overheard him. The sailor was* feeding (he animals, and the pigj kept crowding the sheep away and monopolize I ing the slop nail. The sailor rapped him on the nose and sidd: . ' , I * HOb, go way wid you, Dinni*:” To have beard th e passengers go into explo- |# o n * o f laughtep.|rh eq 9 ro w n 'ru s h e d i a . u a state of wild excitem ent, and related this cir- cum*tance, one m igh t have supposed th a t this ship had been sailing round and round the world (or dreary age., and that this was the first funny circum stance that had ever blessed with a gleam ol cheerfulness the dism al voyage. Hut, as; o th e r writer* have said before, even so diluted, a thing as this enn send n th n ll ol delight) throug h m inds and bodies grow ing torpid under the dull sam eness o f a lone sea voynge. F rom that day forw ard it w as Dennis here, and Dennis there, ond Dennis every w here. D en nis was in ev e ry bod y’s m outh ; Dennis was m entioned twice w here th e everlasting w onder, “ how innny miles we m ade y e s te rd a y ,” w as, expressed once. A s tra n g e r’s curio-itv would ■have been excited to the lust degree: to k no w ; who this rival to G eneral G ra n t in notoriety ’was, th a t had so sud denly sp ru n g u p — this so thoroughly canvassed, discussed, apd p o p u la r, P h o to s ta t reprod uction from M-*^2^0 / r T U. 0"A . ,,. D a t e Orr^ G A 1 ‘ g . . J r . . . . . C o l . 4 ~S 311 P h o t o s t a t e d ................ I > y U NIVERSITY O F CALIFORNIA LIBRARY (cont ' f r ' # r n P - / ■ ) “ l)(:niii>-.” Hut on the 10th of March Dennis was .secretly executed by order of th e stew ard, and Brow n said th a t w hen the fact becam e generally know n, there was hot a dry eye in the ship. lie fully believed w h at he said, too. H e has a genero us heart and a fervent im agination, and a capacity for crea tin g im possible Facts and then implicitly believing them himself, w hich is perfectly m arvelous. Dennis was served up on the 17th for our St. P atrick’s dinner, and gave me a stom ach-ache that lusted tw enty-four hours. In lile he was lovely, und behold, h e was pow erful in death. Peace to his ashes ! 4 T he m ost steady-going am u se m en t the gentle men had on the trip w as euchre, and the m ost steadv-going the ladies hnd was being sea-sick. For day s a n d nights to g e th er we used to sit in the sm oking room an d play eu chre on the sam e table so sacredly devoted to “ s e re n -u p ” by th e livelier set of p assengers w ho trav eled last v o y age in th e Ajax. It took m e som e little time to leurn to play euchre with those old sea captains, because they brought in so many terms that arc neither in Hoyle nor tbe dictionary. Hear how they talked: Captain Fitch—“ Who hove that ace on there?” Captain Phelps—“ Why, I did.” Captain Cuttle—“ No, you didn’t, either; I hove it myself.” Captain Phelps—“ You didn’t, by the Eter nal !— y ou hove the king.” Captain Fitch—” Well, now, that’s just the. way—always jawin’ about who hove this and who hove that—always sailin’ on a taut bowlin’. Why can’t you go slow? You keep heavin’ on ’em down so fast that a man can’t tell nothing about it.” Capfuin Phelps—“ Well, I don’t care—let it go—I can stand it, I cal'lute. Here goes for a cuchrc!” [Here the Captain played an odd-suit ace.] “ Swing your bower if you’ve got it, but I’ll take them three last tricks or break a rope- yarn.” [I, as partner to Captain Phelps, got be wildered, ond make a baa play.] Captain Phelps—“ Now what did you trump my ace for? that ain’t any way to do; you’re always a sailin’ too close to the wind.” [In a moment or- two 1 make another bad, play.] . . . Captain Phelps—“ Ger-reat Scotland! what in the nation you dumpin’ that blubber at such a time as this for ? Rip! I knowed it!, took with a nine-spot! royals, stuns’ls—everything, gone to smash, and nobody euchred !” It is necessary to explain that those ancient, incomprehensible whalers always called worth less odd-suit cards “ blubber.” At Home. We passengers are all at home now—taking meals at the American Hotel, and Bleeping in neat white cottages, buried in noble shade trees and enchanting tropical flowers and shrubbery. \ Mark T w ain. P hotostat reproduction from »weaerr ubkakv O Ql ^ A juu^ Date P g .....\ ....... Col. P hotostated ........................................................................ by UNIVERSITY O F CALIFO RNIA LIBRARY 312 SACRAMENTO DAILY UNION. SA N FRAN CISCO T O SANDW ICH ISLANDS— NO. 8. fCORKBSPONDEN017- " F THE UNION.] Honolulu, March 1866. Still'at Sea. I have been here a day or two now, but I doJ not know enough concerning the country yet to commence writing about it with confidence, so 1 will drift back to sea again. The Ajax— Her Officers. The Ajax is a 2,000 ton propeller, and one of the strongest built vessels afloat. All her tim- be#work is very heavy and fastened and bolted together'as if to hold for a century. She was intended for a war ship, and this accounts for her extraordinary strength. She has excellent cabin accommodations .{"or sixty passengers, without crowding, and bunks for forty more. She has room for over twelve hundred tons of freight after her coal and stores for the round trip are all in ; and when a coal depot is estab lished for her hereafter at Honolulu, so that she need carry only fuel enough for half the voy age, she can take two or three hundred tons more. Her principal' officers all served in th e , war. Captain Godfrey and the Chief mate, Bax ter, were both in our navy, and Sanford,' the Chief Engineer, has seen a great deal of ser vice. He held his commission as Chief Engi neer in the navy for sixteen years, and was in seven battles in the Mexican war, and six dur ing th e rebellion—a very good record. Hite, the Purser, served under General Sherman, in the Paymaster's department, with the rank of Uaptain. The Steamer’s Engines. . The Ajax has a “ harp ” engine, laid horizon tally, so as to be entirely below the water line — i judicious arrangement, in view of the ship’s intended duty originally, in a service where cannon balls and shells would pelt her, instead of the rain showers of the Pacific. The hori zontal engine takes up much less room than when placed in an upright position; it packs as closely as sardines in a box and gives the ship a good deal of extra space for freight and pas sengers. Every portion of the Ajax’s engine and lire rooms is kept in perfect neatness and good order by the Chief ’s crew of eighteen men. In this place I would drop a hint of caution to all romantic young people who yearn to become bold sailor boys and ship as firemen on a steamer. Such a berth has its little drawbacks —inconveniences which not all the romance in the world can reconcile one to. The principal of these is the sultry temperature ot the fur nace room, where the fireman, far below the surface of the sea and away from the fresh air and the light of day, stands in a narrow space between two rows of furnaces that flame and glare like the fires of hell, and shovel coal four, hours at a stretch in an unvarying temperature of 148 degrees •Fahrenheit! And yet how the people of Honolulu gtowl and sweat on an un- commonly.warm day, with tbe mercury at 82° in the shade and somewhere in the neighbor hood of 100° in the su n ! Steamer firemen do not live, on an average, over 5 years. " The Importance or the Hawaiian Trade. It is a matter of the utmost importance to the United States that her trade with these islands should be carefully fostered and augmented. Because—it pays. There can be no better rea son than that. In actual revenue California is a burden to the country; she always falls be hind; she always leaves a deficit at the end of the year to be made up by the nation; she never yields revenue enough to support the Government establishments within her borders. In contrast with this, the Sandwich Islands, which cost the United States but little, have paid her, in customs, as high as S400,000 iu gold coin in a single y ear! duties paid upon sugar, etc., received in American ports and subtracted from the profits of tbe producer here. I will give the figures. They were compiled by the late N. Lombard Ingals, Secretary of the San Francisco Board ot'- Srvh.tu a, lesjnrded as onc of the be^t accouuittntB and financial statisticians that ever visited these islands,. The following estimate is for 1864: Coffee, 14,854 fts ., duty 5c. $ lb ......... $ 742 70 Molasses, 259,469 gals., duty 8c. $ g al 23,757 52 Pulu, 664,600 fts. (at 7c. $ Tb., $46,522), at 2 0 $ c e n t.................................................. 9,304 40 Salt, 808,000 lbs., a t 18c. $ 100 lb s 554 40 Sugar, 8.851 ,957 fts., a t 8c. average d u ty .. . 265,558 71 Rice, 887,978 fts., at 2*c. $ fl>................ 9,449 45 Unenum erated, a t le ast............................ 2,000 00 Being for San Francisco alone, fu lly.$811,867 18 Mr. Ingals then adds sugar and molasses sent to Portland, Oregon, the same year, on which $40,000 duties were paid, making over $350,000 paid iu revenues to the United States for Sand wich Island products on the Pacific coast alone. Mr. Ingals then says: “ The Eastern vessels’ cargoes consist mostly of oil transhipped from American whalers, and therfifore duty free; the balance of their cargoes are hides, wool and, sundries. I think it would be safe to estimate that the whole of them did not pay over $50,006 to the Custom-house.” You will acknowledge that a trade which pays so well, albeit with no.risk and small expense to the United States, ought to be encouraged, extended and irrevocably secured. There are two ways of doing this : Let Congress mod erate the high duties somewhat; secondly—let the Islands be populated with Americans. To accomplish the latter, a steamer is indispensa ble." The sailing vessels can carry freight easily enough, but they too slow end uncertain to build up the passenger trade from which immi gration and permanent settlement here must naturally result. In California people ore always pressed for time; it is, only a few scattering idlers and pleasure seekers who can look serenely upon such an appalling sacrifice of precious houss as a tedious voyage of three weeks hither in a baffled and buffeted sailing vessei add a return trip occupying four or five weeks. But business men and capitalists would run down here by the steamer when they knew the sea voyage could be ciphered^lown to days and hours before starting—and a ^bort number of days at that. And with the influx of capital would come population, and then I could not ride over mile after mile of fertile soil (as I did yesterday) without seeing half a dozen human habitations." > How Our Trade Must be Extended, If tt is Done at All. An important question to be considered is how a steamer is to be made to pay during the year or two that she is populating the islands, doubling their productions and establishing a profitable trade for herself (for more /than one- half of tbe export trade is now in the hands of the sailing vessels, secured to them by joint ownership in ships and plantatlons^ by long— time contracts for transportation, and by ad vance money to planters), and will remain so for sojne time. The legitimate way to establish ■ a steamer on a paying basis from the first is to give her a Government subsidy of fifty or a hundred thousand dollars a year for carrying the mails, and subtract it from the $500,000 a year appropriated for the China Mail Company, which is to begin business the first of next January. The latter company will either let a sub-contract to the Ajax, or else put a small steamer of their own into Ihe Honolulu, trade— probably the former. , The China steamer will be a 5,000 ton vessel; the Ajax is 2,000 tons burden. Neither of them can e n ter here except in b ro ad daylight, so n a r row and crooked and shallow is the channel. T he h a rb o r is so small th a t it ca n n o t ac com m o date m ore th a n tw o h u n d red vessels com forta- ■ bly, an d so narrow th a t a larg e ship ca n not be i bandied freely in-it. I t is n ot m u c h w ider th a n th e riv e r at S a c ra m e n to —a section of y o u r riv e r a mile and a half long opposite S acram en to would afford an am p ler h a r b o r th a n this. F o r half a mile a ship com ing in w inds ab o ut th ro u g h a channel as crooked as a d o g ’s hin d leg, an d m a rk ed by long lines of u p r ig h t p osts on eith er side, and in this chan nel th e re is not good ro o m enou gh for tw o ships to pass abreast. T he g re a t C hina mail s tea m er ca n n o t e n ter this p o rt. She will draw too m uc h w ate r—th e re is only abo ut tw enty-tw o feet on th e bar. If she arriv ed h ere at d u s k she w ould h av e to lie at anc h o r outside th e h a rb o r all n ig h t and e x cha n g e mails by small boats in th e m o rn in g — th a t is, in fair w eather. In the sto rm y season— in the season of th e terrib le ITo/iu— sUe m ig h t have to lie there five or six day?!. T h e ChTna mail stea m er will he at sea from thirty-live to forty days on a ro u n d trip. W ith h er p r o visions and sixty o r seventy tons of coal a dav and other expenses, if she gets off' with an o u t lay of $1,500 a day, while u n d e r wav, sh e will do well. Honolulu is clear out, "of h er way, bo th • going and coming, heaving S an Francisco she wonid naturally com e down until a little below the thirtieth parallel, to get the benefit o f “ th e trad es,” bu t from thence to H onolulu, nine degrees further south, would he all lost time to her. R eturning, she would leave S h a n g h a e and bend around n orth till above the fortieth parallel, to get the west winds, and then if she had no destination but San Franciscb she could’ go straight across with a spanking breeze all the way—but that not being the case she would make use of the west wind a great part of the. voyage, I suppose, and then take in a lot of no longer useful canvas and come straight down south a matter of twenty degrees, land at Hono-1 lulu, and then sail north again about seventeen, to get to San Francisco. Thus, you see, she. 'will come out of her course, outward bound, over five hundred miles, to strike Hono-' lu lu re tu rn in g , she will come out of hei course 1,200—altogether, full 1,700 miles every trip more than she would have to make if she left the islands out of her voyage. Tbe Ajax is ; considered fast ; the greatest day’s run she made this'trip, with the wind exactly right and every i rag of canvass set and.drawing, was about 800 miles. On several other occasions she did not make over 200. So, to allow the China ship the < very liberal average speed of 275 miles a day (250 would be nearer right), she must lose over six days every voyage ifshe comes to Honolulu; , she will fool away at least one day here, each ,way—eight days altogether; expense to her for .this pastime, $12,000; expense for a vear, $144,- 000. It cannot be done any cheaper by the China mail steamer. The Ajax can do it for a great deal less, and1 the China company would make money by sub letting the contract to her; / The'China steamer, will certainly never perform the Sandwich' Island part of her contract with the Govern- uhent; that portion will unquestionably be exe cuted by some other steamer, and so, why not turn it over to the Ajax, and thus secure to the country the benefits that must accrue to it from the permanent establishment of a San Francisco and Honolulu steamship line? ■ I am not particular whether tbe Ajax owners continue her in this trade or not, but I would like to see some steamer line established on this route, and I only speak of the Ajax in this con nection because she has already gaincd'a good fooling, and because she is'owned by a company which nas the confidence of the public and is financiaUy able to carry out a project of this kind in a good and satisfactory manner, and because, further, if the China company put a small steamer of their own in this trade they . will not be likely to do it for a year to come, and a twelvemonth is " a good deal of time to lose. M aks Twain.' So P h o to stat reproduction from CA O ujuH juJh) IXjul^ -jvi |c t l&t* i- t ..A - 5 D a t e re... ~..........................313 P hotostated ................................................................. bv UNIVERSITY O F C A L IFO R N IA LIBRARY M KWA M HONOUU-.fO. «. [< o » iie it» o .'< i> tix c « o r t u b v k i o h .) Hosoli’ lu, March, ISM. OnrArrlial KltbornirO a Llillr Morr. V \’« * camp 111 right o( tw o of this group of ithnds, Oahn nnd Molokai (pronounced D-waw- hoi and Molln./b i, on thp m orning of the ISth, ant aoon exchanged the dark blue water* of the d rip *ea for’ the brilliant light bloc of “ sound- inj*.’’ The fal, ugl. biidit (s*id to be a species of tll/atrosB) u h ic h had skim m ed aftfr tit on tirde*s wing* cb-ar across the ocean, left us, and an occarionsl fliniz-tisb went skimm ing o re/ the w ater in their stead. O ahu loomed higi, rugged, treeless, barren, black and dreiry, o ut ol the sea, and in the oistaneo Molo kai *ay like a homely awav-backcd whale on the wat<r. Thr Hawaiian Flatr. A« we rounded the promontory of Diamond Head (bringing into view a grore of cocoa-nut trees, tlrat ocular proof ’thut we wero in the tropi:s), we ran up the stars and atripea at the main-spenccr-gaff, and the Hawaiian flag at the fore. The Ihtter ia suggestive of the prominent P olitical elemcntu of the Inlands. It ia part ronch, part English, part American ana is Hawaiian in general. The union is the English cross; the remainder of the flag (horizontal stripes) looks American, but has a blue French stripe in addition to our red and white ones. The flag was gotten up by foreign legations in council with the Hawaiian' Government. The eight stripes refer to the eight islands which arc inhabited; the other four are barren rocks in capable of supporting a population. Reflections. As we came in sight wo fired a gun, and a good part of Honolulu turned out to welcome the steamer. It was Sunday morning, and about church time, and we steamed through the narrow chandel_to_ the music of six different aud wido,-ov "cr hills and "valleys. whiclfw ere I pcopled.br naked,’ savage, thundering barber-1 tans pn'i ofty years ego I Six Christian churches within five miles of the .ruins of a Pagan tem ple, where human sacrifices were daily offered | up to hideous idols in the last century I We were within pistol shot of one of a group of islands whose fcfrocious inhabitants closed in' upon the doomed and helpless Claptain Cook ancl murdered him, eighty-seven years ago; nhd lot their descendants were at church!, Behold what the missionaries have wrought 1 The’crowd on the Pier. ' By the time we had worked our slow way ug to the wharf, under tbe guidance of McIntyre, the pilot, a mixed crowd of four or fiveNhun-, dred people had assembled—Chinamen, in the1 costume of their country;. foreigners and the better class-of natives, and “ half whites” in carriages and dressed in Sacramento Summer fashion; other native men on foot, some in the cast-off clothing of white folks,‘and a few wear ing a batterfea hat, an old ‘ragged vest, and nothing else—at least nothing but an unneces sarily slender rag passed between the legs; na tive women clad in a single garment—a bright colored robe or wrapper as voluminous as a balloon, with full sleeves. This rcbe is “ gath ered ” from Shoulder to shoulder, before and behind, and then descends in ample folds to the feet—seldom a chemise or any other under-gar ment—fits like a circus tent fits tbe tent pole, and no hoops, ffkese robes were bright yellow, or bright crimson, or pure' black occasionally, or gleaming white; but “ solid colors” and “ stun ning” ones were the rule. They wore little hats such as 4he sex wear in your cities, and some of the younger women* had very pretty faces and splendid black eyes and heavy masses of 4ong' black hajr, occasionally put up in a ‘‘ n e t; some.of these dark, gingerbread colored beau ties were oh foot—generally on bare-foot, I may odd— and others were on horseback—astraddlel they never ride any other way. and they ought to know which wav is best, for there are no more accomplished horsewomen in tbe w orld,. it is said. The balance of the crowd consisted chiefly of little balf-naked native boys and girls. A|l were chattering in tbe catchy, chopped-up Kanaka language; but what they were chatter ing about will always remain a mystery to pae. Ibe King. Captain Fitch said, “ There’s the K ing! that’s him iu the buggy; I know him far as I can see him.” *’ I had never seen a King in my life, and I naturally took out my note-book and put him down: “ Tall, slender, dark; full-bearded; green frock coat, with lappels and collar bor- dered with gold band an inch wide; plug b a t- broad ’ gold band around it; royal oostume looks top much tike a livery; this man isn’t as taka Fitch, discovered that he had got hold of the wrong King—or, rather, that he had got bold of-the King’s driver or a carriage-driver of one of the nobility. Tbe KiDg.was not present a t' all.' It was a great disappointment to me. I< heard afterward that the comfortable, 'easy going King Kadiehameha (pronounced Ka-mav- ah-m a^abyv had been seensitting-cn a barrel on the wharf,Jhejday.beforg,.fi3hing; but tl^re w s; axfebnsolation in'that; that did not restore to me my lost King. -- ' - Honolulu. ’ , • ; The town''•of Honolulu (said to contain] be-1 tween 12,000 and 15,000 inhabitants) is spread over a dead level; has fetroets from twenty to j , thirty fe'et wide, solid and- level ax a floor, most j ‘ of them straight as a line and is few ah crooked as a corkscrew; houses one and two stories high'. i built of wood, straw, * ’dobies ■ and dull cream-colored pebble-gpd-shell-conglomerated coral cut into oolong square blocks and.laid in cemenf, but no brick- houses ; there are great' yards', more like plazas, about a large number; o f the dwelling-houses, and.these.are carpetedi with bright green grass, into which your foot! sinks out of sight; and they ore ornamented by; a hundred species ofbeautifttl flpwers and blos soming shrubs, and shaded by r noble tamarind] trees and the “ Pride of In d ia,. with its fragrant , flower, and by the “ Umbrella Tree,”- a n d I do not know howmany more. I had rather smell 1 Honolulu at sunset than the old Police Conrt- : room in San Francisco. ' * ‘ ‘ * » Alawst a King. I had not shaved since I lef^San Francisco—! (ten days. * As soon as I got-ashore I huntdd for ; a striped pole' a n ! shortly fonnd one. I always had a yearning to be a K ing.. This may never .be, I suppose; But at any rate U will always be a satisfaction to me to know that if I am not, :a King; I am the next thing to it— I have been' (shaved by-thtrKing’sbarb er.', . ' . Loadmen on,“ flea Legs.” , ! , "Walking, about on shore’- was ^very uhcom- 1 fortable at first; there Was no spring to th e ( solid ground, and I missed thw heaving and rolling of the ship’s deck; it was unpleasant to lead unconsciously to an anticipated lurch of the world and find th at the world did not lurch, ‘ as it shduld have done. And there was some-, 'thing else missed—som ething gone—som ething wanting, 1 could not-tdll whist—a dismal vacuum t •of some kind or other—a sense of em ptiness., lBut-1 found out w hat it was presently. I t w as( tbe qbsence of the ceaseless dull hum of beating Srqves and whipping sails and fluttering o f th e 'propeller, and creakingrof the ship—sounds I : Load become sq accustom ed tp th at I had ceased • * ' to hotice them and had become unaw are of th eirj | existence until, th e deep Sunday stillness on i shore made m e vaguely oonscioiu th a t a fam iliar! spirit of some kind of e th e r was gone from m e ., W alking on the solid earth with legs used to tbe J " “ g iv in g ’ of the decks Under, his tread.'m ade BroWn kick, and h e w ent off-tb bed and left me | to wander alone, about tbiaj odd-looking city of < the tropics. - ■ • ' . • * I Jfew Scenes, and Strong C ontrasts. The further I trav eled , through th e town the (better i . liked it. Every 'step' revealed a new contrast—disclosed som ething I w as unaocus- itomed to. In place of th e grand mud-colored ] (brown stone frpnts of San Francisco, 1 saw neat iwhite cdttages, w ith green w indow -shutters;; in place of front yards lik e ' billiard-tableajwitn I (iron fences around them ;.I saw those' cottages] lanrrounfled by ample*yards, about bke Ports-; month Square (as to size), thickl£. clad with! , green grass, ana shaded by tall trees, through ;whose dense foliage the sun could scarcely pen-1 (etrote; in place o f tbe custom ary infernal genu! [nium languishing in dust and. general debility] on tin-roofed’rdar ad d itio n scr m bedroom wih-i dows, I saw luxurious b anks and thickets of flowers, .fresh las a meadow after a rain, and glowing with the richest dyes; in place of the dingy horrors of i-the “ W illows,” and the pain- ftal snarp^poinied shrubbery of th at flanny cazi-' oature o f nature whifih th ey call “ South Park, I saw hugtKbddied, wide-spreading forest trees, w hh strange (names and stranger appearance— trees th a t cast a shadow like a thundercloud,* land were able to etan d alone without being tied ito |re e n poles;* in plaoe o f those vile, tiresom e, ’stupid; everlasting gold-fish, wiggling, around iq glass riobee ah a assum ing all shades and de- (gross oi distortion through .the magnifying ja o d . qualities of th e ir . transpa ren t prison Chouses, I saw eats'— Tom -cats' •Mary Ann eats, long-tailed pats,' bob-tail eats, iblina eats, one-eyed eats; wall-eyed oats, CK>as- iTfd < *», ^«y o*u, f low csts, striped caU, *.[>ottcd cat*, tam e cats, wild cats, Binged cut*, individual cats, grou p so t caL«, platoons of cat*, com panies of cats, reg iment* of cat*, arm ies of cat*, m ultitudes of csto, million* of cats, and all o f them sleek, fat, Iszv and houikI aslecn • in place of rou g h s and rowdies staring nnd blackguarding on the co r ners, I saw long-haired, saddle-colored S a n d wich Island m aidens sitting on the gro u n d in the shade of co rn er houses, gazing indolently at w hatever or w hoever happened along ; i n r o a d ■ of that w retched cobble-stone p a v e m e n t n u is ance, I walked on a firm fuunaution ot corul, built up from the bottom of the sea by the a b surd but p ersevering insect of thut name, with a light lover of lavu and cinders overlying the. coral, befebed up o u t of futbomless hell long ago through the seared an d blackened crater that stands dead and cold and harm less yonder, in the di.stunce now ; instead of cram p ed and crow ded strcet-cars, I m et dusky* native w om en sweeping by, free as the w ind, on fleet horses and astraddle, w ith gaudy* riding-sashcs s tre a m ing like b a n n e rs behind t h e m ; instead o f the com bined stenches o f S a cram en to street, (Corf) . l ’li o to s t:i t r e p r o d u c t i o n f r o m » 4 N C « o^ t OujuuLu--V o IXka- * —4 T v> ) : . t e : . . ) ^ f? I ’K ^ C . A ' S 314 P hotostated ....................................................................... * ’. v U N I V E R S IT Y O F C A L I F O R N I A L IB R A R Y ( p,/.) Chinadom and Brannon streetslaughter-houses, I breathed the balmy fragrance of jessamine, oleander, and the Pride of India; in place of the hurry and bustle and noisy confusion of San Francisco, I moved in the midst of a Summer calm as tranquil-as dawn in the Gar den of Eden ; in place of our familiar skirting sand hills and the placid bay, I saw on tbe one side a frame-work of tall, precipitous moun tains close at hand, clad in refreshing creen, and cleft by deep, cool, chasm-like valleys— and in front the grand sweep of the ocean; a brilliant, transparent green near the shore, bound and bordered by a long white line of foamy spray dashing against the reef,'and fur ther out the dead,' blue water of the deep Sea, decked with “ white caps,” and in the fur hori zon a single, lonely sail----- At this moment, this man BrowU, who has no better manners than to read over one’s shoulder, observes: “ Yes, and hot. Oh, I reckon not (only 82 in the shade) 1 Go on, now, and put it all down, now that yhu've begun; just sa y ,‘And more ‘santipcdes,’>and cockroaches, and fleas, and lizards, and red ants, and scorpions, and spiders, and mosquitoes and missionaries’— rob, blame! my cats if I’d live here two [W ohine' (most- generally pronounced Wyheeny), seems to answer for wife, woman and Female of ques tionable character, indifferently. I never can get this maivBrown to understand that “ hyena ” is not. the proper pronunciation. Be says “ It ain’t ady odds; it describes some of ’em, any way.” ) , * I remarked: “ But, Mr. Brown, these are tri fles.” ' ^ ‘‘Trifles be—bio wed r • You get nipped by1 one of them scorpions once, and see how you' like it I There was Mrs. Jones, swabbing her face with a sponge; she felt something grab her cheek; she dropped tbe sponge and out popped a scorpion an inch and a bait long! Well, she. just got up and danced tbe Highland fling for two hours and a half—and yell!—why, you could have heard her ftom Lu-wow to Hoolo- hoola, with the wind-fair! and for three days she soaked her cheek in brandy and salt, and it* swelled up as big as your two fists. And you want to'kuow what jnade me light out of bed so sudden last night ? Only a ‘ santipede’—noth- , ing, only a * santipede,’ with forty-two legs on a side, and every loot not enough to bum a hole through a raw-hide. Don’t you know one of them things grabbed Miss Boone’s foot wheni 'she, was ndingoneday? He was hid in the! stirrip, and just clamped himself around her foo and sunk his fangs plum through her Bhoe; and she-just throwed her whole soul into one war-whoop and then fainted. And she didn’t; get out or bed nor pet that foot on the floor again lor three weeks. And boW did Captain Godfrey always get off so easy ? Why, because he always carried a bottfc full of scorpions and %antipedes soaked in alcohol, and whenever he got bit be bathed the place with that devilish mhtture gr took.a drink out of it, I don’t recol lect which, And how did he have to do onoe, when he hadn’t his bottle along? He bad to out gut the bite with hi§ knife and fill up the. hole with arnica, and "then prop his mouth open, with the boot-jack to' keep from getting the! lockjaw. - Oh, fill me up about this lovely conn-; try 1 Tou can go on writing that* slop about balmy breezes and fragrant flowers, and all that sort of truck, bnt you’re not going to leave out them santipedes and things tor Want of being reminded of it, you know.” ' I said- mildly:. “ But, Mr. Brown, these, are the mere « i ' “ Mere— your grandmother! they ain’t the mere anything! What’s the use of you telling me they’re'' the mere—mere— whatever it was you was going to call it? You look at them raw splotches all over my face—all over my arms—all over my body | Mosquito bites? Don’ -t tell me about mere— mere things 1 You can’t get around them mosquito bites. I took and brushed out my bar good nigbt before; last, and tucked it in all around, and .before morning I was eternally chawed up, anyhow. And tbe nigbt before I fastened her up all right,' and got in bed gpd smoked that, old strong pipe u n tirl got strangled and smothered and couldn’t get out. and then they swarmed in there and -jammed their oms tnrougu mj niiin me as dry as a life-presferver before I got my breath again. And how did that dead-fall work ? I was two days making it, and sweated two buckets full of brine, and blame the mos-. quijo ever went under it; j»nd-als;l-jqjf TffBund in my sleep^I ketcued my foot in it end goit it] rfi?.ttSned out so that it wouldn’t go into a green turtle shell forty four inches across tjie backj .liifl Ayres grinding out seven doable verses of poetry about Waw-ooo/ and crying about leav ing tbe blasted place in the two last verses; add1 you slpbbering here about—there you are! Now—noto, what do yon say? That yellow spi der could straddle over a saucer just like noth ing—And if I hadn’t been here to set that spit toon on him, he would have been between your' sheets in a minute— be wa» traveling straight for your bed—he bad' his eye on it. Just puli' at that web that he’s been stringing after him—, pretty near as hard to break as jewing silk;! and look at his feet sticking out all round , the spittoon.' Ob, confound Waw-Aoo / ” ’ - 1 I am glad BVown has got' disgusted at that; murdered spider and gone ; I don’t like to be, interrupted when I am writing—especially by: Brown, who is one of those men who always looks at the unpleasant side of everything, and I seldom do. Mark Twai*. Photostat reproduction from ^ . • * N C ( « o r r u k k a k v • W . 4 . X n „ , 4 - 5 D ate : . ? $ .......P g .........................* . . . C o l . l '^ . 3 1 5 P h o to sta te d ........................................................................ by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY MKn:i IS HOMILILI— So. 5. I c o 1 1 1 1 r (/ > b i x r o r» r n i 1 c * i o s ] Ho.xm.cu', March, I1 } * * '. Board and L od /in c V rn rrd . I did not expect to hnd »•> com fortable n hotel »» the American, with its large, airy, uell-fur- ni*-h*d rootn», di-tingundied by p e r io d neatncM and cleaiihno»», lU cool, com m odious veranda**, it* exrtdi^fit table, its it in Jiif front yard, car peted c. ith gra»* and adorned with shrubbery, ot c e te r a —and so I was agreeably disappointed. O ne o f our lady p*«sengers from Han Fran- cinco, who bring* high rucommendutionM, ha* purch ased a half interest in tin* hotel, and she sho » ^lie'll u deterii.innlion to earn success thnt I h e a m l\ w isli *he rnay achidvc; it—and the m ore so because she is an Amerienn. and if com m on rem uik can he depended upon the for eign elem ent here will not allow an American to Kiieeeeu if-ogood strong struggle can prevent it. .Several of us have taken rooms in a cottage in the center ol the town, and are well satisfied with our quarters. There is a grassy yard as large as I’hitt’s Hall on each of three sides of the premises; a number of great tumarind and algcralm trees tower above us, and their dense, wide-*prending foliage casts a shade that palls our verandas with a sort o f solemn twilight, even at noonday. If I were not so fond ol look ing into the rich masses of green leaves that swathe the stately tamarind right before rny door, I would idle less and write more, I tbink. The leaf of this tree is of the size and shape of that of our sickly, homely locust in the States; but the tamarind is as much more superb a tree than the locust as a beautitul while woman is more lovely than a Digger squaw who may chance to generally resemble her in shape uutf aize. The nlgeraba (my spelling is guess-work) has a gnarled and twisted trunk, as thick as a bar rel, far-reaching, crooked branches and a deli cate, feathery foliage which would be much better suited to a garden shrub than to so large a tree. We hare got some handsome mango trees' about us also, with dark green lenvesrttS'-hzflU" as a goose quill and not more than twice as broad. The trunk of ,l.hi» tree is about six inches through, and is very suaiguj. ~..a smooth. Five feet from the ground it divides into Hirco branches of cquul size, which bend out with a gr<.ooP.,i vurrc and then assume an upright posit ion. From these numerous smaller branches spout. The main branches are not ulways three in number, 1 believe; but our’s have this characteristic, at any rate. Wc pay from five to seven dollark’a week for furnished rooms, and ten dollars for board. Farther Particulars In this Connection. Mr. Laller, an American, and well spoken of, keeps a restaurant where meals can be had at all hours. So you sec that folks of both regular and eccentric habits can be accommodated in Honolulu. Washing is done chiefly by the natives; price, a dollar a dozen. If you are not watchful, though, your shirt won’t stand more than one washing, because Kanaka artists work by a most destructive method. They use only cold water— sit down by a brook, soap the garment, lay it on one rock and “ pound” it with another. This gives a shirt a handsome* fringe around its borders, but it is ruinous on buttons. If your' washerwoman knows you will not put up w ith this sort of thing* however, she will do her pounding with a bottle, orelse rub yourdotbes clean with her hands. After the garments are washed the artist spreads them on the green grass, and the flaming sun and the winds soon bleach them as white as snow. They, are then ironed on a cocoa-leaf mat spread on the ground, and the Job is finished. L cannot dis cover that anything of the nature of starch is used, Board, lodging, clean clothes, furnished room, coal oil or whale oil lamp (dingy, greasy, villainous)—next you want water, fruit, tobacco and cigars, and possibly wines and liquors—and then you are “ luted,” and ready to live in Hon olulu. .................... ______________ Water. The water is pure, sweet, cool, clear as crys tal, and comes from a spring in the mountains, and is distributed all over the town through leaden pipes. You cap find a hydrant spirting away ut the bases of three or four trees in a single yard, sometimes, so plenty and cheap £ this excellent water. Only twenty-four dollars a year supplies a whole household with a limit less quantity of it., Fruit. You must have fruit. Vou feel the want of it here. At any rate, 1 do, though I cared nothing whatever for it in San Francisco. You pay ubout twenty-five cents (“ two reals,” in the language of the country, borrowed from Mexico, where a good deal ot their siWer money comes from) a dozen lor oranges; and so delicious arc or fifteen at a sitting, however, because I despise to see anybody gormandize. Even fifteen is a little surprising to me, though, for two or three oranges in succession were about as much as I could ever relish ot home. Bananas are worth- about a bit a dozen—enough for that rather over-rated fruit. Strawberries ore plenty, and as cheap as the bananas. Those which are care- ttflly cultivated here have a far finer flavor than the California article. They are in season a good part of the year. I have a kind of a gen eral ide& that the tamarinds are rather sour this year. I had a curiosity to taste these things, and I knocked half a dozen off the tree and eat them the other day. They sharpened my teeth up like a razor, and put a “ wire edge” on them that I think likelv will t^ear off when the cnumcl.does. My judgment now is that when it comes to sublimated sourness, persimmons will have to take ’ s back seat and let the tama rinds come to the front.’ They are shaped and colored like a pea-nut, and obout three times as large, Tbe seeds inside of tbe thin ppd are cov ered with that sour, gluey substance which li experimented on, They say tamarinds make excellent preserves (and by a wise provision of Providence, they are generally placed in sugar- growing countries), and also that a few of them placed in impure water at sea will render it palatable. Mangoes and guavas are plenty. I do not like them. The limes are excellent, but not very plenty. Most of the apples brought to this market are imported trpuq Oregon. Those’ J have eaten were as good as bad turnips, but not better. They claim to raise good apples ’ and peaches on some of these islands. I have not seen any grapes, or pears or melons here. They may be out of season, bpt I keep thinking t it is dead Summer time’npw.' j Cigars. ' I The only cigars smoked here $re thoqe trifling,, insipid, tasteless, flavorless things they call “ Manilas” —ten for twenty-five cents; and it would take a thousand to be worth half the. money. After you have smoked about.thirty- five dollars worth of them in a forenoon you feel nothing but a desperate yearning to go out somewhere and take a smoke. They say high dutios and a sparse population render it un profitable to import good cigars, but I do not see why some enterprising citizen does not man. uracture them from' the native tobacco. A Kanaka gave me some t^qhu tobacco yesterday, of fino texture, pretty good flavor, and so strong** that one pipe lull of it satisfied me for Beveral hours. [This man Brown has just come in and says he has' bought g couple qF ions of Manilas to smoke to.night.J Wines and Liquors. Wines and liquoro-can be bad in abundance, but not of the very best quality. The duty on^ .ej mm uni ............ i in inniiiriTrrrr {loir .Jars a gallon, and on wines from thirty tp.silj&j cents a bottle, according to market value. And just here I would caution Californians who de-; sign visiting tkese islands against bringing wines or liquors with their baggage, lest they provqke the confiscation of the latter. They1 will be told that to uncork the bottles and take, a little ol tbe contents out will compass the dis-t abilities of the law, but they may find it danger- 1 ous to act upon such a suggestion, which is| nothing but an unworthy evasion of the law, at best. It is incumbent upon the custom officersi to open trunks and search for contraband ar ticles, and although I think the spirit of the* law means to permit foreigners to b rin g s little wine or liquor ashore for private use, I know the letter of it allows nothing of the kind. In. addition to searching a passenger’s baggage, - the Custom-bpuae officer makes him swear that', he has got nothing, contraband with him, 1 will also mention, as e matter of information, that a small sum (two dollars for each person), is exacted for permission to land baggage, ana. this goes to the support of the hospitals. j I have said that the wines and liquors sold here are not of the best quality. It could not* welt be otherwise, as-1 can show.’ There seem to be no hard, regular .drinkers in this town, or] at least very few; you perceive that the dufiep; ate high; saloon keepers pay a license of a thousand dollars a y e ar; they must close up at ten o’clock at night and not open again before daylight the qegt morning; they are not air lowed to open on. Sunday at all, These laws are vary stnet, and are rigidly obeyed, Witter A«ai«. ' I must come back to water again, though I 1 thought I had exhausted the subject. As no ice is kept here, and as tbe notion that snow is| brought to Honolulu from tbe prodigious mount tains on the island of Hawaii is a happy fiction] of some imaginative writer, the water used fo r 1 drinking is usually kept oool by putting it in, “ monkey-* ” nml placing those anim als in open window.**, w here the breeze.-, of heaven may blow upon them. “ .Monkeys ” are slender-necked, large.bodied, gourd--hap<*d c a rth cru w arc ves- **:l**, inui>iiI*i<rtur * * < I in ( ie n n n t n , und are pop- ul *rly supposed io keep w ater very cool und fre-h, but I cannot indnr-e that supposition. If a wet blanket were w nipped arnunn tne m onkey, I mink* the evaporation would cool »he w ater w ithin, but nobody K*-(*in-i to co n-idcr it w orth w h i b - t o g o t o that trouble, und I include m y self am o ng this num ber. Ice is w orth u hu ndred dollars u ton in San Francisco, und five or six h u n d red here, and if the steam er continues to run, u profitable trade tnnv possibly be driven in the article hereafter. It iloes not pay to bring it trom Sitka in sailing vessel-*,^though. J t haj* been tried. It proved P h o to s ta t re p ro d u c tio n from O LI»*A*v O C l . C ! A l ^il f > J L t j J h 3 UjLxx-dw D ate ! f? . P g ...... ? Col..5 .."?. P h o to sta te d ........................................................................ by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 316 (Cc't'h a im iT inou'T T inT d e m o ra liz in g c a rg o , t o o ; lo r th e Huilor.i rlra n k tin; m e lte d fre ig h t a n d g o t so h ig h -to n e d * lin t th e y re fu se d ev<T a fte rw a rd s to g o to s e a u n le ss th e C a p ta in s w o u ld g u a r a n te e th e m ic e -w a te r on th e v o y ag e . J iro w n g o t th e against it. Etiquette. If you get into conversation with a stranger ib Honolulu, and experience that natural desire to know what sort of ground you are treading on by finding out what manner of man your stranger is, strike out boldly and address him as “ Captain." Watch him narrowly, and'if you see by his countenance that you are on the wrong tack, ask him where he preaches. It is a safe bet that he is cither a niis-ionary or cap tain of a whaler. I am now personally ac quainted with seventy-two captains and ninety- six missionaries. The captains and ministers. form one-half of the population: the third fourth is composed of common Kanakas and mercantile foreigners and their families, and the final fourth is made up of high officers of the Hawaiian Government. And there are just about cats enough for three apiece all around. A solemn stranger met me in the suburbs yesterday, and said: i m j m .............. , ■ the stone church yonder, no doubt V “ No, I don’t. I’m not a preacher.” “ Really, I beg your pardon, Captain. I trust you na<l a good- season. How much oil-— '* “ Oil? W hy, what do you take me for ? I’m not a whaler. “ Ob, I beg a thousand pardons, your Excel lency. Major General in tne household troops, no doubtV Minister of tbe Interior likely? Secretary of W ar ? First Gentleman of the Bed- cbumber ? Commissioner of the’ Royal ’• ’ “ Stuff! man. I’m no official. I’m not con nected in any woy with the Government.” “ Bless my life! Then, who the mischiefjire you? what tbe mischief arc you? and how the mischief did you get here, and where in thunder did you come from ?” “ I ’m only a private personage—an unassum ing stranger—lately arrived from America.” “ No? Not a missionary ! not a w haler! not a member of his Majesty’s Government! not even Secretary of the N a ^ ! Ah, Heaven! it. is too blissful to be true; alas, I do but dream. And yet tbat noble, honest countenance—those oblique, ingenuous eyes—that massive head, incupabte of—of—anything; your band; give me your band, bright waif. Excuse these tears. For sixteen weary years I have yearned for a moment like tbis, and ” - - Here his teelings were too much for him, and bev swooned away. I pitied this poor creature from the bottom of nif heart. I was deeply! moved. 1 shed a few tears on him aqd kissed him for his mother. I then took what small change he had and “ shoved.” M ark Twain. P h otostat reproduction from • * * I C H O F T L i b r a p v ^ *AtcmoFr li< V j A A - « - d Y \ D ate ......).$$£.... P g ...5 Col. . 3 . Photostated .................................................................. by | U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A L I B R A R Y I SCENES' IN H O N O LU LU — No. 6. [ c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o p t h e u n i o n . ] H onolulu, March, 1866. , Coming Home from Prison. I am probably the most sensitive man in the kingdom of Hawaii to-night—especially about sitting down in the presence of my betters. 1 ; have ridden fifteen or twenty,miles on horse- j back since 5 P. m., and to tell the honest truth, ; I have a delicacy about sitting down at all. I am one of the poorest horsemen in the world, and I never mount a horse without experienc ing a sort of dread .that I may be setting out on. that last mysterious journey which all of us must take sooner or later, and I never come back . in safety from a' horseback trip without think ing of my latter end for two or three days after ward. l'his same old regular devotional senti ment began just as soon as I sat down here five minutes ago. An excursion to Diamond Head and the King’s Cocoanut Grove was planned to-day—time, 4:30 p. m.—tbe party to consist of half a dozen gen tlemen ana three ladies. They all started at the appointed hour except myself. I was at the Government Prison, and got so interested in its examination that I did not notice how quickly, the time was passing. Somebody, remarked; that it was twenty minutes p a stfi^ o’clock, and; that woke me up. It was a fortunate' circum stance that Captain Phillips was there "with bis “ turn-out,” as he calls a top-buggy that Cap-„ tain Cook brought here, in 1778,'and ahorse that was here when Captain Cook came. Cap tain Phillips takes a just pride in his driying and in the speed of his horse, and to h is; passion for displaying them I owe it that we; were ,only sixteen^ minutes coming from thej prison t,o the-Amencan Hotel—a distance which! has been estimated to be over half a mile. But; it took some awful driving. Tbe Captain’s whip; came down fast,; and the blows started so much dust out o f the horse’shide that during the last half of the journey we" rofle through an impen etrable fog, and ran by a pocket compass in the hands of Captain Fish, a whaler Captain of twenty-six years experience, who .sat there through that perilous voyage as self-possessed as if fie had been on the euchre-deck of his own; ship, and calmly said, “-Port your helm—port,” from time to time, and “ Hold her a little free— 1 steady—so-e,” and “ Luff—hard down to star-| board I” «and never once lost his presence of mind or betrayed the least anxiety bv voice or manner. When we came to anchor at last, and, Captain Phillips looked at bis watch and" said, “ Sixteen minutes—I told you it was in her! that’s over three miles an hour 1 ” I could see he felt entitled to a compliment, and so I said' I had never seen lightning go like that horse. > And I neverdiad. Tbe Steal “ Oahu.” . The landlord of the American said the party had been gone nearly an hour, but that he could ■give me my choioe of several horses that could easily overtake them. I said, never mind—I, preferred a safe horse to a fast one—Iyvould like to have an excessively gentle hdrse—a horse < with ho spirit whatever—a lame one, if he h ad ' such a thing. Inside of five minutes I was mounted, and perfectly satisfied with my outfit. I had no time to label him “ This is a horse,” and so if-the public took him for a sheep I can not help it. I was satisfied, and that was the main thing. I could see that he had as many fine points as any man’s horsO, and I just hung my hat on one of them, behind the saddle, an d 1 swabbed the perspiration frOm my face and started. I named him after this island, “ Oahu” (pronounced O-waw-hoo). The first gate he came to he started in ; I bad neither whip nor spur, and so I simply argued tbe case with him. ,H e firmly resisted argument, but ulti mately yielded to insult and abuse. He backed out of that gate and steered for another one on the other side of the street. I triumphed by my former process. Within the next six hundred, vards he crossed the street fourteen times and attempted thirteen gates, and in the meantime the tropical sun was beating down and threatening to cave the top of my head in, and I was literally dripping with perspiration and profanity. (I am only human and I was sorely.aggravated. I-shall behave better next time.) He quit the gate business after that and went along peaceably enough, but absorbed in meditation. I noticed this latter circum stance, and it soon began to fill me with the gravest apprehension. I said to myself, this malignant brute is planning- some new outrage, some fresh deviltry or o(her—no horse ever, thought over a subject so profoundly as this one is doing just for nothing. The more this thing preyed upon my mind the more uneasy 1 became, until at last the suspense became -un bearable and I dismounted to see if there was anything wild in his eye—for 1 had heard that tbe eye of this noblest of our domestic animals is very expressive. I cannot describe what a load of anxiety was lifted trom my mind wbep I found that he was only asleep. I woke him up and started him into a faster walk, and then the inborn villainy ol hi3 nature came out again. He tried to climb over a stone wall, five or six feet high. I saw that I must apply force to this horse, and that I might as well begin first as la s t.' I plucked a stout switch from a tamarind tree, and the moment he saw it, he gave in. He broke into a convulsive sort of a canter, which had three short steps in it and one long one, and reminded rnc alternately of tbe clattering shake of the great earthquake, and the sweep ing plunging of the Ajax iu a storm. Out of Prison, bat In ibe Slocks. 'And now it occurs to me that there can be no fitter occasion than the present to pronounce a fervent curse upon the man who invented the American saddle. There is no seat to speak of about it—one might as well sit in u shovel—and the stirrups are nothing but an ornamental nui sance. If I were to write down here all the abuse I expended on those stirrups, it would make a large book, even without pictures. Sometimes I got one loot so far through, that the stirrup partook of the nature of an anklet; sometimes both feet were through, and I wag a u u u i n o i s e s itu u n c u .» n u c u r e 1 7 HU CSS. This is a good ,tifhe to drop m a paragraph ofj information. ' There is no regular livery stable; in Honolulu, dr, indeed, in any part of tbe king-( dom of Hawaii; therefore, unless you pre ac-i quainted with wealthy residents‘ ■'(who all have good horses), you must hire animals of the vilest description from the Kanakas.- Apy horse you hire, even thdugh it be from a white man, is not often of much account, because it w ill' be brought in for you‘from some ranch, and has n ecessary been leading a hard life. If the Kanakas who have been caring .fo r■ . him (in- veterate riders they are) have not ridded him half! to death every day themselves, you can depend I upon it they have been doing the same thing byj proxy, bv clandestinely hiring him out; At; least, so 1 am informed. The result is, that no horse has a i chance to eat, drink, rest, recuper-l ate, or look welljpr feel well,'and" so strangers) go about the islands mounted as I was to-day. In hiring a horse from a Kanaka, you must have all your eyes about you, because you' can re st• satisfied that y o u 'a re dealing with as shrewd a rascal as ever patronized a peniten tiary. You may leave your door open and j our trunk unlocked as long as you please, and , e will not meddle with your property*; he h a s 1 no important vices and no inclination to com- 1 mit robbery on a large scale; but if he c an ! get ahead of you in the horse business, he will take a genuine-delight in doing it. This, trait is characteristic o f horse jockeys, th e ' world over, is it not ? He will overcharge youH ifh e cSn; he will hire'you a fine-looking ho rse 1 at night (anybody’s—may be .the King’s, if tbe royal steed be in convenient view), and bring you the mate to my Oahu in tbe morning, ana contend that-it is the same animal. If you raise, a row, he will get out by saying it was not him self who made the bargain vrith you, but bis brother, “ who went o u t'in tfie country this morning.” .They have always got a “ brother” to1 *shift the responsibility upon. , A victim said to one of these fellows one d ay: • “ But I know I hired the horse of you, be-' cause I noticed that scar on your cheek.” The reply was not b a d : “ Oh, yes—yes—my brother all same—we tw ins!” , A f friend of mine, J. Smith, hired a horse yes terday, the Kanaka warranting him to be in ex cellent condition. ■ Smith had a saddle and blanket of his own, and he ordered the Kanaka to put these on the horse. The Kanaka pro- tested that he was perfectly willing to trust the gentleman with the saddle that was already on the animal, but Smith refused to use it. T h e, change, was m ade; then Smith noticed that the Kanaka had only changed the saddles, and h a d , left the original blanket on the horse; be said he forgot to change the blankets, and so, to cut the bother short, Smith mounted and rode away. The horse went’ lame a mile from town, and afterward got to cutting up sftme extraordinary" capers. .Smith got down and took off the, saddle, but the blanket stuck fast to the horse— glued to - a procession of raw sores. < The Kanaka’s mysterious conduct stood explained. Another friepd of mine bought a pretty good horse trom a native, a day or two ago, after a tolerably thorough examination of tne animal. He discovered to-day that the horse was as blind as a bat,'in onfe eye. He meant to have exam ined* that eye, and came home with a general notion that he had done it; but he remembers now that every time he made the attempt his attention was called to something else by his victimizer. One more yarn, and then I will pass to some thing else. I am informed that when Leland was here he bought a pair of very respectable- looking match horses from a native. They were in a little stable with a partition .through the middle of it—one horse in each, apartment. Leland examined one of them critically through a window .(the Kanaka’s “ brother” having gone to the country’ with the key), and" then went around the house and examined the other through a window on the other side. He said it was the neatest match he had ever seeq, and paid for the horses on the spot. Whereupon the Kanaka departed.to join bis brother in the country. The scoundrel had shamefully swin dled Leland. There was only one “ match ” horse, and he had examined his starboard 'side through one window and his port side through another! , I decline to believe this story, but I give it because it is worth something as a fanci ful illustration of a fixed ftmt— namely, that the Kanaka horse-jockey is fertile in invention and elastic in conscience*. Cconlh) P h o to stat reproduction from ^ . • * * C * C > R T U | O R A ,.^ s)fr.^.C U M 4 U ^ .............. D ate !.$ £ .....P g ...$ ....... Col..3 .."^ (conf.frtrnT^./) Honolulu Prices for Horseflesh.' You can buy a pretty good horse for forty or fifty dollars, and a good enough horse for all practical purposes for two dollars and a half. | I estimate Oahu to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-fire cents. A good deal better animal than he is was sold here day be- ’ 'fore yesterday tor a dollar and six bits, and sold again to-day for two dollars and twenty-five cents; Brown bought a handsome and lively little pony yesterday for ten dollars; and about the best common horse on the island (and he is a really good one) sold yesterday, with good Mexican saddle and bridle, for seventy dollars— a horse which is well and widely known, and greatly respected for his speed, good disposi tion and everlasting .bottom. You give your horse a little grain once a d ay; it-coines from San Francisco, and is worth about two cents a pound; and you give Him as much bay as he watfts; it is cut and brought to the market by natives, and is not very good; it is baled into long, round bundles, about the size of a large m an; one of them .is stuck by tbe middle on each end of a six-foot pole, and the Kanaka sbqulders the pole and walks about thg streets between the upright bales in search of custom ers. These hay bales, thus carried, have a gen eral resemblance to a colossal capital,!!. . These bay-bundles cost twenty-five cents] apiece, and one.will last a horse about a-day. You can get a horse for.a song, a week’s hay for another song, and you can turn your animal loose among the luxuriant glass in your neigh-! bor’s broad front yard without a song at all— ou do it at midnight, and stable the beast again efore morning.- Yon have been at no expense thus far, but when you come to buy a saddle and bridle ^hey will cost you from §20 to §35.; You can hire a horse, Saddle and bridle at from $7 to $10 a week, and the owner will take care of them at his own expense. Well, Oahu worried along over a smooth, hard road, bordered on either side by cottages; at intervals, pulu swamps at intervals, fish ponds at intervals, but through a dead level' country all the time, and no trees to hide tbe wide Pacific oceau on the right or the rugged, towering rampart of solid rock, called Diamond1 Head or Diamond Point, straight ahead. The King’s Grove, Waikiki. A mile and a half from towp, I came to a grove of tall cocoa-nut trees, with clean, branch less stems reaching straight up sixty or seventy feet and topped with a spray of green foliage sheltering piasters of cocoa-nuts—not more' pituresque than a forest of colossal ragged par asols, with bunches of magnified grapes under, them, would be. About a dozen cottages, some frame and the others of native grass, nestled sleepily in the shade here and there. The grass cabins arc. of a grayish color, are shaped much like our own cottages, only witn higher and steeper roofs usuallv, and are made of some kind of weed strongly bound together in bundles. The roofs are very thick, p.nd so-are -the walls; the latter, have square holes in them for windows.' At a , P h o to stated .................................................................... U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A L I B R A R Y little distance these cabins have a furry dppear-, ance, as if they might be made of bcar-skins. They are very cool and pleasant inside. The King’s flag was flying from the roof of one of the cottages, and His Majesty was probably within. He owns the whole concern therea bouts, and passes his time there frequently, on sultry days “ laying off.” The spot is called “ The King’s Grove.” Ruins ol an Ancient Heathen Temple. - Near by is an interesting ruin—the meager re mains of an ancient heathen temple—a place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old bygone days when the simple child of na ture, yielding momentarily to sin when sorely tempted, acknowledged his error when calm re flection had shown it to him, and came forward with noble trankness and ottered up his grand mother as an atoning sacrifice—in those oid days when the luckless sinner could keep on cleansing his ’conscience and acliievinc periodical hap piness as long as his relations held out; long, long before the missionaries braved a thousand privations to come and make them permanently miserable by telling them how beluitiful and how blissful a place heaven is, and how nearlv itn- posssiolc it is to get there; and showed the poor native how dreary a place perdition is and what unnecessarily liberal facilities there ore for goiDar to it; showed him how, in hi.s ignor ance, he h^d gone and fooled away all iiis~'kiti- folks to no purpose ; showed him’what rapture it is to work all day long for fifty c-euts to buv food for next day with, as compared with fish ing for pastime and lolling in the shade through eternal Summer, and eating of the bountv that nobody labored to provide but Nature. ’ How' sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful island aud never knew there was a hell! And it inclines right thinking man to weep rather than to laugh when he reflects how surprised thev must h.tve been when they got there. This ancient temple was built of rough blocks of, lava, and was sim- sfones could speak, what tales they could tell, what pictures tbby could describe, of fettered victims, writhing and shrieking under the knife .of dense masses of dusky fofms straining for- ward’out of the gloom, with eager and ferocious! ,faces lit up with the weird light of sacrificial; fires; of the vague background" of ghostly, trees; of the mournful .sea washing the dim; shore; of the dark pyramid of Diamond Headi standing sentinel over the dismal scene, and, the peaceful moon looking calmly down upon it through rifts in the drifting clouds! When Kamehameha (pronounced Ka-may-ba- may-ah) the Great—who was a very Napoleon in military genius and uniform success—in vaded tbis island of Oahu three-quarters of a cenury ago, and exterminated the army sent to oppose him,.and took full and final possession of the country, he searched out the dead body, of the king of Oahu, and those of the principal chiefs, and impaled their head£ upon the walls i of this temple. Those were savage times when this' oldj slaughter-house was in its prime. The king and j the.chiefs.ruled the c’ ommon berdjvith a rod ofi 318 by {iron; made them gather all the'provisions the ' masters needed; build all the houses and tem ples; Btand all the expenses, of whatever kind; take kicks and cuffs for thanks; drag out lives well flavored with misery ,• and then suffer c^atb for trifling offenses or yield up their lives on'the' sacrificial altars to purchase favors from the gods for their hard rulers. The mission aries have clothed them, educated them, broken up the tyrannous authority qf their chiefs, and given them freedom and the right to enjoy what ever the labor of their hand and brains pro duces, with equal laws for all and punishment ‘for all alike who transgress them. .Thecontrast is so strong—the wonderful benefit conferred upon this people by the missionaries is so prom inent, so palpable and so unquestionable, that the frankest compliment 1 can pay them, aijd the best, is simply to point to the condition of the Sandwich Islanders of Captain Cook’s time, I and their condition to-day. Their work speaks j for itself. i The little collection of cottages (of which I i was speaking a while ago) under the cocoanut trees is a historical point. It is the village of Waikiki (usually pronounced"Wy-kee-ky), once the Capital of the kingdom and the abode of the great Kamehameha I. In 1801, while' he lay encamped at this place with seven thousaua men, preparing to invade the island of Kaui (he had previously captured and subdued the ' seven other inhabited islands of the group, one after another), a pestilence broke out in Oahu j and-raged with great virulence. It attacked the king’s army and made great havoc in it. It is I said that three hundred bodies were washed.outi to sea in one day. . j There is an opening in the corel reef at this poiDt, and anchorgge,inside for a^small num ber' of vessels, though one accustome"d to the great Bay of San Francisco would never take this little belt of smooth water, with its border of foaming surf, to be a harbor, save for "White hall boats or something of that kind. But har bors are scarce in these islands—open roadsteads are the rule here. The harbor of Waikiki was discovered in 1786 (seven or eight years after Captain Cook’s murder) by Captains Portlock and Dixon, in the ships King George and Queen Charlotte—the first English'vessels that visited the islands 'after .that unhappy occurrence. This little bathing tub of smooth water pos sesses some further historical interest as being; the spot where the distinguished navigator^. "Vancouver, landed when he came here in 1792. In a conversation with- a gentleman to-day about the scarcity of harbors among the islands (and in all the islands of tbe South Pacific), be said the natives of Tahiti have a theory that the reason why there are harbors wherever fresh water streams empty into the sea, and none elsewhere; is that the fresh water kills the coral insect, or so disfcommodes or disgusts it that it will not build its stony wall in its vicinity, and instance what is claimed as a fact, viz, that the break in the reef is always found where the fresh water passes over it, in support of this theory. [This notable equestrian excursion will be) concluded in my next, if nothing happens.] Mark Twain. Photostat reproduction from • A N C R O F T C J» R A R V lcx^ . o a m x ix 3 i).... ........... D a te } \ . . P g ....^ ........C o l . . 319 P h o to stated ........................................................................ by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY M'ENLS IN HOMHALl—No. 7. f C O R It E S P O X II K X <; E O F T H E U N I O S . ] 11 o n o l i'll.'. M a r c h , I s-00. The Equestrian Excursion Concluded. I wandered the sea bench an my steed Ouhu around the base of the extinct crater of Lcuhi, or Diamond Head, and a quarter of a mile beyond the point I overtook the party of ladies and gentlemen and assumed my proper place—th at, is, in the rear—for the horse 1 ride always persists in remaining in the rear in spite of kicks, cu tis and cursc-e I was satisfied as long as I could keep Oahu within hailing distance of the cavalcade—L knew 1 Could accomplish nothing better even if Oahu w'crc Norfolk himself. We went on—on—on—a great deal too far, I thought, for people who were unaccustomed to riding on horseback, and who must expect to suffer on the morrow if they indulged too freely in this sort of exercise. Finally wc got to a point which wc were expecting to go around in order to strike an easy road home ; but we were too late ; it was full tide and the sea had closed in on the shore. Young Henry McFarlane said he knew a nice, comfortable route over the hill —a short cut—and the crowd dropped into his wake. Wc climbed a bill a hundred and fifty feet high, and about as straight up and down as the sideof a house, and as full of rough lava blocks as it could stic]$—not as wide, perhaps, as the broad road that leads to destruction, but nearly as dangerous to travel, and apparently leading in the same general direction. I felt for the ladies, but 1 had no time to speak any words of sympathy, by reason of my’ attention being so much occupied by Oahu. The place was so steep that at times he stood straight up on his tip-toes and clung by his forward toe-nails, with his back to the Pacific Ocean and his nose close to the moon—and thus situated we formed an equestrian picture which was as uncomfortable to me as it may have been picturesque to the spectators. You may think I was afraid, but 1 was not. I knew I could stay on him as long as his ears did not pull out. » It was a great relief to me to know that we were all safe and sound on the summit at last, because the sun was just disappearing in the waves, night was abroad in the land, candles and lamps were already twinkling in the distant town, and we gratefully reflected that Henry had saved us from having to go hack around that rocky, sandy beach. But a new trouble arose while tbe party were admiring the risiug moon and the cool, balmy night-breezc, with its odor of countless flowers, for it was discovered that we had got into a place we could not get out of—we lvere apparently surrounded by precipices— our pilot’s chart was at fault, and ne could not extricate us, and so we had the prospect before us of either spending the night in the admired night-breeze, under the admired moon, or of clambering down the way we came, in the dark. However, a Kanaka came along presently and found a first-rate road for us down an almost imperceptible decline, and the party set out on a cheerful gallop again, and Oahu struck up bis miraculous canter once more. The moon rose up, and flooded moun tain and valley and ocean with silvery light, and 1 was not sorry we had lately been in trouble, because the consciousness o f ,being safe again raised our spirits and made us more capable of enjoying the beautiful scene than we would have been otherwise. I never breathed such a soft, delicious atmosphere before, nor one freighted with such rich fragrance. A barber shop is nothing to it. A Battle-Ground Whose History Is Forgotten. Gayly laughing and talking, the party gal loped on, and with set teeth and bouncing body I clung to the pommel and cantered after. Presently we came to a place where no grass grew—a wide expanse of deep sand. They said it was an old battle-ground. All around everywhere, not three feet apart, the bleached bones of men gleamed white in the moonlight. We picked up a lot of them for mementoes. I got quite a number of arm bones and leg bones —of great chiefs, maybe, who bad fought saw- ( agely in that fearful battle in the old days, when * blood flowed like wine where we now stood— and wore the choicest of them out on Oahu afterward, trying to make him go. All sorts of bones could be found except skulls; but a citi zen said, irreverently, that there had been an unusual number of “ skull-hunters” there lately —a species of sportsmen I had never heard of before. The conversation at this point took a unique and ghastly turn. A gentleman said : “ Give me some of your bones, Miss Blank;' Fll carry them for you.” Another said: “ You haven’t got bones enough, Mrs.- Blank; here’s a good shin-bone, if you want it.” Such observations as these feli from the lips of ladies with reference to . their queer newlyr. acquired property: Jk “ Mr. Brown, will you please hold some of my bones for tbe a minute ?” And, “ Mr. Smith, you have got some of my bones; and you have got one, too, Mr. Jo n es; and you have got my spinq, Mr. Twain. Now don’t any of you gentlemen get my bones all mixed up with yours so th at you can’t tell them apart.” These remarks look very irreverent on paper, but they did'not*sound so, being used merely in a business way and with no intention of making sport of the remains. I did not think it was just right to carry off any of these bones, but we did it, anyhow. We considered that it was at least as right as it is for the Hawaiian Gov ernment and the city of Honolulu (which is the most excessively moral and religious town that can be found on the map of the world),'to per mit those remains to lie decade after decade, 'to bleach and rot in sun and wind and suffer dese cration by careless strangers and by the beasts of the field, unprotected by even a worm-fence. Call us hard names if you will, you statesmen and missionaries! but I say shame upon you, that after raising a nation from idolatry to Christianity, and from barbarism to civilization, you have not taught it the comment of respect for the dead, Your work is incomplete. j Legendary. Nothing whatever is known about this place— its story is a secret that will never Be revealed. The oldest natives make no pretense of being possessed of its history. They say these bones were here when they were 'children, j They were here whqn their grandfathers were children—but how they came here, they can} only conjecture.’ Many people believe this spot I to be an ancient battle-ground, and it is usual to eall it so ; and they beheve that tbese skeletons have lain for ages ju st where their proprietors f fell in the great hght. ’ Other people believe! that Kamehameha . I fought his first battle i here. On this point, I have heard a story,! which may have• been taken from one of the numerous books iVhich have been written con-! cerning these islands—I do not know where the i narrator got it. He said that when v Kameha-1 m eha (who was first merely a subordinate' chief on the island of Hawaii), landed here, hej brought a large army .w ith'him , and en-j camped fit Waikiki. The Oahuans marched against him, and so confident were they' ot success th at they readily’ acceded to I * demand of their priests that they should draw a line where these bones now lie ,' and take an oath'that, if forced to retreat at all, they rfould never retreat beyond this boundary. ; The priests told them that death and everlasting S uniahment would overtake any who violated ( le oath, and the march was’ resumed. Kame hameha drove, them b a c k ‘step by step; the 8 riests fought in the front rank and exhorted' iem both dv voice and inspiriting example;to. remember their oath—to die, if need be, but. .never cross the fatal line. The struggle was manfully mikintained, but at last the chief priesti fell, pierced to the heart with a spear, and the .unlucky omen fell like a blight upon the brave, 'souls at his back; with a triumphant shout the, invaderspresaed forward—the line was crossed —the offended gods deserted the despairing 1 army, and. accepting the doom their petjury : bad brought upon tnem, they broke and fled> over the plain where Honolulu stands now—up; the beautifiil Nuuanu Valley—paused a moment, hemmed in by precipitous mountains on either, hand and the frightful precipice of the P a ri1 [pronounced Polly : intelligent natives claim -that there is no r in- the Kanaka alphabet] in front, and then were driven over—a sheer plunge of six hundred feet 1 The story is pretty enough, but Mr. Jarres’ 'excellent history says the Oahaans were in- trenched-in Nuuanu V alley; that Kamehamoha ousted them, routed them, pursued them up th e ; |valley and drove them over the precipice. H e 1 makes no mention of our bone-yard at all in his I book. 4 j ( There'was a terrible pestilence here in 1804, | jwhich killed great numbers of tbe inhabitants,; and the natives hare legends o f others that 'swept tbe islands long before th at; andtbero- jfbre many persons now believe th at these bones [belonged to victims of one of these epidemics ;wko were hastily buried in a gTeat pit. It is by fax the most reasonable conjecture, because Jarves says that the weapons of the Islanders were so rode and inefficient th at their battles were not often very bloody. If this was a battle it was [astonishingly deadly, fbr in spite of the depre- idations of “ skull hunters,” we rode a consider able distance over ground so thickly strewn ;with human bones that tbe horses feet crashed [them, not occasionally, but at every step. ; Sentiment. ’ t * I Im pressed by the profound silence .and re- pose th a t rested over the beautiful landscape, and being, as usual, in the rear, I guve voice to niv thoughts. I said: “ What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn glory of the m oon! How strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand out against tbe clear sk y ! What a snowy fringe marks the bursting of the surf over the long, curved reef! How camly the dim city sleeps youder iu the plain! How soft the shadows lie upon tbe stately mountains that border the dream-haunted Alauoa Valley! What a grand pyramid of billowy clouds towers above the storied Pari! How the grim warriors of the past seem flocking in ghostly squadrons to their ancient battlefield again—how the wails of the dying well up from the ” At this point the horse called Oahu deliber ately sat down in the sand. Sat down to listen, I suppose. Never mind what he beard. I stopped apostrophising and convinced him that I was not a man to allow contempt of Court on the part of a horse. I broke the back-bone of a Chief over his rump and set out to join the cavalcade again. ( Cert) P hotostat reproduction from ✓ O B A N C R O F T U lBFtA t*> D ate .....{ $ (> ..... P g ....^....... C ol.$L“ i? 3 2 0 P h o tostated ........ by U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A L I B R A R Y ( Qo n~h •frtm 4 ./.) Very considerably fagged out we arrived in town at 9 o’clock at night, myself in the lead— for when my horse finally came to understand that he was homeward bound and hadn’t far_ to go, he threw liis legs wildly out before and behind him, depressed his head and laid his ears back, and flew by the admiring company like a tele gram. In five minutes he was far away ahead of everybody. We stopped in front of a private residence— Brown and I did—to wait for the rest and see that none were last. I soon saw that I had at tracted the attention of a comely young girl, and 1 felt duly flattered. Perhaps, thought I, she admires my horsemanship—and I made a savage jerk at the bridle and said, “ H o ! will you ! ” to show how fierce and unmanageable the beast was—though, to say truly, he was leaning up against a hitching-post peaceably enough at the time. I stirred Oahu up and moved him about, and went up the street a short distance to look for the part}', and “ loped ” gallantly back again, all the while making a pretense of being unconscious that I was an ob ject of interest. 1 then addressed a few “ peart ” remarks to Brown, to give the young lady a chance to admire my style of conversa tion, and was gratified to see her step up and wbisper to Brown and glance furtively at me at the same time. ’ I could see that her gentle face1 bore an expression of tbe most kindly and ear-1 nest solicitude, and 1 was shocked and angered to hear Brown burst into a fit of brutal laugh ter. As soon as we started home, I asked, with a’ fair show of indifference, what she had been saying. Brown laughed again and said: “ She thought from the slouchy way you rode and the way you drawled out your words, that you was drunk !i She said, ‘ Why don’t you take the poor creature home, Mr. Brown? It makes me nervou« to see him galloping that horse and just hanging on that way, and he so drunk.’ ” I laughed very loudly at the joke, but it was a sort of hollow, sepulchral laugh, after all. And then I took it out of Oahu. An Old Acquaintance. I have found an old acquaintance here—Rev. Franklin S. Rising, of the Episcopal ministry, who has had- charge of a church in Virginia,, Nevada, for several years, and who is well known in Sacramento and Sah Francisco. He sprained his knee in September last, and is here for his health. He thinks he has made no prog ress worth mentioning towards regaining it, but I think differently. He can ride on horseback, and is able to walk a few steps without his crutches—things he could not do a week ago. 1 “ While W e Were Marchtog Through Georgia!” The popular-sohg nuisance follows us here., In San Francisco it used to be “ Just Before the' Battle Mother,” every night and all night long. Then it was “ When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” After that it was “ Wearin’ j of the Green.” And last and most dreadful of all, came that calamity of “ When We Were Marching Through Georgia.” It was the last thing I heard when the ship sailed, and it grat ified me to think I should hear it'n o more for months. And now, here at dead .of night, at the very outpost and fag-end of the world, on a little rock in the middle of a limitless ocean, a * pack of dark-skinned savages are tramping! down the street singing it with a vim and* an! energy that make my hair rise!— singing it*.in their own barbarous tongue 1 They have got the tune to perfection— otherwise I never would have suspected that “ Waikiki lantani o e Kaa hooly hooly wawhoo ” means “ When We Were Marching Through! Georgia.” If it would have been all the same to General Sherman, I wish he had gone around! by the wav of the Gulf of Mexico, instead of; marching through Georgia. Ma m T w a i n . P h o to s ta t re p ro d u c tio n from r~ > » a « c ^ o p t u i« x a * v O 0 CA ... 1 1 ; , „ . t S t . f c . p g . . 3 c o i . i.^ , 321 P h o to sta te d ........................................................................ by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY .BOENp p H O N O L ULU— N O . 8. : [ COB >■» rOHD BIT 0 »;Of *HI tJHIO*,], Hohoi.t t i.t j (S. I.), j^pril, 1806. , • oir. . Mounted on my noble steed Hawaii (pro* nounced Hah-wy-ye—stresson second syllable), a beast that cost thirteen dollars end is able to go hiB mile in three—with a bit of .margin to it —I. departed .last Saturday week for—fdr any place that might torn up, Saturday in Honolulu. I _ Passing through the market place* we saw that feature of Honolulu under its most favora ble auspice^—that is, in the fell glory of Satur day aftefnoon, which is a festive^day with the natiVes. The native girls by twos and threes and ' parties of a dozen, and sometimes J h whole platoons And companies, went cantering up and - down the neighboring streets astride of fleet but homely horses, and with their gaudy riding habits streaming like banners behind them." Such a troop of freo and easy riders, in their natural home, which is the saddle, makes a say and - graceful and exhilarating spectacle. The -riding hqbit I speak of is Bimply a long, broad scarf, like a tavern table cloth brilliantly col ored, wrapped around the loins once, then ap parently passed up between ‘ the limbs and each end^thrown backward over the same, and float ing and flapping behind on both sides beyond the horse’s tail like 4 couple of fancy flags ; and then, with a girl that throws her ohest forward and sits up like a Major General and goes sweeping by like the wind. “ Gay?” says Brown, with a fine irony; “ oh, you can’t mean it I” The girls put on all the finery they can scare up on Saturday afternoon—fine black silk robes; flowing red ones that nearly put your eyes o u t; others as white as snow; still others that dis- 1 count th e rainbow ; and they wear their hair in nets, dud trim their jaunty hats with fresh flow ers, and encircle their duskv throats with home made necklaces of the brilliant Vermillion- tinted Vossom of the ohia / and they fill the markets and the adjacent streets with their bright presences, ami smell like thunder with .their villainous cocoanut oil. Occasionally" you ' see a heathen from the sunny ikies away down in the South Seas, with • his facp and neck tatooed till he looks like the customary unfortunate from Reese River who has been blown up in a mine. Some are tat tooed a dead blue color down to the upper lip —masked, as it were—leaving tpe Natural light yellow slnn of Micronesia unstained from thence down; some with broad marks drawn down from hair to neck, on both sides of the face, and a strip of th.e original yellow skin, two inches wide, down the centei*-rS gridiron with a spoke broken o u t: and some with the entire face dis colored with the popular' mortification tint, re lieved only by one or two thin, wavy threads of natural yellow running across the face from ear to ear, and eyes twinkling out of this darkness, from under shadowing hat-brims, like stars in the dark of the moon. Pol for Halo. Moving among the stirring crowds, you come 'to the poi merchants, squatting in the shade on their hams, in true, native fashion, and sur rounded hy purchasers. (The Sandwich Island ers always squat on. their hams, and who knows but they may be the old original “ bam sand wiches?” The thought is pregnant with inter est.) The poi looks like common flour paste,, and isJtept in large bowls formed of a species of gourd, and capable of holdings from one to three or four gallons. Poi is the chief article of food among the natives, and is-prepared from the halo or toco plant {k and I are the same in the Kanaka alphabet, and so are I and r). The1 * taro root looks like a thick, or, if you please, a corpulent sweet potato, in. shape, but is, of a j light purple color when boiled. When boiled | it answers as a passable substitute for bread. < The buck Kanakas bake it under ground, then mash it up well with a heavy^. lava pestle, mix water with it until it becomes a paste, set it aside and let.it ferment, and then it is poi—and a villainous mixture it is, almost tasteless before it ferments and too sour for a luxury afterward. But nothing in the world is more nutritiousJ When solely used, however, it produces hcridj humors, a fact which sufficiently accounts for the blithe and humorous character of the Ka nakas. a I think there must be as much of al knack in handling poi as there is in eatingj with chops'ticks. The forefinger is -thrust; into thev mess and stirred quickly found! several times ' and drawn as ^quickly out,! thickly coated, just as i f 7 it. were poul-‘ ticed; the head is thrown hack, the finger inserted in tho mouth aad the poultice stripped off and swallowed—the eye clobing gently, meopwhile, in a languid sort of ecstasy. Many a different finger goes into the same bowl many a different kind ‘ of dirt abd shade, and! quality of flavor is added to the virtues of its; contents. One tall gentleman, with nothing in' the world on but a soiled and greasy shirt,, thrust in his finger and tested the poi, shook his! head, scratched'it with 'the useful finger, made! another test, prospected among his ham, caughti something an d Jfcat it; tested the poi again,! wiped the grimy perspiration from his browi with the yniversal hand, tested again, blew his nose—“ Let’s move on,BrowD,” said I, and we moved. Awa For Sale— Ditto Fish. Around a small shanty was collected a crowd' of natives buying the awa root. It is said thatj but for the use of this root the 'destruction of the people in former times by venereal diseases1 would have been far greater than it was, and j by others it is said that this is merely a fancy.! All agree that poi will rejuvenate a man who.jp> used up and his vitality almost annihilated by hard drinking, and that in some king? of dis eases it will restore health after all medicines j have failed ; but all are not willing to allow to the ana the virtues claimed for it. The natives' m a n u f a c tu r e an intoxicating drink from it which' is fe a rfu l in its effects when persistently in d u lg e d in . It covers the body with dry, white scales, inflames the eyes, and causes premature decrepitude. Although the man betore whose establishment we stopped has to pay a Govern ment license of eight hundred dollars a year for an exclusive right to sell awa root, it is said that he makes a small fortune every twelve month ; while saloon keepers, who pay a thou sand dollars a year for. the privilege of retailing whisky, etc., only make a bare living. We found the fish market crowded; for the native is very fond of fish, and eats the article' raw. Let us'change the subject. Old-Time Saturdays. In old times here Saturday was a grand gala day indeed. All the native population of the town forsook their labors, and those of the sur, rounding cobntuy journeyed to the city. Then the white folks had to stay indoors, for every \ street was so packed ivifh charging cavaliers1 and cavalieresses that it was next to impossible! to thread one’s way through the cavaloades1 without getting crippled. In the afternoon the j natives were wont to repair to the plain, out-! side the town, and indulge in their ancient; sports and pastimes and h et away their week’s earnings on horse races. One might see two > or three thousand, some say five thousand, of these wild riders, skuirying over the plain in a ; mass in those days. And .it must have been a fine sight. ! At aight they feasted and.the girls danced the! lascivious hula hula—a dance that is said to ex-| hibit the very perfection of educated motion of I limb and arm, hand, head and body, .and. th e! exactest uniformity of movement and accuracy! of “ time.” It was performed by a circle of .girls With no rftiment on them to speak of, who went through with an infinite variety of motions and figures without prompting, and yet so tru<V was their “ time,” and in suoh perfect concett did they move that when they were placed in a straight line, hands, arms, bodies, limbs andi beads waved, swayed, gesticulated, bowed, stooped, whirled, squirmed, twisted and undu lated as if they were part and parcel of a single individual; and it was difficult to believe they wefe not moved in a body by some exquisite piece of mechanism. Of late years, however, Saturday has lost most of its quondam gala features. This weekly stampede of the natives interfered too mucnl with labor and the interests of the white folks, ! and by sticking in a law here, and preaching a 1 sermon there, ‘and by various other means, they, gradually broke it up. The demoralizing hula; fiula was forbidden to be performed, save at .night, with closed doors, in presence of few spectators, <md only by pci’missipp duly pro. cured from the authorities and the payment of ten dollars for the same. There are tew girls now-a-days able to dance this ancient national dadbe in the highest perfection of the art. The Government Prison. Cantering across the bridgo and down tbej firm, level, gleaming white coral turnpike that leads towayd the south, or the east, or the west, of the north (the points of the compass being all the same to me, inasmuch as, for good reasons, I have not had an opportunity thus far of dis-; covering whereabouts the sun rises in this' country—1 know where it sets, but I don’t know how it gets there nor which direction it comes from), wc presently arrived a fa massive coral edifice which I took for a fortress at first, but found out directly that it was the Govern ment prison. A soldier at the great gate ad mitted us without further authority than my countenance, and I suppose he thought he was paying me a handsome compliment when he did so; and so did I u n till reflected that the place was a penitentiary, However, as far as appearances want, if m ight haVebein thcking’S: J iaiace, so neat, and' dean, and white, and. so j all of the fragrance of flowers ,was the estab-j lishment, and I was satisfied!" ' \ - . . I i ■ We passed through a oommodiouw office, | whose walls were ornamented with linked ‘strands ot polished handcuffs a n d y fotters through a hall, and among the cells above and, below. The cells for tho men were eight or ten feet high, and roomy enough to accommodate , th e two prisoners and their hammocks, usually. put in each, and have spaco leit for several more.. The floors were scrubbed clean, and Were guiltless of spot or stain of « n y kind, aud (CotrT1 :) (conlfc'frenifqj) tho painfull j- White w oils; were iinmarrcd by O ' singlem ark or blemish. Through ample grat- iugs, one could see the* blue Bky and get his hair wblown off by the cool breeze.' Thoy call' this a prison—the pleasantest, quarters in Hono*- lulu. ' • ' - r There ate four words, and one- hundred dnd thirty-taro prisoners can be housed in rare and roomy coraforif within them, _ * • There were a number of native women in the female departm ents Poor devils,.they-hung, their heads under the prying eyes of our. party. .as if they were really ashamed of being there. ; ’ '-In the: condemned'cell and squatting oh the I ifloor, all swathe&in blankets: as i f it were cold] [weather, was Vbrown-faced, gray-bettrded old; .scalliwog, who, in a frolicsome mood; had mas-, sacred three women and a batch'of children—, his own property; I believe—and refledts upon that exploitw ith genuine satisfaction - to this hour, andwtll go to’ the gallows as.tranquillyj indifferent as aw hite mjm would go to dinner.; Out at the BaekDoor. ' • ' The prison-yard—that sad inclosure which, in' the prisons of my native America, is a cheerless; barren and yieldeth no vegetation save the gal-i lows-tree, with its sorrowful human fru it^ is aj very garden! The beds, bordered; by roWs of .inverted -bottles (the' nlhal style 'here),.w ere rfiiled\with all m a n n e ro f vdointy flowers and . shrubs; Chinese mulberry a n d ' orahge trees stood here and there, well stocked with fru it;' a [beautiful little pine tre e -ra re , and imported {.from the far^South Ssasr-occupied the center, 'w ith sprays ofgracefully arching green spears [springing outward like parasol tops, at m arked and^ regular intervals, up ltd slender stem, and diminishing in diameter with mathematical strictness of graduation, till the sprouting plume ' at the top stood over a perfect pyramid. {Vines ! clambered everywhere and hid from view and . clothed with beauty everything' that .might : otherwise have bften suggestive - of chains and captivity. There' was nothing here to rem ind! One of the prison save a brace of dovecotes, ’ containing several pretty birds brought h ith er: tfrom “. strange, strange lgnds beyond the sea." . These, sometimes, may pine for liberty a n d , [thdir old. free life among (he clouds' Or in the] ^shade of tho orange grpvea, or abroad.on the! [breezy ocean—but if they do,rit is. likely they I thkeatout in pining, as a general thing. ' P h o to s ta t re p ro d u c tio n from ■a n c * o p t l i « aa Q A>lAJUuJh) Uuuu *^dV \ D ate ! ^ P g ..3 . Col.. P h o to stated .................................................................... UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Captain Talt, ScripturnlSUudent. , [ Against one wall of the prison house stands, jan airy little building which does duty as ahoft- [pital. A harmless o^d lunatic,' named Captain • Tait, has hid quarters here. He has a wife and I children in the town, but he prefers the prison ' hospital, and has demanded and enjoyed its hos pitality (slip-of the pen—no joke intended) for years. He visits his family at long intervals— being free to go and come as he pleases—but he i always drifts back to the prison .again. after a 1 few days. His is a religious mania, and he pro cesses to read sixty chapters of the Bible every . day, and write them down in a book- ' Hb was i about down to chapter thirty-five - when I was introduced to him, J should jddge, as i t ’ was "nearly two in the afternoon.- ' - i ■ I said, “ W hat book are ■you’ 'reading,. Cap tain t” - - " ■ ' \ ‘ kv “ The precious of the precious'—the book of books—the Bacred Scriptures,,Sir.” -' | “ Do ydu read a good deal in it 1 ” > . “ Sixty chapters every day (with a percepti ble show of vanity, but a weary look in the eye withal)—sixty chapters every day, and w nte them all down in-a plain.- legible hand.” “ It is a good deal. At that rate, yofi must ultimately get through, and run short of mate- “ Ah, but (be Lord looks out for his own. I am in. His hands—He does with me as He wills. I often read some of. the. same chapters over again, for the<Lor/l tells me what to vead, and it is not for me to choose. Providence always shows'me the place.” . - “ No hanging fire?—I mean, can you always depend onn-on this information coming to'tim e every day, so to speak ?” • “ Always—always, sir. 1 take the sacred vol ume in my hand, in this manner, every .morn ings in a devout and prayerf ul Bpirit, and im mediately, and without any volition on iny part, my fingers insert themselves between the leaves —so - directed'■ from above (with ^ a '• » sanctified 1 glance aioft)-^ntadT know that the Lord'deaires me to. open a t that place and' begin. I neter have to select the chapter my self— 5he Lord al- ways does.it for me.” 1 heard Brown mutter, “ The old man ap pears to have a good thing, anyway—and his oi don’t cost hrm Anything, either; Provi- ence looks out for his regular sixty, the prison looks out for his hash, and his family looks out for itself. I’ve never seen any sounder maniac than hiim end I’ve been around, considerable.” 322 General George Washington. We were next introduced to General George W ashington, or, at least, to an 'aged, limping 'negro man, who called himself by that honored |name.' He was supposed to be seventy years Cold, and he/looked it. He was as crtfzy as a jloon, and sometimes, they say, he grows very ; violent. He was a Samson in a small w ay ; his arms .were corded with muscle, and his legs felt ias'hara asiif they were made of wood. He was in' e'peaceable mood at present, and strongly j manacled. They have a hard time with him oc casionally,'and softie time or other he, will get [in a lively wav and bat up the garrison of th at , prison, no qoubt; The native soldiers who guard the place are afraid of him, and be knows it, • His history is a< 6ealed book—or at least all that part of it which transpired previously to -the entry of his name as a pensioner upon the Hawaiian Government fifteen years ago. He was found carrying on at a high rate at one of itbe other islands, and it is supposed be was put [ashore there from a vessel called the Olive Branch. He has evidently been an old' sailor, land it,is thought he was one _of a party of ne- 8 roes who fitted out a ship and sailed from a ew England port some twenty years ago. He * is fond of taflcihg in his dreamy, incoherent [way, about the Blue Ridge in Virginia, and jseems familiar with Richmond and Lynchburg, I do not think h q is the old original General W. [ - . / . - A l o f t . - i ‘ ;Up stairs in the prison are the handsome [apartments used by the offlcors of the establish- jmOntj'also ft museum of quaint and curious j weapons of offense, and defense, of all nations ;and all ages of the world. > The prison is to a great extent a self-support ing institution, through the labor of the convicts farmed out to load and unload ships and work on the highways, and I am not sure but that it supports itself and pays a surplus into the public treasury besides, b u t I have no note of this, and I seldom place implicit confidence iu my memory in matters where figures and finance are concerned and have not been thought of for a fortnight. This Government Prison is in the hands of W. C. Parke, Marshal of the Kingdom,! and be haft small need to be ashamed of his management of it. Without wishing to betray too much knowledge of such matters, 1 should say that this is the model prison of the western hajfof (he world, at any rate. Mans Twain. £ Photostat reproduction from • A N C ^ O F T L I * * ' i ■ANCnUf- T D ate U l o ^ z ? - ! « ! * p g . .3 C o .,,3 - + 3 2 3 P h o to stated ......................................................................... by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 80ENES IN H0N0LULU-N0. 9. [ C O B B I S P O N D B B C I O r I B 1 UHI0J».]| H okolcxu, April, 1866. Bad Accident. 1 bare just met an estimable lady—Mrs/Cap tain Jollopson, whose husband (with her assist ance) commands the whaling bark Lucretui Wilkerson—and she said: “ C fR , I’ve never had siibh a time ot i t ! Pm cleanout of luck, I do believe. The wind’s been dead ahead with me all tins day. I t appears to me that I can’t do no way but that it comes out wrong. First, I turned out this morning and says I, ‘ Here’s a go—eight bells and no duff yet 1. I ju st know it’s going to blow great gnus for me to-day.’ And so it’s come out. Start fair, sail fair; otherwise, just the reverse. Well, I ‘hove on my dress and cleared for the market, and took the big basket, wbich 1 don’t do when. I’m alone, because I’m on the short lay when it comes to eating; but when the old man’s in port, it’s different, you know, and I go fixed when I recruit for him—never come back in ballast then, because he’s on the long lay, and it’s expensive too; you can depend on it, his leakage and^abrinkage shows up on his home bills when he goes out of port, and it’s all on account of recruiting, too—though he says it’s on account of toggery for me, which is a likely ' yarn, when I can’t even buy a Bet of new hal liards for my bonnet but he growls, and what few slops I do have I’ve got fo smuggle ’em ; and yet, bless you, if we were to s h ip ’em tin freignt on mine wouldn’t pay primage on his— but where was I ? Oh, yes—I hove on my dress and hove down toward the market, and while I was laying off and on before the Post Office, here comes a shfp-keeper round the corner three sheets in the wind and his dead-lights . stove in, and I see by the way he was bulling that if he didn’t sheer off and shorten sail he’d foul my larboard stuns’l-boom, which I had my basket on—because, you see, ne’d been among his friends having a bit of a gam, and had got about one fid too much aboard, and his judg ment had fetched away in the meantime, and so he steered bad, and was making latitude all the time when he ought to been making longitude, and here he was to wind’ard of me, but makipg so much leeway that—well, you see how it was. 1 backed off fast as I could, and sung out to him to port his helm, but it warn’t no use; he’d everything drawing and I had con siderable sternway, and be ju st struck me a little abaft the beam, and down I went, head on, and skunned my elbow!” I said, “ Bless mv life 1” And she said, “ vfell you may say it! My! 1 such a jo lt! It started everything. It’s ■ worse’n being pulled! I shouldn’t wonder if , I’d have to be hove down—” and then she spread her band alongside of her mouth and sung out, “ Susy, ahoy! to another woman, who. rounded to to wait for her, and the two fell off before the wind and sailed away together. Translation—“ Eight bells ” stands for the e osing of a jvatch—two to an hour, four hours j a watch, six watches in a day—on board shin. “ Duff” isJackT ai’s dessert—a sort of dougu, with dried apples or something of the kind in it on extra occasions. “ Cleared” for the market—A ship “ clears” for her voyage when she takes out her papers I at the Custom-house. , ' “ Short lay ” and “ long lay ” —These phrases are confined to the whaling interest. Neither the'officers nor men get any wages on a whale- ship, but receive, instead, a prooortion of all the 1 bone and oil taken; Jack usuaLy gets about the onc-bundred-and-twentieth p .rt of all the “ catch” (or profits of the voyage), for his' share, and this is called a “ -loner iay; ” the Car - J taip generally gets a tenth, twcl.th or fourteentj, which is a “ short lay,” and the other officers in < proportion. Some'Captains also have perquisites 11 isides their “ lay ” —a dollar or more on every , barrel of the catch,” over a certain number.* • The luckiest Captain of the lot made $50,000 last season. Very good for a ’ few months work. When a ship is ready to sail and must suddenly ; supply the place of some seaman who has fallen 1 sick, candidates will take advantage of the cir- I cumstances and demand as short a “ lay” as a | second mate’s to ship as the last man and cor - j plete the crew. I am informed (but I do nr j believe it), that this is termed the “ Lay of i'.e , Last Minstrel. “ .Recruit ’’—The whaling voyage -to t' North Seas occupies about seven m onths; tb ■ the vessel returns to Honolulu, tranships he oil to the States, refits and goes over to the coast of California about November or Decem ber, to put in her idle time catching hump back whales or devil-fish, returning here along in March and April to * recruit ’’—that is, pro cure vegetables, and especially potatoes, wn’ch arc a protective against scurvy, and give the (men a tew days run on shore, and then off for the i north again as .early iu the’ Spring as possible, i Those vessels which do not consider the coarst , fishing profitable, because of the “ stoving” of boats by the s-vage hump-backs and the con sequent loss of men and mateilal, go to “ west- ’ard,” as they term going down to the line after sperm whales; and when they have fin ished this “ between season,” they go over and ;“ recruit” at Japan, and from thence proceed directly north. “ Leakage and Shrinkage ” —When a whaler returns here with her cargo, the United States .Consul estimates its probable value in the East, 1 and buys the interests of the officers and menj on behalf of the owners of the ship, and pays i for the same in gold. To secure the ship-owner against loss, a bill of contingencies is brought' against poor Jack by the Consul (leakage and: shrinkage being among the items), which we- duces the profits of his long voyage about one- , half or two-thirds. For iustanpe, take the case .of the whaling bark — last year. The Con sul considered oil to be worth between one' dollar and seventy-five cents and two dollars tv gallon (iu gfeenbacks) in the States ; he put it! down at one dollar and seventy-livo cents to bo ■ on the safe side, aud then reduced as follows : First—Premium to be paid for money, and I difference between gold and paper—so much. (Jack must be paid in gold.) Second—An allowance of eight per cent, for probable leakage and shrinkage of the oil on its homeward voyage. Third—Freight on the homeware voyage- paid by Jack, . .... _ Fourth— Interest and insuranoeToh the cargo'' hence to the States-^-paid by Jack. Fifth—Commission of the owner at home (2% 1 1 per cent.1 for selling the cargo—paid by Jacx. < And a.ter all these reductions, what do you I suppose the Consul paid Jack for his one hun dred and twentieth “ lay” in a cargo of oil worth over $ 1 75 a gallon at home ? He paid him severity-four cents a gallon. As a general thing, the ship-owner at home makes a princely profit out of |h is “ gouging” of the sallor.man; but In-, stances have occurred—rarely, however—where ‘ the price set by the Consul here was so much : above the real value of the oil at home, that all the gouging was not sufficient to save the ship-' owner from loss. > “ Home Bills” —It makes no difference how much money a sailor brings into port, he is soon head over heelB in debt, in order to secure his services on a voyage, the ship is obliged to as. sume this indebtedness. The item is entered t against Jack on the ship’s books at the homo port in the East as his “ home bill.” I f the voyage proves lucky, the ship gets even on Jackr s home bill by subtracting it from his “ l a y b u t if she takes no oil she must pay the bill anyhow, and is “ out and injured/’ of course. These “ home bills” are first assumed by one of the professional “ sharks” in New Bedford and New London who furnish crews to ; ships; say Jack owes fifty dollars; the shark enters biB name for a voyage, assumes his debt, advances him a dollar oy so for a fdrqwe.ll spree, and takes bis note for $160 ; and the ship-owner agrees fo cash ft at the end of six months. Ships have left port responsible for $5,000 home bills, lost four or five men by desertion, been to great trouble and expense to supply other men, and then bad no luck and failed to catch a sin gle whale. ' * • * Slops” —Improvident Jack is apt to leave port short of jackets, trowscrs, shirts, tobacco, pipes, letter-paper, and so forth aud so on. '{be ship takes a large quantity of these things along, and supplies them to fiim extremely healthy prices, so thai sometimes, after a long, unlucky voyage, no wages and heavy home bills and bills for “ slops,” Jack will return to port very considerably in debt to the ship, and the ship (must stand the loss, for an unprofitable voyage tsquares all suoh accounts, fn squaring up a ivpyagc before the Consul, the ship-Oaptuin piles iup the slop bills as high as he can get them, (though it does not put a single cent in his own [pocket; he forgets, in his enthusiasm^ for h's (owner's interest, that while he is gouging Jack for the benefit of “ the firm,” the firm are gouging himself, and Jack too, by the sysvem of Qopsulor Assessment I have mentioned above, The CqpWin sayg tp thy Consul; ’ “ Put down three pair of boots on this man’s ; slop bill.” jack—“ But 1 didn’t have but one pair, sir.” Captain—“ Belay! Don’t talk back; you* might have had ’em if you’d a’ wanted 'em. And put him down far eleven pair of socks.” Jack—“ But 1 ondly had two pair, sir.” Captain—“ W ell, it, is that any o’ my faulty Warn’t they there for anybody that wanted ’em ? And set him down for two ream of letter paper.” Jack—“ why, 1 never writ a letter whilst I was gone, sir.’! Captain—“’Hold vour you! Do you cal’latc for me to be iv;;poii--ibie for all your dam tool- ishnussV Vou might have had four ream, if you’d wanted it. And set on ten Tier cent, lor other truck, which I don’t recodcct what it was,” A n d so J a c k is g o u g e d by th e Captain, fo r the owner’s exclusive benefit, and both are lieeced by that same owner with strict impartiality. 1 Perhaps the Captain’s “ lay” will go East to be, sold, and “ the firm” will sell at a dollar and a; half and then report to him that the market had i fallen and they only got a dollar for it. . T hus; ungrateful are they to the Captain who gouged, the seaman on his “ slops” for their Bole bene- j fit ” , “ Primage” —This term obtains inmoBt sea-1 S iorts. No man can tell now what gave it birth, or it is very ancient, and its-origin is long ago forgotten. It is a tax of five per cent, on a ■ship’s freight bills, and in old times went to her captain. In our day, however, it goes to the ship-owner witb the other freight money (al though it forms a separate item in the freight Ccon*) ( C on 't : ji'Gm bill), or is turned over to the agenfw hopro cured a cargo for a vessel, as bis commission. When you engage for the shipment of a lot of freight, you make no mention of this five per cent, primage, but you perfectly understand that it will be added, and you must pay i t ; therefore/when you are ostensibly shipping at twenty cents, you are really shipping at twenty- one. “ Laying off and on” —A sailor phrase, suffi ciently well understood by landsmen to need no explanation. “ Ship-keeper” —A man who stands guard on a whaler and takes care of the ship when, the boats and the crew are off after whales* “ Balling” —A (term usually applied to the chafing of vessels together when riding at an chor in havbors subject to chopping swells. Some whalers say that one reason wbv they! avoid San Francis<# is that this “ bulling ” > process in our Bay is more damaging to their, vessels, frequently, than a long voyage. ; “ Gam” —The whaleman’s phrase for gossip —very common here. i “ Fid” — The whaleman’s term for our: “ smile” —drink. A fid is an instrument which’ the sailor uses when he splices the main brace on boord ship. “ Fetched away” —A nautical phrpse signify-, ing to break loose from fastenings m a storm— such as the fetching away of furnitnbe,‘ rigging, I etc. 1 “ Stunned” —After examining various authors I have discovered that this is a provincial dis-j tortion of our word “ skinned.” “ Pulled” —A term signifying the arraigning of a ship's officers before the Courts by the crew to answer for alleged cruelties practiced upon them on the high seas—such as the “ pull-; ing” of captains and mates by the crews oi the Mercury, the White Swallow, the Great Repub lic, etc., in the San Francisco Courts. Here is another reason why, out of the eighty-seven American whaleships that will fish in the North seas this Summer, only about sixteen will ven ture to touch at San Francisco either going or coming: they find it safer and cheaper to ren P h o to stat reproduction from V » A N C S O F T « _ ! • « ' V * j (VCA (VAjLki-o-^g D ate Pg.. . 3 .........C o l . . . 3 . ~ ^ " P h o to stated ......................................................................... by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 324 dezvous and procure supplies here, and save; 4,200 miles extra sailing, than to start from, and return to. San Francisco and run the chance of getting “ pulled.” Honolulu would not amount to anything at all without ber whaling trade, and so Jack cannot “ pull” his Captain here— no matter what bis grievance was, he could not easily get it before these Courts; the lawyer who ventured to take his case would stand a fair chance of being run out of town by the enraged 'community. But the whaler-man says; “ Sou drop into Frisco and great Neptune! your men ,’11 pull you before you get your anchor down— and there you are for three months, on ex penses, waiting on them Courts; and they’ll go in and swear to the infernalest pack of lie3, and the jury ’1 1 believe every word of it, and the Judge 1 1 read you a sermon that '11 take the hair off your head, and then he’ll take and jam you into a jail. Ob n o ; it don’t pay a whale- ship to stop at San Francisco.” “ Hove down” —In ports where there are no docks, damaged vessels sre hauled out and “ hove down ” on their sides when repairs to their bottoms are required. By this time, if you will go back and read the first paragraphs of this letter you may be able to understand them. Every .section of our western hemisphere seems' supplied with a system of technicalities, etiquette and slang, peculiar to itself. The above chapter is intended to give you a some what exaggerated idea of the technicalities of - conversation in Jlonolulu— bred from the great whaling interest which centers here, and natu rally infused into the vocabulary of the place. Your favorite California similes were bred from the technicalities of surface mining; those of Washoe come from the profound depths of the “ main lead,” and those of the HoUoIulian were born of whalebone, blubber and the traffic of the’seas. Perl aps no single individual would use more than two or three of the nautical and whaling phrases I have quoted, in any one con versation, but you might hear all of them in the course of a week, if you talked with a good many geonle. _ ....... And- etiquette varies aacording to one’s sur roundings, T “ — 5 f---------------c :“ when you “ Here’s hoping your dirt ’1 1 pan out gay.” In Washoe, when you are requested to “ put in a blu3t,” or invited to take “ your regular pison,” etiquette admonishes you to touch glasses and say, “ Here’s hoping you’ll strike it rich in tho lower level.” And in Honolulu, when your friend the whaler asks you to take a “ fid” with him, it is simple etiquette to say, “ Here’s' eighteen hundred barrels, old sa lt!” But, “ Drink hearty!” is universal. That is the or thodox reply, thS world over. In San Francisco sometimes, if you offend at man, he proposes to take bis coat off’ , and in-1 quires, “ Are you on it?” If you are, you qaqj take your coat off; too. In Virginia City, in ( former times, the insulted party, if he were a -true man, would lay his hand gently on his six-. shooter and say, “ Are you neeled?” B utiq, Honolulu, if Smith offends Jones, Jone3 asks* (with a rising inflection on the last word, which is excessiveiv aggravating), <*How much do yoq weigh?’* Smith replies, “ Sixteen hun dred and forty pound— and you?” “ Two ton to a dot, at a quarter pas', eleven this forenoon— peel yourself; you’re my blubber!” Apologetic and Explanatory* * j When I began this letter I meant to furnish | some facts and figures concerning the great P r - ; cific whaling traffic, to the end that San Fran-1 cisco might take into consideration the expe diency of making an efl'ort to divert the patron age of the fleet tq herself, if it seemed well to do so; apd chiefly I meant to try and explain why that patronage does not gravitate to that center naturally and of its own accord. True, many know the reason already, and need no ex planation, but many more do not understand it so well or know so much about it. But not being in a sufficiently serious mood to-day, I have wisely left for my next letter the discus sion of a subject of such overwhelming gravity, Mark Twain. P h o to stat reproduction from » A N C * o r r ^ .......... D ate I.S&.A Pg.....?.....Col. 3~f 325 P h o to s ta te d ................................................................... by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY ! SC JEN IS IN H0N0LULU-N0. 10.' [COBBESfOKDEKCE 07 THE UNION.] Honolulu, April, 1866. Tito Whaling Trade. - The whaling trade of the North Seas—which is by no means insignificant—centers in Hono lulu. Shorn of it this town would die—its busi ness men would leave and its real estate would. become valueless, at least as city property, though Honolulu might flourish afterwards as a| fine sugar plantation, the soil being rich, and scarcely needing irrigation. The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce! might do worse than make an effort to divert the whaling trade to their city. Honolulu fits, out and provisions a majority out of ninety- six whalers this year, and receives a very re spectable amount of money for it. Last year she performed this service for only fifty-one. vessels—so you can see how the trade is incrcas-, ing. Sailors always spend all their money before ( they leave port. Last year .they spent $150,000 here, and will doubtless spend double as much when this year’s fleet returns. It is said that in the palmy days of whaling, fifteen or twenty j years ago, they have squandered as high as a, million and a half in this port at the end of a successful voyage. There have been vast fleets of; whaleships fitted out here and provisioned and' recruited in a single year, in those days, and ev-i ery thing promises that the whalint: interest will | now move steadily forward, under the impetus of the long continued high rates.of oil and bone,) until it eclipses in importance any degree it has ever attained in former times. In chartering vessels to carry home the “ catch” of whalers; > in equiping them, and supplying and recruiting! them ; and in relieving their crews of their, money at the end df the season, San Francisco j might manage to get several hundred thousands a year out of the whaling trade if she could get, it intp her hands, or a million or so, should whaling again reach its former high prosperity. It costs from $1,000 all the way up to $20,000 to provision and fit a whaler here for her voyage' to the North Seas, including paying off crew, i and taking them “ by and large,” the average is j about $6,000 to. each vessel. Of the ninety-six ships which go north from here this season, only 1 forty-nine will fit here—the other forty-seven, ( being the increase in tonnage and on their first | voyage, were equipped at home. The homei equipment is generally for two full seasons—so j .Honolulu will not get the job of supplying these new ships for a couple or years yet; but after j that she will have foeir whole custom, unless, j perhaps, San-Francisco can make a satisfactory bid for the whaling trade in the meantime. There have been over four hundred whalers | in the North Seas at one time in the palmy days t of the trade, two-thirds of which were supplied I in this market, and paid Honolulu over a million j for doing it, even at the moderate prices of; those days. j Concerning Oil and Bone. Oil is valuable, but whalebone is more so. ■ Sperm whales are chiefly caught at the “ line,” or “ west’ard,” as they term it. They do notj yield any bone, but the oil is worth from 75 to, 100 per cent, more than any other at the present | time. y ' ' Humpbacks and devil-fish are caught on thel coast of California, “ between seasons.” The’ yield is called “ coast oil.” They yield no bone.1 Ochotsk whales yield about twenty per cent, less bone than the Arctic whale, and it is worth four to five cents a pound less than Arctic. The “ catch” is a term which signifies the fruits of a voyage. The average catch for three years past of ships sailing out of this port, was about 6 5 0 barreis of oil a year to each vessel, and 8,000 pounds of bone. Consular Prices. The Consular prices at which crews of whalers . were paid oil’ here in the Fall of 1865 were as follows: Whale oil, 64 cents a gallon; coast I , oil, 60; sperm oil, 92. Ochotsk bone, 74 cents a pound; Arctic, 78— in gold. These prices were nqt one-half what the articles were worth in the Eastern markets—in currency. Past and Present. . j The “ palmy days of whaling” —the phrase! which one hears here as often as he hears ini California of matters which transpired “j n an early day” there, or in Washoe of “ the flush times of ’63” —refers to a period some fifteen' years gone by. But the “ palmy days,” in a modified form, lasted clear up1 to 1853. Let me give a few figures: The fleet brought to this port in 1853— oil, 4,000,000 gallons; bone, 2,020,264 pounds. Then for several years the > yield gradually fell away, till in 1838 the flgures w ere: Oil, considerable under 8,000,000 gallons; ■ bone, 1,614,710 pounds. Five years after, in 1863, in the midst of the war, the'catch had fallen away down to : Oil, 732,031 gallons; bone, 837,043 pounds. , Still lower in 1864: Oil, 642,-' 362 gallons j bone, 339,331 pounds. But in ' 1865, in spite of the .pirate Shenandoah, the j trade almost held its own; it had “ struck bot tom,” as we say in Washoe, and was ready to' start up again. The yield was: Oil, 621,434 ; gallons; bone, 337,894 pounds. These last figr.-es ^vere for sixty-seven ships, all told—fifty-one of which went from here. We may look for better results this season, with ninety-six vessels in the fleet; and next year the “ palmy days” may come again, for everything that can be turned into a whale ship by any process known to art is being bought up or chartered in the East now for this trade, and in due time the icy solitudes of the North Seas will once more hecoiqe populous with the , winged servants of commerce. I What Commands the Whaler Patronage. - I bave talked whaler talk and read whaling statistics and asked questions about the whaling interest every now and then for two or three weeks, and have discovered that it w as! easy to get plausible information concerning' . every point connected with this commerce save; . one, and that w as: Why is it that this remote port, in a foreign country, is made the rendez vous of the whaling fleet, instead of the seem-) ingly more eligible one of San Francisco, on our 'own soil? This was a “ stunner.” Most peo- I pie would venture a chance shot at one portion of the mystery, but nobody was willing to at- j tempt its entire solution. The truth.seem s to be that there is no main, central, prominent rea-" son for U, but it is made up of a considerable bundle or reasons, neither of whioh is especially important when taken byatself. San Francisco vs. Honolulu. 1. See how the case stands: In Honolulu it is not a holiday job to ship a crew ; natives ! comprise it chiefly, and the Government frowns; / upon their employment as sailors, because it' causes the agricultural interests to suffer -for want of labor, and you see the plantations build up the whole kingdom, while the whaling trade: only builds up Honolulu and one or two smaller seaports. So the Government first made the whalers enter into bonds of $100 for each m an; that, is, to insure the return of that man to the kingdom; the bond was increased, until now it is $800, and shipping taxes of various kinds have been instituted, which amount altogether, to about $600 for each man, .which must be paid [ In gold to the Government when the man sh ip s.1 Ships usually go out jjqder bonds of $3,000 toj . $10,000 for the return of their crews, The ]>ond | I system, which was intended to keep the Ka nakas all at home, don’t work; the, whalers' still are obliged to take natives or go without > crews. So, urged* by the agricultural interest, • an attempt will be made in the Legislature, which convenes two weeks hence, to pass a bill entirely forbidding the shipping of natives, If this is accomplished it wtll give San Francisco one gqpd chance to get the whaling patronage; and it is a better and more permanent and safer thing to have than rich but ephemeral mines. In tavor of Saq Francisco, it is acknowledged that as soon as it became the established whal ing rendezvous, whaling crews would repair to j it, and men could be shipped at small expense and without bonds. ; 2. It is twenty-one hundred miles from San ) Francisco to Honolulu—so that these w halers,, by coming here; do four thousand two hundred ' miles more sailing than they need to do, an d 1 waste about a month and a half of time in doing it. — 3. They cannot insure directly, here. The policies must go all the way to the East, a n d , then maybe the insurance office may approve: them and maybe it may reject them, and per chance the ship may be lost in the meantime. In San Francisco insurance could bo directly, effected. 4. Here the whole whaling fleet, nearly, is 'paid oft at once, and in gold, and of course ex change goes up to a high figure; started at five or six, last Fall, and went up to ten per cent, 'premium. It stands at two and a bulf even now, wbcn there is no especial call for money. In San Francisco it need never go to two apd a half at anytim e. Whalemen’s bills are the best paper in the country, being always sure' and prom pt; scarcely a single Failure to pay them is recorded. 5. Facilities for transhipment of oil eastward would be much greater m San Francisco than1 here. 0. Facilities for chartering, equipping, pro visioning and recruiting whalers would be much greater and cheaper in San Francisco than here.' 7. llcye it takes a mild eternity for a whaler or bis agent to communicate with the ship-! owner at home. , In San Francisco, y o u r steam ers, overland stages and telegraphs bring them face to face. I think I bave stated the case' fairly. In facil-1 itics for shipping crews, in economy of time and distance of travel of a voyage, in facilities fori insuring, m cheapness of money, in facilities for. transhipping cargoes, ditto ditto for chartering and equipping vessels, and ditto ditto for com-1 jmlunicating with owners, Honolulu cannot begin• I to compete with San Francisco. Then why does the whaling fleet rendezvous I in a remote port in a foreign land, instead of a j convenient one at homo ? | An Attempt at a Solution. | I have got the question answered by piece-1 [meal by many different persons, and I will jot j down th e ' several items here. They say it is j hard to get crews in San Francisco, but they I [confess that this would not be the case if th a t] (Con’ /:) Photostat reproduction from » A N C « O F T L IB R A K V ...... D ate p g .....? c o i . . 3 . r ? 326 Photostated ....................................................................... by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY (Cctr'h 'f-r’ &fri / £ / • . /) city became the established rendezvous. They say men can “ run aw ay" so easily there, and put the ship in for their “ home bills/'" etc., but that here they.can’t set off the islands. They say the ship is preyed upon by everybody, and fleeced for everything from spun yarn up to salt beef. They say their ships arc worn out by “ bulling ” in the harbor there, but the har bor is smooth and roomy here. And they say, finally (and then the old sea-dogs gnash their teeth and swear till the air turns blue around . them), that “ there’s more land-shafks (law-; yers) i n ’Frisco than there’s fiddlers in hell, I; tell you; and you’ll g e t‘pulled’ before your anchor’s down!” If there is a main, central, count in the indictment against San Francisco: that is it. A whaler can be snatched up (“ pulled” ) by his men and the land-shavk3, and hauled into Court in San Francisco with the utmost facility, but they cannot touch him here. The lawyer who took charge of a sailor’s com*, plaint against his Caotain might as well emi-' grate—he could practice no more in Honolulu. True, when a case is so flagrant that it cannot possibly be overlooked, a sort of trial is some- I times had, but it never amounts to much. j The above are the whaling Captain’s argu ments—or were, in the first place, but from their mouths they bave gone into everybody’s , else, and belong to'nobody in particular now. Then there are other arguments which you! hear oftener from other people than from the whalers themselves. For instance, several p er-: sons have explained about in this wise : In San Francisco the agent transacts the Captain’s 1 business exactly as it is done here, and th en 1 brings in a bill, item by item, for commissions. —a bill that any man can understand in a min-| ute, and itdooks expensive; but here the agent, with fine sagacity, charges no commissions—at , least they do not appear on the surface— they | are faithfully wrung into the general bill- in a J sort of “ debtor to sundries” fashion, though, and nobody notices it, and consequently nobody 1 grumbles! Another powerful argument may be stated th u s: A whaleman don’t amount to much in 1 San Francisco, but here he is the biggest frog1 in the pond. Up there the agent lets him j dance attendance until more important busi ness is attended to, and then goes out with h im ' and assists him in just such of his concerns as ! absolutely require assistance, and then leaves him to paddle his own canoe with the re-; mainder; but here the agent welcomes the old salt like a long lost brother, and makes him feel; that he is a man of consequence—and so he is, ■ and should be so treated in San Francisco; and the agent attends closely to all the whaler’s shore business, of every kind whatever, if it is desired, and thus the Captain’s stay in port is a complete holiday. A Suggestion. If I were going to advise San Franciscans as to the best strategy to employ in order to se cure the whaling trade, I would say, cripple your facilities for “ pulling” sea-japtains on every pretense that sailors can trump up, and show the whaler a little more consideration when he is in port. All other objections will die , of themselves. A Step Uade. A nucleus is already formed up there. Swift & Allen have opened a branch of their New Bedford house ip San Francisco, and their ships (they have eight at sea now) will rendezvous there hereafter. They are going to add several vessels to their fleet this season. Sixteen whalers, and possibly many more, will rendez vous at San Francisco this year. Those Cap tains* who have tried that port during the past two years are satisfied with it—all but one or two, who have been “ pulled.” M a r k T w a in . P h o to s ta t re p ro d u c tio n from S M A N C *O F' U «««A A V QJI^QlU ‘ > V * ™ D ate............................. .....V ^ . f p P g .. . 3 C o l.5 _ “ ! t g g 7 P h o to stated .......................... by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY ' ■ B O E H IB IS BOHbUilU-ItO. 11. ] [COB*S«PO»D 1H £ £ jO » TE I UBIOJT.ji H ohoutltj, April, 1866. r . P*r*fllse and the Part (Joke). I have ridden up the handsome Nuuanu Val ley ; noted the mausoleum of the departed Kings of Hawaii by the wayside; admired the neat res idences, surrounded by beautiful gardens that border the turnpike; stood, at lost, after six miles of travel, on the famous Pari—the “ di vide,” we would call it—and looked down the precipice of six or eight hundred feet, over which old Kamehameha I. drove the army of thej Song of Oahu three-quarters of a century ag o ; j and gazed upward at the sharp peak close at my j loft, springing several hundred feet above m y| head like a colossal church spire—stood th ere 1 and saw the sun go down and the little plain | below and the sea that bordered it become I shrouded in thick darkness; and then saw the| full moon rise up and touch the tops of the billows, skip over the gloomy valley and paint the upper third of the high peak as white os silver; and heard the ladies say : “ Oh, beauti ful !—and such a strong contrast 1” and'heard the gentlemen rem ark: “ By Qeorge! talk about scenery I how’s that?” I t was all very well, but the same place in daylight does not make so fine a picture as the Kalihi Valley (pronounced Kah-lee-he, stress on the second syllable). All citizens talk about the Pari : all strangers visit it the first th in g ; all scribblers write about it—but nobody talks or writes about or visits the Pari’s charming neighbor, the Kalihi Valley. 1 think it was a fortunate accident that led me to stumble into' this enchanted ground. . J Another Paradise. I For a mile or two we followed a trail tbat| branched ofi from the terminus of the turnpike | that leads past the Government prison, andj bending close around the rocky point of a- foot^l hill we found ourselves fairly in the valley, and j the panorama began to move. A fter. a while the trail took the course of a brook that came down the center of the narrowing canyon, and followed it faithfully throughout its eccentric windings. ' Oh either side the ground rose'grad ually for a short distance, and then came the mountain barriers—densely wooded precipices on the right and left, that towered hundreds of feet above us, and up which one might climb about as easily as he could climb up the side o f 1 a house. It was a novel sort of scenery, those mountain walls. Face around and look straight across at one of them, and sometimes it presented a bold, square front, with small inclination out of th e , perpendicular ; move on a little and look back, antf it was full of sharp ridges, bright with sun light, and with deep, shady clefts between; and what had before seemed a smooth bowlder, set in among the thick shrubberyon the face of the( wall, was now a bare rampart of stone that pro jected for out from the mass of green foliage,, and was as sharply defined against the sky as if it had been built of solid masonry by the hand o f man.' Ahead the mountains looked*portly-rj swollen, if you please—and were marked all, over, up and down, diagonally and crosswise,! by sharp ribs that reminded one of the fantas tic ridges which the wind builds of the drifting snow o n a plain. Sometimes these ridges were drawn all about the upper quarter of,a moun- 1 tain, checking it off in velvety green squares and diamonds and triangles, some beaming with sunlight and others softly shaded—the whole upper part of lhe mountain looking something like a vast green vail thrown over some object that had a good many edges and corners to it— then a sort of irregular “ eaves” all around, and from this the main body of the mountain swept down, with a slight outward curve,'to th a , valley below. AH over these highlands the forest' trees grew so thickly that, even close at hand,, they seemed like solid banks of foliage. These trees were principally of two kinda^-tne koa arid' the leulaui—the .one with a very light green leaf and the other with a dark green. Occasionally. there were broad alternate Belts of each extend ing diagonally from the mountain's bases to; their summits, and here ahd there, in the midst | of the dark green, were great patches of the < bright light-colored leaves, so that, to look far j down the valley, along the undulating front of i the barrier of peaks, the effect was as if the sun < were streaming down upon it through breaks1 and rifts in the clouds, ligating up belts at inter- 1 vals all along, and leaving those intervening darkehed by the shadows of .the clouds; a n a ’ yet there was not a shred of a cloud in the whole firmament! It was very soft, and; dreamy, and beautiful. And following down the two tall ridges that-walled the valley in, we saw them terminate at last in two bold,' black head-, lands that came together like a V, and across | this gate ran a narrow zone of the most brilliant light green tint (the shoal water of the distant' se a , b e tw e e n r e e f a n d shore), and beyond this the somber blue of the deeper water stretched 1 away to the horizon. The varied picture of the lights a n d shadows on the wooded mountains, the strong, dark outlines of the gate, and the, bright green water and the belt of blue beyond, was one replete with charming contrasts and beautiful effects—a revelation of fairy land it-' self. _ • The mountain stream beside us, brawling- over its rocky bed, leaped over a miniature precipice occasionally, and then reposed for a season in a limpid pool at her base, reflecting the dank and dripping vines and ferns th a t1 clung to the wall ana protruded in bunches and; festoons through breaks in the sparkling cas cade. On the gentle rising ground about us were shady groves of forest frees—the lco, the koa, the bread-fruit, the lau hala, the orange, lime, kuhui, and many others; and, handsomest of all, the ohia, with its feathery tufts of splen did vermilion-tinted blossoms, a coloring so vivid as to be almost painful to the eye. Large i tracts were covered with large hau (how)t bushes, whose sheltering foliage is so thick as] to be almost impervious to rain. It is spotted i all over with a rich yellow flower, shaped some thing like a teacup, and sometimes it is further! embellished by innumerable white bell-shaped' blossoms, that grow upon a running vine with, a name unknown to me. Here and there were | wide crops.of bushes completely overgrown and hidden beneath the glossy green leaves of an other species of vine,- arid so dense was this cov ering that it would hardly be possible for a bird to fly through it. Then there were open spaces well carpeted with grass, and sylvan avenues that wound hither and thither till they lost themselves among the trees. In one open spot a vine of the species 1 last mentioned had taken possessjpn of two tall dead stumps and.wound around and abopt them, and swung out from , their tops and twined their meeting tendrils to-’ gether into a faultless archi Map, $yifh all his art, copld not have improved its symmetry. ,| Verily, with its rank luxuriance of vines and | blossoms, its groves of forest trees, its shady nooks aud grassy lawns, its crystal brook and its wild and beautiful mountain scenery, with that charming far-off glimpse of the sea, Kalihi is the Valley of Enchantment come again 1 Sum Brannan’s Palace. j While I am on the subject of scenery, I might', as well speak of Sam Brannan’s pal ace, or ” thei Bungalow,” as it is popularly called. Years' ago it was built and handsomely furnished by i Shillaber, now of San Francisco, at a cost of( between thirty and forty thousand dollars, an d ! in the day of its glory must lJave considerably. outshone its regal neighbor, the palace of th e 1 king. It was a large mansion, with compact walls of coral; dimensions, say, 60 or 70 feet front and 80 feet depth, perhaps, including the ample verandah or portico in front; this portico was supported by six or eight tfill fluted Corinthian columns, some three feet in diarne* ter; a dozen coral steps led up to the portico from the ground, and these extended the whole length of the front; there were four rooms on the main floor, some twenty-four feet square, each, and about twenty feet high, besides a room or so of smaller dimensions. When its white paint was new, this must have been a very stately edifice. But finally it passed into Brannan’s hands—for the sum of thirty thou sand dollars (never mind the particulars of the transaction)—and it has been going to decay for the past ten years. It has arrived there now, and it is the pompletest rqin I eyey saw, ' Ope or two of the pillars have fallen, and lie like grand Theban ruins, diagonally across the wide portico; part of the roof of the portloo has caved down, and a huge gridiron of plasterless lathing droops from above and threatens th e , head of the apostrophizing sti'anger; the w in-! dows are dirty, and some of them broken; the shutters are unhinged; tho elegant doors are marred and splintered; within, the floors are strewn with debris from the shattered ceilings, weeds grow in damp mold in obscure corners; lizards peep curiously out from un suspected hiding-places and then skurry along the walls and disappear in gaping crevices; the Summer breeze sighs fitfully through the deso late chambers, aud the unforbidden sun looks .down through many a liberal vent in roof and ceiling. The spacious grounds without aro rank with weeds, and the fences are crazy with age and chronic debility. No more complete and picturesque ruin than the Bungalow exists to-day in the old viorld or ’the new. It is the most discouraged-looking pile the sun visits on its daily round, perhaps. In the sorrowful ex pression of its desertea halls, its fallen columns and its decayed magnificence, it seems to pro- «:l:ilm, in the homely phrase ot California, that it has ‘ 7 got euoqgh pic,” Thomas Jefferson John Quincy Adams, of Sag Francisco, agent for the State Agricultural So- ciety of California, and agent of pretty much gll tho other institutions of the kind ia the fworid; including~thm Pans Exhibition, Who’ has [ traveled all • over these islands1 during the past [eight months, and gathered more information, and collected more silk worms, arid flowers, and [seeds, and dorie'more work; and staid longer in people’s houses an uninvited guest, aud got more terrific hints and had a rougher time gen- [erally, on an Imperceptible income, than any [other .man the century has produced, is Sam Branrian’s trusted-agent to-put the Bungalow (in elegant repair .and draw on him .for five i thousand dollars for the purpose.. It is not pos sible for me to Bay .when the .work will be com- !me_nced jjr jr h o will _ . take the daring contract— (c & * 7 Y Y ’ /'J r - n / a /J but I am say that so small a sum as five thou-> sand dollars expended on the Bungalow would j only spoil it as an attractive ruin, without mak-i ing it amount to much as a human habitation. | Let it alone, Brannan, and give your widely j known and much discussed agent another job. ■ The King’s Palace ; Stands not far from the rhelancholy Bungalow, in the center of grounds extensive enough tol accommodate a village. The place is surrounded' by neat and substantial coral walks, but th e ; gates pertaining to them are out of repair, and so was the soldier who admitted us—or at any ■ rate his uniform was. He was' an exception, .hovjcver, for the native soldiers usually keep their uniforms in good order. ’ The palace is a large, roomy frame building, and was very well furnished once, though now some of the appurtenances have lost some of j their elegance. But the King don’t care, I sup pose, as he spends nearly all his time at his modest country residence at Waikiki. A large apartment in tne center of the building serves as the royal council chamber; the walls are hung with life-size portraits of various European monarchs, sent nither as tokens of that cousinly regard which exists between all kings, at least P h o to s ta t rep ro d u c tio n from ■ANCHOP" L: <»•***!v Q l1 1 * A V* * VAlAj D ate .£-..1 .... P g ....3....... C ol.$.~ i P h o to stated ........................................................................ by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY on paper. To the right is the reception-room or ball of audience, and to the left are the library' and a sort of ante-room or private audience! chamber. In one of these are life-size portraits. of old Kamehameha the Great and one or tw o 1 Queens and Princes. The old war-horse had a ' dork brown, broad and beardless face, with; native intelligence apparent in it, and some* thing of a crafty expression about the eve;; hair "white with age and cropped sho rt; in the, picture he is clad in a white sbirt, long red vest and with the famous feather war-cloak over all. We were permitted to examine the original cloak. It is very ample in its dimensions, and j s made entirely of the small, ■ silky, bright 'yellow feathers of the man-of-war or tropic I bird, closely woven into a strong, coarse netting of grass by a. process which prom ises shortly to become a lost, art, inasmuch as only one native, and he an old man, is left who understands it in its highest elegance. These feathers are rare and costly, because each bird has but two of them—one under each wing —and the birds are not plenty. It re iuired several generations to collect the materials and manufacture this cloak, and had the work been performed in the United States, under our fine army contract system, it would have cost the Government more millions of dollars than I cun 328 estimate without a large arithmetic and a black board. In old times, when a king put on his' : gorgeous feather war*cloak, it meant trouble; ! some other king and his subjects were going tO| 'catch it. W e were shown other war-cloaks, (made of "' yellow feathers,. ^striped and! i barred with broad - bands of rea". ones— fine specim ens'of .barbaric splendor." The broken sp e a r'-o f a.* terrible chief who flourished seven hundred'years ago, according to .th e tradition, was also brought out from ('among the sacred relics of a former age and ' displayed. It is said that this chieftain stood seven feet high without his boots (he was per manently without them), and was able to snake an enemy out of the ranks with this spear at a distance of forty to sixty, and even a hundred feet; and the spear, o f , hard, heavy, native wood, was ouce thirty feet long. The name of . this pagan hero is sounded no more from the trumpet of fame, his hones lie none know where, > l and the record of his gallant deeds is lost. But I he was a, “ brick,” we may all depend upon that. .How the wood of the weapon has managed to survive seven centuries of decay, though, is a question calculated to worry the antiquaries. But it is sunrise, now, and time tor honest j people to begin to “ turn in.” Make Twain. Photostat reproduction from r * A N C H O F l S O fc .(La D ate J . S t i s . . . . P g ..... ! ....... C o l.§ .7.(*. P h o to sta te d ........................................................................ by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 329 ^scekes nr HomTOn^Bqeiz^ [ V o i x i ■ k o x d i h o i . o i> t a * u h i ojr.'J • ■ ' w- f m l!. H onolulu, May- 2 8 , 1 8 6 6 .|*; " * . ' ‘ .r*H I hiy e been rrej^rtinglhe .Hawaiian Legfel** taro all day. -This Is iny&rat iijat'ffi tot. 1 ‘ eixpectedto be' present < m < . the 26th'of April and see the' King “ open M i Parhameht in' aU teand hear' hiaspeecb, b at I i u inM sai then and Legislatures had no charms for me. ' 1 . The Government o f the Hawaiian Kingdom is -Composed ’O f. three estates^ viz: 'T he King,' theNoblea and.the “ Commons or Representa- i tires.—The Nobles are members of the Lfcgisl^ J tore by right: of :fheir nobility—by blood,- if you ^please—and hold the position iforlife. They Ihold the right; to sit, a f any rate, though that [right is not f complete until .they are formally I commissioned as Legislators , j. by the King. IPrinoe W ilhtoi; who'is tbirty-one years of age,1 [was only so commissioned two years ago,' and as now occupying a seat in the Parliament tfpr [the first time. ' .The King’s Ministers belong \v [the Legislature byrvirtue of their • office. < For* [merly the Legislative-Assembly consisted'^Ofi* [House ©CNobJes and a House ’df'Rcpresehti- [tiveajand worked separately,‘but^nbw^bpta'^SK tates sit and .vote .together. The ’change w a$,to strengthen the hands ofr the" ’ Nobles by giving them a chance to overawe the ICommons (the fitter being able to outvote the iformer-by about three • to one), and it works -well. The handful-of Nobles' and M inister, 'being backed by the King and acting as. his mouthpieces, outweigh the common multitude on the other side of the House, and carry things pretty much their own .way. It is well enough,' for even if the--Representatives were to' assert their stren g th 'an a override the Nobles and pass slaw which did not snit the King, his Maj esty would veto the measure and that would be the end o f it, for there is no passing a bilPOver his veto. • . * : Once, when the legislative' bodies were sep arate and the Representatives did not act to suit the late King (Kamehameha IV), he took Cromwell's course—prorogued the Parliament Hnstapter and sent the members about .their • business. • W hen the present King called a . Convention,-a year or two ago,- to frame a new 'Constitution,-lie wanted a property qualification1 ;to< v o t e incorporated (universal suffrage was the : rule- before) and desired * other amendments, w h i c h the Convention refused to sanction., He ’ dismissed them at once, and fixed the Constitu tion up to suit himself, ratified i t and it is nowi the fundamental law of the land, althoughl it has never been formally ratified and, accepted by the people or the Legisla ture. He took back a good deal of power; which his predecessors bad surrendered i to the people, abolished the universal suffrage, clause ana denied N the privilege of voting to all save such as were possessed of a hundred dol lars worth of real estate or had an income of seventy-five dollars a year. And, if my. opinion were asked, I would say he did a wise thing in this last named matter. The King is invested with very great power. But he is a man of good sense and excellent education, and has an extended knowledge of business, which he acquired through long and arduous training as Minister of the Interior, tin der the lute King, and therefore he uses his vast authority wisely and well. The Capitol—An American Sovereign Snubbed. The Legislature meets in the Supreme Court* j room, an apartment whioh is larger, lighter andj better fitted and furnished than any Court-room, in San Francisco. A railing across the center! separates the legislators from the visitors. I When I got to the main entrance of the build* ing, and was about to march boldly in, I found; myself confronted by a large placard, upon, which was printed: “ No A d m itta n c e b y t h i s E n t r a n c s E x c e p t t o M b u b e b s - o f t h e L e g i s l a t u r e a n d F o r e i g n O f f i c i a l s , ” It Bhocked my republican notions somewhat, but I pocketed the insinuation that I was not 'high-toned enough to go in at the front doqr, ana went around and entered meekly at the back one. If ever I come to these islands again I will come as the Duke of San Jose, and put on as many frills as the best of them. Tbe Kiag’s Father. I found tbe Legislature to consist of half a dozen white men and some thirty or forty na-1 tives. It was a dark assemblage. The nobles! and Ministers (about a dozen of them alto gether) occupied tbe extreme left o f the hall, with David Kalakaua (the King’s Chamberlain)' and Prince William at the head. The President i of the Assembly, His Royal Highness M. K e-; kuanaoa, and the Yice President (Rhodes) sat in the pulpit, if I may so term it. i The President is the King^ a father. He is an erect, strongly built, massive featured, white- haired, swarthy old gentleman of 80 years of: age or thereabouts. He was simply but well dressed, in a blue cloth coat and white vest, and white pantaloons, without spot, dust ort blemish upon them. He bears nimself with i a calm, stately dignity, and is a man of noble | presence. He was a young man and a distin-: guisbed warrior under that terrific old fighter, j Kamehameha I, more than half a century ago, . and 1 could not help saying to myself, “ This i man, naked as the day he was born, and war-, club and spear in hand, bas charged at the head of a horde of savages against other hordes of savages far back in the past, and reveled in slaughter and carnage; has worshiped wooden images on his bended knees; lias seen hundreds of his race offered up in heathen temples as sacrifices to hideous idols, at a time when no missionary’s foot had ever pressed this soil, and he had never heard of the white man’s G od; has believed his enemv could secretly pray him to, death ; has seen the day, in his childhood, when it was a crime punisha ble by death for a man to eat with his wife, or for a plebeian to let bis shadow fall upon the King—and now look at him : an educated Chris tian; neatly and handsomely dressed; a high- minded, elegant gentleman; a traveler, in some degree, and one who has been the honored guest of royalty in Europe; a man practiced in hold ing the reins of an enlightened government and well versed in the politics of Die country •and in general, practical information. Look at him, sitting there presiding over the delibera tions of a legislative body, among whom are, white men—a grave, dignified, statesmanlike' personage, and as seemingly natural and fitted, to the place as if he had been born in it and had never been out of it in his lifetime. Lord ! how the experiences of'this old man’s strange, eventful life must shame the cheap inventions of .romance !” Kekuanaoa is not of the blood royal. He de rives his princely rank from his" wife, who was a daughter of Kamehameha the Great. Under other monarchies the male line takes prece dence of the female in.tracing genealogies, but. here the "opposite is the case—theTemale line j takes precedence.' Their reason for this is ex-j oeedingly sensible, and I recommend it to the! .aristocracy of Europe: They say, it is easy .to, know who' a man’s mother was, b,ut, etc., etc. • i A Comprehensive Slur. . . , The,mental caliber^of the legislative Assem bly is up.to. the average of such bodies the world over—and I wish it were a compliment to say it, but it is hardly so. I have seen a number jof Legislatures, and there was a comfortable mau - jority in each of thein that knew ju st about enough to come in when it rained, and that was all. Few men of first class ability can afford to let their affairs go to ruin while they fool away their time in Legislatures for months on a stretch. Few such men care ,a straw for th e , .small-beei’ distinction one is able to achieve in such a place. But your chattering, one-horse 'village lawyer likes it, and your, solemn 'ass from the cow counties, who don’t know the Constitution from the Lord’s Prayer, enjoys it, and these you will always find in the Assembly; the one gabble, gabble, gabbling threadbare platitpdes and “ give-m e-liberty-or-give-m e- death” buncombe from morning till night, and. the other asleep, with his slab-soled brogans set up like a couple of grave-stones on tbe to p , of his desk. i Among the Commons in this Legislature are a | number of Kanakas, with shrewd, intelligent ■ faces, and a “ gift of g ab’’ that is appalling, i The Nobles are able,. educated, fine-looking j men, who do not talk often, but-when they do they generally say something—a remark which will not apply to all their white associates in! the same house. - If I were not ashamed to di-l gress so often I would like to expatiate a little! upon the noticeable fact that the nobility of this! land, as a general thing, are distinguishable from the common herd by their large stature! and commanding presence, and also set forth! the theories in rogue lor accounting for it, but for the present I will pass the subject by.' ’ [ in Session— Btl 1 Ragsdale. , J i s , \ ^ 1 ^ At 11 A. v. His Royal ‘ highness th eP rlsid en t called the Hduse' to^’ ofrder.' The roll-call was ^dispensed with1 'for spifo reason'Prqthe'ir, and 'the"Chaplain, a' venerable, jooking white6m an/ offered up a' prayer m' the fiitive tongue’; and I 'm ust say rthp,V tb ijn :im o ^ ’la ^ g S ^ ^ # l& its' 'fitanerttasfvdweis’ and ‘its^ed tif e ' absfenSi iof i hissing^ sotinds/fell .very softly*-aid! imfete ally, tfro».~nis' lips. A white. .Chief' Clerk; read the i Journal of the'preceding.day’s proceedings'in 'English', andthenhanded.tbe document‘ to .Bin •Ragsdale,' a ;‘f haIT:irHite” (half white'-and- - 1 h alf | Kanaka);'Who translated and clattered: it off in Kanaka with a volubility thatjwaa calculated .to make'a slow-spokenman like^ mef distressingly, -nervous.'** * ' " . "T* ; r Bill Ragsdale stands up in-front of th e Speak- ler’s pulpit,-with his back against it, and fasfens his quick, black eye upon any member, who rises, lets him say half a dozen sentences and then interrupts him, and repeats his speech in a • loud, rapid voice," turning every Kanaka speech! into English and every English speech into Ka-t naka, with a readiness and felicity of language1 that are remarkable—waits for a'nother install-! ment of talk from the member’s lips and goes • on with his translation as before. His tongue I is in constant motion from 11 in the forenoon till four in the afternoon, and why it" does not-! wear out is the' affair of Providence,'not mine!-; There is a spice o f• deviltry in the'fellow 's na ture, jan d .it. crops out everyjnqw. apd^theh! Cconf” ) P h o to s ta t re p ro d u c tio n from A W C R O f T ! . 3 . 0* Ca. 0; ^ ^ .... | 5 > D ate J . & I l . . . P g - C ol.?- ~.k \ P h o to sta te d ........................................................................ by ' UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA L1BRARY_......... (c err 7y. fvfflep Ue is'translahhg the speeches of aldw-old t-Kanabaswho do not understand E nglis^r With-r loutdeparting fro m thespirit o f um em beF i rev jniarksj-vbe will, with apparent tmr “ '' * ’----- Idjop in a Uttlevoluntarytcantrib; rally b ith e way.'^t i'w o rj Or-,twd'that wi . Uhe>eraV«st speech' utterly ridicuIouS^HedS' .oarefal not to venture upon .such : experiments,-* ltbpugb,.with the remarks o f personspble 4 0 d £ ’tecfhim . 1 noticed when, he 'translated ,for His 'Excellency David Kalakaua, who is an accom-, t,plished English 'scholar, he'asked,'!“ ;Did Jtfans-r ilate you correctly,.your Exqellency.fVcor some* th in g tdthateffect. Theraecal., ^ ^ j ; , '. Familiar Characteristics. ;' i !, „This Legislature is like all other Legislatures. 'A .wooden-head gets up and proposes an utterly. absurd .something or other, and;, he and -halfa !do?.eh'dth*er wooden-heads discuss if with,windy tvehemence for. an hour,; the remainder of, the jhonge sitting in silent patience > 4 ^ 4 while,'and ^then a sensible man—a m a n e f w e ig h t—s; big ’gun—gets up and shows the foolishness; of. the; t matter in five sentences ; a voteistakenandthfe! {thing is tabled. Now, on one occasion, a Kan- . aka member, who paddled over here from some 'barren rock or pther_out yonder in.the ocean— 330 fsome scalliwag who wears'notHing but a paiFoJf socks and a plug hat when K e'is at-:home,:rojr possibly, iaevpn more.scantily arrayed> in:the popular maZo—got u p , and gravely gavenotjep of a bi)l to’ authorize the 'construction of~a sus- ! pennon' bridge-from Oahn^to'1 Hawaii/ a matter >of..a hundred and -fifty miles 1 H e' said th e 1 (natives,,would prefer- it -to the inter-island schooners,, and , they wouldn’t suffer, from sea- 'sickneSS on it. Up cam e4 Honorables K uand Knlaui, and Kowkow and Kiwawhoo and a lot ; of other clacking geese, and .harried and wor ried this notable internal improvement until 'some sensible person rose and choked them off by moving the previous Question. Do' hot do i an unjust thing now, and imagine Kanaka Legis- ilatures do,stupider thii^B. than (other similar bodies." -Rather blush' toSremember that once, •'when a Wisconsin Legislature had the affixing of pa penalty for. the crimd of arson "under consid- , eration,a member* got .Up. and seriouslyfsugi gested thatjvhen.a man committed-the damning crime of arson they ought-either to hang him or ’ make'him marry the girll T o.m y.m ind ,the • suspension bridge1 m an 1 Was a Solomon' com pared to this idiot. * - • j [I shall have to stop ait this point and - finish , this subject to-morrow. 1 There is a villain over, t the way, yonder, who has been playing “ Get rout of theW i Idem ess’ ’ on a'fidie ever since I sat down here to-night-^sometiines fast, some times slow, and always skipping the first note in the second bar—skipping it so uniformly! that I have got to waiting and painfully looking out for it latterly. Human nature cannot stand this sort of torture.. I wish his frmeral was to come off at half-past eleven‘ ‘o’clock to-morrow and I had nothing to do. Iyvpuld .attend it.] < , . ^ Explanatory. - ‘ I f hasbeen’six; weekh sinoe 1 touched* a pen. rln explanation and -excuse I offer the fact .that I spent th a t' time (with the exception- of one - week) on the island of Maui. I only got back yesterday. I never spent so pleasant a month before, or bade any place good-bye so regret fully. I doubt if there is a mean person there, from the homeliest man on the island (Lewers) down to the oldest (Tallant). I went to Maui! < to stay a week and remained five. I had a jolly ’ time. I would not have fooled away any of it writing letters under any, consideration what ever. It will be five or six weeks before I write again. I sail for the island of Hawaii to-mor row, and my Maui notes will not be written up until I come back. M ark Twain. Photostat reproduction from B A N C R O F T II B R A A V . ! . . f 4 . t . . P a . . . . 3 C o l . . . ^ . . ? . ^ I 3 3 1 D ate S ^ r S H ^ PS! ■ ..••fe. P g P h o to s ta te d ......................................................................... by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY .SCENES IN HONOLULU—N 0 .1 3 p | [ C O B B I B P O R D I H C I OF T H I UHIOV.J; ' | , Honolulu, May 28, 1866. Legislature Centiaued— the Solons it Wort. | The first business that was transacted to-day was the introduction of a bill to prohibit the in-,1 termarirying of old persons with young ones, < because of the non-fruitfulness of such unions. The measure was discussed, laughed over, and finally tabled. I will remark hero that I no ticed that thei/e seemed to be no regular order of business observed. , Motions, resolutions, notices, introduction and third reading of bills, ,etc., were jumbled together. This may be con venient enough for the members, but it must i necessarily be troublesome to the clerks and ‘reporters. Then a special Committee reported back fa vorably a bill to prohibit Chinamen from remov ing their male children .from tbe islands; and the report was adopted—which I thought was ■ rather hard on the Chinamen. - f • War. , Next “ the gentleman .from Kohala” offered .a resolution requesting the Minister of the In terior to bring his /hooks^ into the House and separate the “ Bishop of England's” printing account from his orhnibus of “ sundries,” and show ju st how my Lord’s account with the Gov- | ernment printing office stood. [Sensation.] , A memoer jumped up and moved to amend by requesting a general inquisition into print ing affairSj and to strike out the offensive clause , particularizing the Bishop’s bill. ' y' T hj Minister of the- Interior (an Englishman i-4Dr. Hutchinson) opposed the motion, angrily (—said it “ showed the animus of the thing the • way it-stood.” He said he was ready to pro d u c e the books, and went at once and brought i them in. ‘ L Another member moved to table, thq^niginal j motion. . s t Harris, Minister of Finance, wanted the mo-, ttion to stand unamended; he said it showed the I animus of the thing, too; said it was the old insin- • uation, emanating from outside the walls of this j House—that the'.Minister of the Interior was diverting the public funds to the support of the | Angljcan church] the ancient insinuation that he was ^recreant to his duty, etc.; said the ani mus was prominent enough in the language of tbe resolution, which denied to tbe Lora Bishop ! of Honolulu the title which all the world recog nized as his, and called him the “ Bishop of En-, gland;” said the Bishop always paid his bills; he (Harris) always paid his bills, and gave money frequently to the Anglican church; was ; a membm of i t ; would like to know of a single solitary instance where the Congregationahst member from Kohala had ever contributed one' dollar, one shilling, one infinitesimal fraction of 1 a farthing to the support of the Reformed Cath olic Church of th e Lord Bishop; but a King’s , Minister couldn’t he honest, oh n o ! ‘ and a Min ister couldn’t be a gentleman—certainly not 1 ' impossible f—oh, utterly! v - • 1 And so forth and so on, wandering further I and further from the question before the House, ’ and quacking about stuff that had no more to do • with the subject under discussion than the Dec alogue has got to do with the Declaration of In dependence.- This man was on his feet every .five minutes for an hour. One timid Commoner feebly moved the previous question once, with . a vague hope of shutting up the Minister, but he never 'got a second, and was snubbed in a moment, and “ went in bis hole,” as they say in California. ’ The original motion was finally tabled, but it made a fearful stir among the Ministers during its brief existence. It created a bitter discus sion, and showed how malignant are tbe jeal-' ousies that rankle in the breasts of the rival re ligions denominations here. The Vice President said he was sorry the m o-, tion bad been offered; that it was an insult to the Government, to the Bishop oif Honolulu, to the House, and to'all parties concerned, and it grieved him to have to pht. it to a vote. - In the debate, his Excellency Minister Harris was the champion of the Reformed Catholic Church (though, to save my soul, I could not Bee what any Church had to do—that is, openly and aboveboard— with the question before the House). He was >he champion; and without any ill feeling toward him I will yet express the .conviction that about two more such champions would bring ruin and destruction upon any cause under the sun. ' Miaftter Hurts Is six feet high, bony and rather slender, mid dle-aged ; has long, ungainly arm's; stands so stro ig h tth ath e leans .back a little;-has small] side' whiskers; from , my distance1 his 'eyes seemed blue, and his teeth looked to<r regular and too white for an honest m an; he nft* a long head tbe wrong way—that is, up and- down; and a bogus Roman nose and a great,- long, ca daverous- undertaker’s countenance, displayed upon which his ghastly attempts at humorous (expressions were as shocking as a facetious leerj on the face, of a corpse.'. He is a native of New iHam pshire,-but.is unworthy of the name of A m erican.''I think, from his.manner and lan guage to-day, that he belongs, body and soul, and boots, to,the King of-tbe Sandwich Islands .andthe “ Lord Bisjiqp of Honolulu.” _ JifrHe has no; command of language— or ideas. His oratory is all show and pretense; he makes considerable noise and a great to do, and im- prei$eijhi3>profoundeat ;incoherpncies with an oppKssire^sblemnity and ponderous - windmill gesticulations with bis flails. He raises his: hand aJoft and Jookspiercingly at the interpreter and launches'oufiinto a sort of prodigious declaata? tion,'thunders upward higher and nigber toward his,clim ax— words, words, fwftd fonrisyllable 'yords, giten'w ith a convincmg emphasis that almost inspires them with meaning, and ju st as you take a sustaining breath and “ stand by ” iqVthe crash, his poor little rocket fizzes faintly in’ the zenith and . goes out ignominiously. The sensation 'one experiences is tbe sarnie a miner feels when he puts' in a blast which he thinks will send the whole top of a mountain to the moon, and after running a quartet of a mile in ten seconda to get out of tbe way, is disgusted to J&qr it make a trifling, dull report, discharge a pipe-full of siuokja, and barely jolt half a bushel of dirt. 'After o h o o f these-incompre hensible ravings, Mr. Harris bends down and smiles a horrid smile of Belf-complacency 'in th e face of the Minister of the Interior; bends , to the other* side and continues it in the face .of 'th e Minister of^ Foreign Affairs'; -beams ; i t ' serenely- upon 'th e ad miring lobby, and finally confers.tbe.; rem nants of it-'upon' the ^unhappy interpreter— ^all of which pantomime, says as.plaiqly as words could say it: “ En ?—but wasn't it an awful [shot t ” " H a m s says the weakest ana mqsf ]n- sipid. things,, and then trips by the expression of his countenance to swindle you into the convic tio n that they are the most blighting sarcasms. Aud iu seven years I have never lost my cheerfulness and wanted to lay me down in some seeluded spot aud die, and be at rest, un til I heard him try to be funny to-day,‘ I f f had! bad a double-barreled shotgun 1 would have blown him into a million fragments. Harris deals in long paragraphs of personalities, that| would not ba permitted in any other Legists., tore. This man has'the reputation of being an “ able” m an; yet he was talking prettv much I [all the' time to-day,. and all the good sound i !sense or point there was in his vsporings could1 jhav# been boilpd down into half a page offools-j leap. /H a m s is not a.man of f^rstrglsss abilities —but that is only my opinion, you* know—n o t Harris’ .. He knows' some ‘ things,' though. Ha k^ows th at bis salary of $4,00p is little’ enough, '\ in airpohscienge '(espeoially as he gets* nothing as Acting Attorney General,'end is not allowed to engage in outside business), and be knew, enough on one occasion to voto against reduc. ing his pay to $3,000 when his single vote was, necessary to kill the proposed economy. • He is. an inveterate official barnacle, and is generally; well supplied with offices—some people say th o , Haw(ffi&4 G*>V£j:nmeni is a'wheelbarrow, and. , that Harris is the wheot.1 ............... 1 " The Legislature voted an appropriation yes-. terday to bave the photographs of its members won’t do. If I had time now I would write you a little | something about Harris. Under the olroum.l Stances, though, I feel it my duty to pass on toj something else, - i i M inister Hutchinson. { Next to His' Excellency. Mr. Harris, His Maj-1 Minister of Finance, sith His Excellency j Mi\ Hutchinson, His ^-?atv»B Minister of the. Interior—an Englishman. He baa sattdy h w r,. sandy mustache, eandy complexion is alto- gether one of the sandiest mon I over saw, so to speak; is a full, siobp’ -khoOldered, mWdle^agea lowering-hrowed, lntensc-eyed, irascible men; | and looks like he might have his little prejudices, and partialities.. He has got one good point, howevef-— he don’t talk. 1 T he Other Ministers. 1 Negr Dr. Hutchinson Bit His Excellency th e , Governor of Oahu {born in this country of Italian and American" parentage, and uousidr ered an-American) and Hi3 Excellency M. Do' Varigny, Acting Minister of Foreign Anairs—a' iiwenepman. These are merely sensible, unpre- 1 tcutiouS then—nothing particularly remarkable, about their manner or appearances If J {iriguy j were a s hopelessly bad as nis English pronuncia tion, nothing but a Special intervention of Prov-i idence could save him from perdition hereafter. T he M jllenpltjijj at Hand. ! I have found at least one startling peculiarity .about this Hawaiian Legislature. They do ndt mcusq its ©embers o f itained witlj ita;.>>W m a,pi»a u t wnMioirto me. Some people uenb. thu singular’ purity, to innate virtue^iwhile. others lesa charitable say the members are uotbffered bribes because they are such leaky vessels that they would be sure to let it o ut. ^Doubtless, in some cases one theory, ft correct^, and the other Correct in other cases. I hope‘it is somehow that way.; at any rate, I, haven? t. time to dis cuss' it. : " * ■ A ' ' - - Legislative Etlquette. M ; Legislative etiquette ft of a low.gnde every where. I believe. I find no: exceptioh-to the rule here. All hands smoke during the session, from fee Photostat reproduction from B A M C K O F T U IB B A A * OtCAfllA/ ^ X X A X a— »#V\.......... D ate .®*r!..... Pg~ ......................... C o l..£ ..?.? P g - 332 P h o to sta te d ........................................................................ by UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY (%L /vT*/»r 7%*/) the highest down to the poclc-marked messen ger. Cow county member*— or perhaps I should say taro-patch members—lay. the sides of th eir: faces on tbe desks, encircle them with theiri arms and go to sleep for a few moments at'a; time. I know, they piust put' their feet on th e 1 desks sometimes, but 1 could not caitch them at| it. I saw them eating crackers and cheese, though, and freely excused them for it, because i say that their etiquette is 'a sbade superior that of the early Washoe Legislature. “ Horse | W illiams” was a member of one of them, and I he used to always prop his vast feet upon his I desk and get behind them and q^t a raw turnip during prayer by tbe Chaplain. More Characteristics. I So much for the Legislature. I came away] and left them at the favorite occupation of such, bodies— crowding the finance officer’s estimates to ih e utmost limit. The last thing they did < was to provide a Clerk for the Sheriff of Maui, I with a salary of $1,0 0 0, which was well enough,: considering that for $ 2 ,0 0 0 a year and.some; trifling perquisites, that officer acts as Sheriff of tbe Island of Maui, Postmaster of Lahaina, Custom-house officer, Tax Collector of the Island of Lduai, and probably does a little in a general way in the missionary line, though he is better at entertaining a temporary guest, as 1 , am aware; but vou know the inevitable result^- every Sherill of every little dab of rock in this group will have to have a thousand-dollar clerk, now. . Mr. Brown Disappointed. Brown-has been keeping a sharp lookout for the King for nearly three months, now. When we came out of the Capitol we heard bis Majesty had been at the door a few minutes, before.■ Said the impetuous child of nature: " “ Blame that King, ain’t I ever ” “ Peace, son I” said I ; “ respect the sacred: name of royalty.” - A Correction.-. - Speaking of the King reminds me of some thing which ought to be said and might os w ell, be said in this paragraph. - Some people in Cal ifornia have an icUfa that the King of the Sand wich Islands is a man who spends bis time idling about the.town of Honolulu'with individuals of questionable respectability ? and drinking habit- ually and to excess. This impression is wrong. Before he ascended the throne he was “ faster” ■ than was well for him or for his good name, but, like-the hero of Aginconrt, he renounced his bad habits and discarded his Falstaifs when he became King, and since that time has con ducted himself as becomes his high position. • He attends closely to bis business, makes po display, does not go about much, and in man- ■ ners and habits is a thorough gentleman. He only appears in the streets when his affairs re-; quire it, and then he g o e s w ell m ounted or in j his carriage, and decently and properly attended. And while upon this subject I w ill remark that His Majesty's income is amply sufficient for the modest state ha indulges in. The Legislature! appropriates $16,000 a year to bis use, and his estates (called the “ Itoyal Domain” ), yield him i $20,000 a year besides)* The present palace is j to be pulled down and a new one erected. T he 1 Legislature has just made an appropriation of '$40,000 to begin the work and carry it on for the next two years. There was nothing said, about what it is ultimately to cost—wherefore I surmise that it is the design of the Government to build a palace well’worthy of the name. ' * Mark Twain. P hotostat reproduction from S A N C H O n U lA AAV J ( X D ate ...^rl M JU ^...V !?....V .^.(’.. Pg.. .3. C ol..3 ..* '3 P h o to stated ....................................................................... by . UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 333 SCEN ES IN H0N0LULU-N0. 13. C O R R E S P O N D E N C E OP T EE ONI ON.J H o n o l u l u , June 2 2 , 18G6. “ nomc Again.” I have just got back from a three weeks ■uisc on tbe island of Hawaii and an eventful ijourn of several days at the great volcano, ut of that trip I will speak hereafter. I am 10 badly used up to do it now. I only want to rite a few lines at present by the Live Yankee, orely to keep my communications open, as te soldiers say. The Late Princess. I find Hawaiian politics in a state of unusual ir on account of the death of the King's sister, er Royal Highness the Princess Victoria Kam- nalu Kaahumanu, heir presumptive to the ■own. She \fras something over twenty-seven jars old, and had never been married, although le was formally betrothed to Prince William id the marriage day appointed more than ice, but circumstances interfered and the nup- ils were never consummated. The Princess was a granddaughter of old amehameha the Conqueror, and like all of that ock, was talented. She was tbe last female jscendant of the old warrior. The care of her infancy was confided to Dr. F. Judd (afterward so honorably distin- iished in Hawaiian history). Subsequently on. John Ii was appointed her guardian by e King. She was carefully educated in the ayal Chief School, which w T as at that time pre- ied over by the earliest friends of the Havvaii- is, the American Missionaries. (It is now in e hands of the gentlemen of the Royal Ilawaii- i Church, otherwise the “ Reformed Catholic lurch,” a sort of nondescript wildcat religion iported here from England.) She became an complished pianist and vocalist, and for many iars sat at the melodcon and led the choir in e great stone church here. Prom her infancy was expected that she would one day fill the roue, and therefore great importance is attached to her acts, and they were ily observed and noted as straws cal- lated to show how the wind would be :ely to set in her ultimate official life. Conse- lentlv the strong friendship she manifested for e missionaries was regarded with jealous eye certain quarters, and frequent attempts were ide to diminish her partiality for them. The ,e Mr. Wyllic, Minister of Foreign Affairs (a tive of Scotland), once sent for Hon. Mr. Ii, d endeavored to get him to use his influence in isuading the Princess and Mrs. Bishop (a high iefess who visited' California in the Ajax cly), from further attendance upon the urch choirs. He said it was very improper d out, of character for Princesses to sing in a oir, and that such personages in England iuld- not do such a thing. The effort was litlcss, however; Victoria continued- her for- ;r course, and remained faithful to her early ends. She was urged to desert them and go er to the Reformed Catholic Church, but she sadfastly refused. iiie iTmoess was distinguished as the founder d Perpetual President of a-Benevolent as- liation called ‘‘Aha Ilui Kaahumanu” —an lanization partaking of the benevolent char ier of Freemasonry, but without its secrecy, was composed of her country women, and sup- rtcd by their subscriptions ; its membership s exceedingly numerous, and its ramifica- ns extended all over the several islands of the group. Its objects were to secure careful nursing of its members when sick, and their decent burial after death. The society always formed in procession and followed "deceased members to the grave, arrayed in a uniform composed of a white robe and a scarf, which in dicated the official rank of the wearer by its color. The Princess was possessed of immense landed estates, and formerly kept up considerable state. She rode in a fine carriage, and had her guards and sentries about her several residences, in European fashion, The natives have always been remarkable for the extravagant love and devotion they show toward their Chiefs ; it almost amounts to wor ship. When Victoria was a girl of fifteen she made an excursion through the island of Ha waii (the realm of the ancient founders of her race), with her guardian and a retinue of ser vants, and was everywhere received with a wild enthusiasm by her people. In Hilo, they came in multitudes to tho house of the rcverond mis sionary, where she was stopping, and brought with them all manner of offerings—poi, taro, bananas, pigs, fowls—anything they get hold of which was valuable in their eyes—aud many of them stinted aud starved themselves for tbe time being, no doubt, to do this honor to a Princess who could not use or carry away the hundredth part of what they lavished upon her. And for hours and even days together the peo ple thronged around tbe place and wept and chanted their distressing songs, and wailed then- agonizing w u iia ; ior joy. at the return of a loved one and sorrow at his death arc expressed in p re c is e ly the same w a y w ith this curious people. Mourning for the Dead. The Princess died on Tuesday, May 29th, and on Wednesday the* body was conveyed to the King’s palace, there to lie in state about four weeks, which is royal custom here. The cham ber is still darkened, and its walls and ceilings draped and festooned with solemn black. The corpse is attired in white satin, trinimed with lace and ruche, and reposes upon the famous yelIow;feather Atar-cloak of the'K ings of Ha waii ; a simple coronet of orange blossoms in terwoven with white feathers, adorns the head ■that was promised a regal diadem; six hahili- bearers stand upon each side, and these are sur rounded by a guard of bPnoc in command of one of the High Chiefs ;-«Lpariy of Chief women are in constant attendance, and officers of the household tiqops and of the volunteer forces are on dqty about the pajaqe; the o}d Queen Dowqger sleeps iq the chamber every night Candelabras burn day and night at the head and feet of the corpse, and shed a funereal twilight over it, and over the silent attendants and the dark and dismal symbols of woe. Every even ing a new chant, composed by some Chief woman several days before, and carefully re hearsed, is sung. All this in th» d:;aib chamber. Outside, on jhv broad verandahs and in the ample- puiacb yard, a multitude of common na tives howl and wail, and weep and ebapt the dreary funeral so.ngs of anelont Hawaii, and dance the strange dance for the dead. Num bers of these people remain there day after day and night after night, sleeping in the open air in the intervals o f their mourning ceremonies. I.am told these things. I have not seen them. The King has ordered that no foreigner shall be permitted to enter (he palace gates "before the la it night previous to the f uneral. The rea son why this order was issued is, I am told, that the performances at the palace at the time the corpse of the late King lay there jn state • 6 were criticised and pommcutod upon too freely. Thfesd performances •w'efe considerably toned down while the missionaries were in power, but under the more liberal regime of the new Re formed Catholic dispensation they fell back toward their old-time barbarous character. The gates were thrown open and everybody went iu and and heard what, may he termed the funeral orgies of the dead King.' The term is coarse, but perhaps it is a better one than a milder one would be. And then scribblers like myself wrote column after .column about the matter in th? public prints, and the subject; was discussed' ana criticised in private circles and inveighed against in the pulpits. AH this was harassing and disagreeable to the parties near est concerned, and hence the present order for bidding any bfit Ijqwaiian citizens and lenient friendsT from witnessing the cefomobios. So strong is some people’s curiosity, however, that the law has already been violated several times within the past w reek by strangers, who entered the tabooed grounds in disguise. They were discovered, however, and quietly turned out. The deceased 1 ’riucess has lain in state now for more than three weeks—yet still the nightly wailing goes on in the palace yard, and the crowds of natives who conduct it increase teafily by influx from the qtl.ov isiunds, and _bo lamcutatious grow more extravagant all the time. The missionary efforts to discourage and break up this iveird custom, inherited from the old pagan days, arc quietly rebuked in_ a little advertisement which appears over the signature of the King’s Chamberlain in the public papers to;day. wtiqieiu he invites ull natives tocomc to the palace grounds and stay there night and day and take part in the wailing for the de parted. That looks like a disposition on tho part of the authorities not only to check the progress of civilization, but to go buckwurd a little. llic Collin. Tho Legislature have appropriated $0 ,0 0 0 fn defray the funeral expenses of tho Erincess. The obsequies will take place the latter part of next week. 1 bave seen the coffin (it is not quite finished yet), and certainly it is the most e}egant piece of burial furniture I ever saw- ft la made of those twu superb species of native wood, ko and koa. The former is nearly as dork as ebony; the latter is like fine California laurel, richly grained and clouded with mahog any. Both woods have an ireu-likc hardness, and arc exceedingly close ingrain, and when highly polished and vatnisheil nothing in the shape of wood can be more orilliam, more lus trous, more beautiful. It produces a sort of ecstasy in me to look ut it, and holds inc like a mesmeric fascination. The re is nothing extra ordinary about the fashioning—the planning ;ind constructing—of this coffin, hut still it js beautiful. The wood is so splendidly burnished, and so gracefully grained and clouded. The silver tablet upon the coffin, upon which is to be inscribed tbe name and title of the de ceased, is to cost $500. I go into these minor details to show you that royal state, in' the Sand wich Islands approaches as near to its Eu ropean models as the circumstances of the case will admit. Bow Funerals of Dead Chiefs were celebrated In Old Times. If a Sandwich Islands missiobary comes across a stranger, I think he weighs him and measures him and judges him (in defiance of the injunction to “ Judge not, etc.” ) by an ideal which he has created in his own mind— P lio to st;it rep ro d u c tio n from S A N C H O F T u i u 'A » v o (X CA O U U > M l A * - H ............. Date V k p K....3........ C nl3 . ~ 5 3 5 4 IMiotostateil ................................................................................... UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 1 if that stranger falls short of that ideal in t particular, the good missionary thinks he s just that much short of_ what he ought to in order to stand a chance for salvation ; and ;h a tranquil simplicity of self-conceit, which narve'.ous to a modest man, he honestly bc- vcs that the Almighty, of a necessity, thinks ictly as he does. I violate the injunction to Ige not, also. I judge the missionary, but, tn a modesty which is entitled to some credit, reely confess that my judgment may err. iw, therefore, when I say that the Sandwich ands missionaries are pious; hard-working; rd-praying; self-sacrificing ; hospitable ; do ted to the well-being of this people and the :erests of Protestantism ; bigoted ; puritani- 1; slow; ignorant of all white human nature d natural ways of men, except the remnants of ese things that are left in their own class or ofession; old foay—fifty years behind the e ; uncharitable toward the weaknesses of the sh ; considering all shortcomings, faults and ilings in the light of crimes, and having no ercy and no forgiveness for such—when 1 say is about the missionaries, I do it with the ex- icit understanding that it is only mu estimate ' them—not that of a Higher Intelligence— > t that of eves other sinners like myself. It only my estimate, and it may fall far short of :inar a just one. Now, after the above free confession of my ■eed, 1 think I ought to be allowed to print a ord of defense of these missionaries without aving that eternal charge of “ partiality and rejudicc” launched at me that is generally ire to be discharged at any man here who ven ires—in certain quarters—to give them any •edit or offer to defend them from ill-natured ipersions. Mr. Staley, my Lord Bishop of Honolulu— ho was built into a Lord by the English Bishop ’ Oxford and shipped over here with a fully juipped “ Established Church” in his pocket -has frequently said that the natives of these lands are morally and religiously in a worse mdition to-day ihan they were before the merican missionaries ever came here. Now int is not true—and in that respect the statc- eut bears a very strong family likeness to many, :her of the Bishop’s remarks about our mis: onaries. Our missionaries are our mission- •ies—and even if they were our devils I would )t want any English prelate to slander them, will not go into an argument to prove that the itives have been improved by missionary labor -because facts are stronger than argument, bove I have stated how the natives arc now nging and wailing every night— queerly rough, but innocently and harmlessly— Put mder in tbe palace yard, for the dead Princess, allowing is some account of the style of con- acting this sort of thing shortly before the tra- aced missionaries came. I quote from Jarves’ istory of the Sandwich Islands: “ The ceremonies observed on the death of ly important personage were exceedingly bar- lrous. The hair was shaved or cut close, teeth aocked out end sometimes the ears were man ed. Some tattooed their tongues in a cor- ssponding manner to the other parts of their udies. Frequently (he flesh was cut or burnt, es scooped out, and other even more painful arsonal outrages inilicted. But these usages, iwcver shocking they may appear, were inno- mt compared with the horrid saturnalia which imcdiately followed the death of a chief of the ighest rank. Then them ost unbounded license revailed; law and restraint were cast aside, id the whole people appeared more like de- ons than human beings. Every vice and crime as allowed. Property was destroyed, houses red atjd old feuds revived and avenged. Ganw bliqg, theft and murder were as open as the day ; clothing was cast aside as a useless in cumbrance; drunkenness and promiscuous prostitution prevailed throughout the land, no women, excepting the widows of the deceased, being exempt from the grassost violation. There was no passion however lewd, or desire however wicked, but could be gratified with impunity during the continuance of this period, which, happily, from its own violence soon spent itself. No other nation was ever witness to a custom which so entirely threw o!f all moral and legal restraints and incited the evil passions to uurcsisted riot and - wanton de bauchery.” It is easy to see, now, that (he missionaries have made a better people of this race than they formerly were ; and 1 am sati-licd that if that old time national spree wore still a custom of the country, my Lord Bi.-diop would not be in this town to-day s a y in g hard th in g s about the missionaries. No ; his excellent judgment would have impelled him to take tc the woods when the Princess died. W ho Shall Inherit the Throne? The great bulk of the wealth, the commerce, the enterprise and the spirit of progress in the Sandwich Islands centers in the Americana. Americans own the whaling f\eet; they own the great sugar plantations; they own the cattle ranches; they own their share of tbe mercan tile depots and tbe lines of packet ships. Y^bat- ever of commercial and agricultural greatness the country can boast of it owes to them. Con sequently the nuestion of who is likely to suc ceed to the crown in case of the death of the present King, is an interesting one to Ameyloan residents,' and therefore tg their countrymen at home. The ihcumb.eqt of the throne has it in his poway tq help or binder them a gfood deal. The1 King is not married ; and if he-dies with out leaving an heir of his own body or appoint ing a successor, the crown will be likely to fall upon either His Highness Prince William C. Lunajilo or David-Kalakaua. The form?? Is of the highest blood in the kiu^d^iu— higher than the King himself it is said—and Kalakaua is descp^dcu iyrtrn the ancient Kings of the island of Hawaii. KingKeoua (father of Kanmhameha the Great), great-grcat-grandfaihey. of the pres ent King, was algo, iuu. ^ruaLgreat-grandfather of .Prince William ; but from Kamehameha the lines diverge, and if there is any kinship be tween William and Kamehameha V, it is dis tant. They both bad a common ancestor in King Umi, however, a gentleman whQ flour ished several hundred years ggp. Brlnce Will iam is called eleventh iu descent from Umi, and the present King only fourteenth, which con fers seniority of. birth aud rank upon the former. But this subject is tanglesome. P iln f ? W illiam , Prince William js q man of fine, large build; is thirty-one years of age; is affable, gentle manly, open, frank, manly; is as independent as a lord and has a spirit and a will like the old Conqueror himself. He is intelligent, shrewd, sensible— is a man of first rate abilities, iu fact. He has a right handsomp face, and the best nose in tho Hawaiian kingdom, white or other wise ;’ it is a splendid beak, aud worth being proud of. He has one most unfortunate fault — he drinks constantly; aud it is g great pitv, for if ho would moderate this appetite, or break it Ou aUogyiuer, he would become a credit to him self ttnd his nation. I like this man, and 1 like, his bold independence, and bis friendship for and appreciation of 4 B i«rican residents; and I take j;o pleasure in mentioning this failing pf pis. If"! cquld 'print a sermon that would reform him, I would cheerfully do it. David Kalakaua. Hon. David Kalakaua, who at present holds the office of King’s Chamberlain, is a man of fine presence, is an educated gentleman a man of good abilities. lie is appy-nao^tug forty, 1 should judge—is thirty-live, at any rate. He is ror.Hori.ativo, politic and calculating, makes little display, and does not tulk much in tho Legislature. He is a quiet, dignified, sensible man, and would do no discredit to the kingly office. The King has power to npooinl fils successor. If he does such ;i thing, his’ choice ivill proba bly fall on Kalakaua. In case the King should die without making provision for a successor, it would be the duty of tho Legislature to select a King from among the dozen high Chiefs, male and female, who arc eligible under the Hawaiian Constitution. Under these circumstances, if l’rince William were thoroughly redeemed from his besetting sin, his chances would be about even with Kalakoua’s. Funeral litislf. It Is two o’clock in the morning, and I have just been up toward the palace to hear souic of the singing of the numerous well-born watchers (of both sexcsj who are standing guard in the chamber of death. The voices were very pure . and rich, and blended together without harsh ness or discord, anil the music was exceedingly plaintive and beautiful. I would have been glad enough to get clos'-r. When the plebeians out side the building resumed their distrcs.-ing noise 1 came away. In the di-tance I hear them at it yet, poor, simple, loving, faithful, Christian savages. Postscript. The Swallow arrived here on Monday morn ing, with Al?PRfTiurlingaini> United States Minister to China, and General Van Vulken- burgli, United States Minis!.ir to Japan. Their stay is limited lo fourteen days, but a strong effort will be made to persuade them to break that limit and pass the Fourth of July here, They are paying and receiving visits constantly', of course, and are cordially welcomed. Bur lingame is a man wbo would be esteemed, re spected and popular anywhere, no matter whether he were among Christians or cannibals. The people are expecting McCook, our new Minister to these islands, every day. Wharton by and Mackie, of Nevada (Cal.), ar rived here in tbe last vessel, and will start back in a week or two. They came merely for recre ation. Several San Franciscans have come to Hono lulu to locate permanently. Among them Dr. A. C. Buffum ; he has a fair and growing prac tice. Judge Jones is another; he has already more law practice on his hands than he can well attend to. And lastly, J. J. Ayres, late one of tbe proprietors of the Morning Call, has arrived, with material for starting a newspaper and job office. He has not made up his mind yet, however, to try the experiment of a news paper here. Sanford, late Chief Engineer of the Ajax, came in the last vessel, and proposes to settle in the islands—perhaps in the sugar line. He has gone to Maui to see what the chances are in that deservedly famous sugar- producing region. A letter arrived here yesterday morning giv ing a meager account of the arrival on the island of Hawaii of nineteen poor starving (COrj£) S & c f o - t / f f / 0 / 7 (Cwtf* i^r&rn) wretches, who had been buffeting a stormy sea in an open boat for forty-three d ays! Their ship, the Hornet, from New York, with a quan-i tity of kerosine on board, had taken fire and; burned in lat. 2° north and long. 135° west. Think of their sufferings for forty-three days and nights, exposed to the scorcning heat of the center of the torrid zone, and at the mercy' of a ceaseless storm ! When they had been en- 1 tirely out of provisions tor a day or two and the cravings of hunger became insupportable, they yielded to the shipwrecked mariner’s final and tearful alternative, and solemnly drew lots, to determine who of their number should die' to ; furnish food for his comrades—and then the morning mists lifted and they saw land. They are being cored for at Sanpoboihoi, a little sea side station I spent a night at two weeks ago. This boat-load was in charge of the Captain of the Hornet. He reports that the remainder of the persons in his ship (twenty in number) left her in two boats, under command of the first; and second mates, and the three boats kept, company until the night of the nineteenth day,' when they got separated. No further particu lars have ayrived here yet, and no confirmation of the above sad story. Dinner to the Envoys. The American citizens of Honolulu, anxious to show to their distinguished visitors the honor and respect due tbem, have invited them to par take* of a dinner upon some occasion before tbeir departure. Burlingame and General Van Valkenburgh have accepted the invitation and will inform the Committee this evening what day will best suit their convenience. Mabk Twain. I ’lmtost.'it r e p r o d u c t i o n from yuL^Lffvv Dote I*k \ f o l . ^ ' 7 ^ 3 6 I’liotostnte d ..........................-.................................... I.y U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A L I B R A R Y ACRAMENTO MILYUNIOlj - LETTER FROM HONOLULU. ORRE8POND >H C X OF THE CHIOS.] JSNUTO OF THE C11PPEB SHIP HORNET AT SEA. stalled Account of the Sufferlnss of Officers and Crew, as given by the Third Officer and Hem* here o f the Crew. _ _ _ _ _ H onolulu, Ju n e 2 5 ,1S66. In th e postscript to a le tte r which I w rote two or iree dhys ago, and sent by th e ship L ire Yankee, I ve you th e substance.of a le tte r received here from Jo by W alker, Alien & Co., inform ing them th a t a a t containing fifteen men, in a helpless-and starving , adition, had drifted ashore a t Laupoboehoe, Island Hawaii, and th a t they had belonged to th e clipper ip H ornet, M itchell m aster, and had been' afloat on e ocean^since th e burning of th a t vessel, about one indred m iles north of the equator, on the 8 d of ry—forty-three days. The th ird m ate and ten of-the seam en have arrived ire and are now in th e hospital. Captain Mitchell, ie seam an nam ed A ntonio Passene, an d two passen rs (Samuel and H enry Ferguson, of New York city, •ung gentlem en, aged respectively >8 and.28) are still Hilo, b u t are expected here wi hin th e week. In the Captain’s m odest epitome of th is terrible ro- unce, which you have probably published, you detect e fine old hero through it. - It*reads like G rant. - ’ The Third Hale. I have talked w ith th e seam en and w ith Jo h n S. aomas, th ird m ate, but th e ir accounts are so nearly ike in all substantial points, th a t I w ill m erely give e officer’s statem ent and- weave into it such m atters the m en m entioned In the w ay of incidents', experl- ices, em otions, etc. Thomas is a very intelligent and very cool and self-posseSsed young m an, and seems have kept a pretty accurate log of his rem arkable lyage iu his head. He told his story, of three hours agtb, in a plain, straightforw ard way, and w ith no tem pt a t display and no straining after effect, herever ally incident may be noted in ■ th is paper > lere any individual has betrayed any em otion, or en- uslasm, or has departed from strict, stoical self-pos- ssion, Or had a solitary thought th a t was not an ut* Fly unpoetlcal and essentially practical " one, member th a t Thomas, the . tb(rd m ate, was 1 it th a t person. He has been eleven days i shore, and already looks sufficiently sound ami laltby to pass alm ost anyw here w ithout being taken r an invalid. H e has th e m arks of a hard experience iout him though, when one looks closely. He is very ucb sunburned and w eather-beaten, an d looks thirty- 1 m years old. He is only twent.v*four, however, and ’ is been a sailor fifteen years. He was born in Kich- ond, Maine, an d still considers th a t place bis home. JiiiiK or^he.“ HortieiM — P«ciflc Railroad Iron. The following is the substance of w hat Thomas said : : ie H ornet left New Y ork on th e lO^h of Jan u ary last, usually'w ell m anned, fitted and provisioned—as fast d as handsom e a clipper ship as ever sailed out ot at port. She had a'general cargo—a little of every- ing; a large q u antity of kerosene oil in bar- s ; several hundred cases of candlea; also four ndred tons Pacific Railroad iron and three engines. ,e third m ate thinks they were dock engines, and one th e seatnen thought they were locomotives. H ad no. les and no bad w eather; nothing b u t fine sailing at her, and she w ent along steadily and well—fast, ry fast, in fa c t Had uncom nonly good w eather off pe H o rn ; he had been around th a t Cape seven tim es each way—and had never seen such fine weather sre before. On tbe 12th of April, in latitude, say, south and longitude 95 west, signaled u Prussiau r k ; she set P russian ensign, and th e H ornet re* m ded w ith her nam e, expressed by means of Mer- t’s system ot signals. 8 ke was sailing west—proba- r bound for Australia. This was th e la st vessel ever in by th e H ornet’s people until they floated ashore Hawaii in the lobg boat—a space of sixty-tour days. ' j The ship od Fire. ; A t seven o’d o e k on th e m orning of tbo 8 d of M ay, th e chief m ate an d tw o men started down in to the hold to draw some “ bright varnish ’1 from a cask. Tbe cap ta in told him to* bring th e cask on deck—th a t i t was dangerous to h ave it where it was, In the hold. The mate, Instead o f obeying ^ ie order, proceeded to draw a can frill of th e varnish first. H e had an “ open light” in h is hand, a n d the liquid took f ire ; the can w as ' dropped, tbe officer in his consternation neglected to close th e bung, and in a few seconds th e fiery to r r e n t. had ru n in every direction, under bales of rope, c a se s , of candles, barrels of kerosene, and all sorts of freight, and tongues of flam e-w ere shooting upw ard through every aperture^ and crevice tow ard th e deck. The ship was' m oving along under easy sail, th e w atch , on duty were Idling here and th ere in such shade as. .th e y co u ld 'fin d , and th e listlessness and repose of ’ morning in the tropics was upon the vessel and her be- ~liTic*~r~ But as sixjbellachim ed, th e cry of “ F ire 1 ” rang through th e ship, ,and woke every man to. life and action. Aud following the fearful w arning, and alm ost as fleetly, came th e fire itself. I t sprang through hatch- ►ways, seized upon .chairs,-table, cordage, anything, i everything— an d alm ost before the bewildered m en could realize w hat tbe trouble Was and what was to be done the cabin was a hell of angry flames. • The m ain- ■ m ast was on fire—its rigging was bu rn t asu n d er! One man said all th is had happened w ithin eighteen or twenty m inutes after the first alarm —two others say in ten minutes. A il say th at one hour after the alsrm , th e m ain and mizzenm asts w ere burned in two and tell overboard. Captain M itchell ordered th e three boats to be launched instantly, which was done—a