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. THE

CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG

OF

CAIATEKAS COUNTY,,

By JAauk Twain.

EDITED BY JOHN PAUL.

C. H. W:ES3i, ^uhUsher, //.9 & /5/ JS'ASS^U ST.

AMERICAN NEWS CO., AGENTS.

1869.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the yecr ISGT, by

C. II. WEBB,

In tlie Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

JOHN A . G K AY &. G 11 E K N ,

16 AND IS Jacob St., N«w-Yokk

TO

John Smith,

WnOlI I HAVE KNOWN IN DIVERS AND SUNDRY PLACES ABOUT THE WORLD, AND

WHOSE MANY AND MANIFOLD VIRTUES DID ALWAYS COMMAND

MY ESTEEM, I

It is said that the man to whom a volume is dedicated, always buys a

copy. If this prove true in the present instance, a princely affluence is about

to burst upon

rMJ7 :4.UriI01i.

ADYEETISEMEI^T.

" Mark Twain " is too well known to tlie public to require a formal introduction at my hands. By his story of the Frog, he scaled the heights of popularity at a single jump, and won for himself the sobriquet of The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope. He is also known to fame as The Moralist of the Main ; and it is not unlikely that as such he will go down to posterity. It is in his secondary character, as humorist, however, rather than in the primal one of moralist, that I aim to present him in the present volume. And here a ready explanation will be found for the somewhat fragmentary character of many of these sketches ; for it was necessary to snatch threads of humor wher- ever they could be found — very often detaching them from seri- ous articles and moral essays with which they were woven and entangled. Originally written for newspaper publication, many of the articles referred to events of the day, the interest of which has now passed away, and contained local allusions, which the general reader would fail to understand; in such cases excision became imperative. Further than this, remark or comment is unnecessary. Mark Twain never resorts to tricks of spelling nor rhetorical buffoonery for the purpose of provoking a laugh ; the vein of his humor runs too rich and deep to make surface-gilding necessary. But there are few who can resist the quaint similes, keen satire, and hard good sense which form the staple of his writings. J. P.

coi^te:^ts.

PaG3

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, 7

Aurelia's Unfortunate Young Man, 20

A Complaint about Correspondents, dated in San Francisco, ... 26

Answers to Correspondents, 34

Among the Fenians, 58

The Story of the Bad Little Boy who Didn't Come to Grief, . . 60

Curing a Cold, CT

An Inquiry about Insurances, 76

Literature in the Dry Diggings, 82

"After" Jenkins 85

Lucretia Smith's Soldier, 89

The Killing of Julius Csesar " Localized," 99

An Item which the Editor Himself could not Understand, .... 110

Among the Spirits, 116

Brief Biographical Sketch of George Washington, , 127

A Touching Story of George Washington's Boyhood, 132

A Page from a Californian Almanac, ........ 141

Information for the Million, 144

The Launch of the Steamer Capital, 153

Origin of Illustrious Men, 163

Advice for Good Little Girls, 164

Concerning Chambermaids, 167

Remarkable Instances of Presence of Mind, . 172

Honored as a Curiosity in Honolulu, j , 176

The Steed " Oahu," 179

A Strange Dream, 182

Short and Singular Rations, , 194

THE CELEBRATED JUMPING EEOG

rALAYERAS LOUNTY

?

N" compliance with tlie request of a friend of mine, wlio wrote me from tlie East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wlieeler, and inquired after my friend' s friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leoni- das W, Smiley is a myth ; that my friend never knew such a personage ; and that he only con- jectured that, if I asked old Wheeler ahout him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smi- ley, and he would go to work and l)ore me

8 THE JUMPING FBOO.

nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should Ibe use- less to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel' s, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished compa- nion of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smi- ley— Hev. Leonidas W. Smiley — a young min- ister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of Angel' s Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me any thing about this Kev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narra- tive which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he

TUE JUMPING FROG. 9

tuned tlie initial sentence, lie never Ibetrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm ; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was any thing ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded' it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius m finesse. To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said be- fore, I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once :

There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49 — or may be it was the spring of '50 — I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp ; but any way, he was the curiosest man about always betting on any thing that turned up you ever see, if he could get any body to

10 THE JUMPING FROG.

"bet on the other side ; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him — any way just so's he goi a "bet, Tie was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come ont winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance ; there couldn't be no solitry thing mentioned l)ut that feller' d offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just tell- ing you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of it ; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it ; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it: if there was a chicken-fight, he' d bet on it ; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first ; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar, to bet on Parson Walker, which he judg- ed to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would f oiler that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of

THE juMPma FBoa. 11

tlie boys liere lias seen tliat Smiley, and can tell you about him. Wliy, it never made no differ- ence to Mm — lie would bet on any tiling — tlie dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her ; but one morning he come in, and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable better — thank the Lord for his inf 'nit mercy — and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet ; and Smiley, before he thought, says, ''Well, I'll risk two- and-a-half that she don't, any way."

Thish-yer Smiley had a mare — the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that — and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass her under way ; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and some-

12 THE JUMPING FROG.

times out to one side amongst tlie fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket witli lier coughing and sneezing and blowing lier nose — and always fetch np at the stand just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.

And he had a little small bull pup, that to look at him you'd think he wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was ujd on him, he was a different dog ; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo' castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jack- son— which w^as the name of the pup — Andrew Jackson would never let on but what Tie was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else — and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up ; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it^ — not chaw, you understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up

THE JUMPING FBOG. 13

the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pnp, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, l>e- cause they' d Ibeen sawed off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was 7iis fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which Avas his main de- pendence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he' d lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius — I know it, because he liadn' t had no opportuni- ties to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no tal- ent. It ahvays makes me feel sorry when I

14 THE JUMPING FROG

think of tliat last liglit of liis'ii, and tlie way it turned out.

Well, tliisli-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to l)et on l3ut he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal' Mated to edercate him ; and so he never done nothing for three months Ibut set in his Iback yard and learn that frog to jump. And you l)et you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch "behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut- see him turn one summerset, or may "be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down liat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most any thing — and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Wehster down here on this floor — Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog — and sing out, "Flies, Ban'], flics!" and quicker' n you could wink,

THE JUMPING FROG. 15

he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a goh of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifierent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his l)reed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand ; and when it come to that. Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been everywheres, all said he laid over any frog that ever tJiey see.

Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller — a stranger in the camp, he was — come across him with his box, and says :

"What might it be that you've got in the boxf

And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, "It

16 THE JUMPmO FROG.

miglit Ibe a parrot, or it miglit be a canary, may be, but it an't — it's only just a frog."

And the feller took it, and looked at it care- ful, and turned it round tliis way and that, and says, ^'H'm — so 'tis. Well, what's lie good for?"

^'Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, ''He's good enough for one thing, I should judge — ^he can outjump ary frog in Calaveras county."

The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better' n any other frog."

' ' May be y o a don' t, ' ' Smiley says. ' ' May be you understand frogs, and may be you don't understand 'em ; maybe you've had experience, and may be you an't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got mij opinion, and I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."

And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, " Well, I'm only a stran- ger here, and I an't got no frog ; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you."

THE JUMPING FBOO. 17

And then Smiley says, "That's all right — that's all right — if you'll hold my I30X a min- ute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller took the Ibox, and put up his forty dol- lars along with Smiley' s, and set down to wait.

So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and j)rized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot — filled him pretty near up to his chin — and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slop- ped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says :

' ' 1^0 w, if you' re ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "One —two — three— jump !" and him and the feller touched up the frogs from l)ehind, and the new frog hopped off*, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders — so — like a French- man, but it wan't no use — he couldn't budge ; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surj)rised, and

18 THE JUMPING FROG.

lie was disgusted too, "but lie didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.

The feller took the money and started away ; and when he was going out at the door, he sor- ter jerked his thuml) over his shoulders — this way — at Dan'l, and says again, very deliber- ate, "Well, jT don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better' n any other frog."

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, " I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw' d oif for — I wonder if there an't something the matter with him — he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l 1by the nap of the neck, and lifted him up and says, " Why, blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pound !" and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man — he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.] And turning to me as he moved away, he said : " Just set where you are, stran-

THE JUMPING FEOG. 19

ger, and rest easy — I an't going to be gone a second."

But, "by your leave, I did not tliink that a continuation of tlie history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leoni- das W. Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler re- turning, and he buttonholed me and recom- menced :

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one- eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only jest a short stump like a bannanner, and "

'' Oh ! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow !" I muttered, good-naturedly, and bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.

AURELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN.

HE facts in tlie following case come to me Iby letter from a young lady wlio lives in tlie l)eantiful city of San Jose ; slie is perfectly unknown to me, and simply signs lierself '' Aurelia Maria," wliich. may pos- sibly be a fictitious name. But no matter, tlie poor girl is almost lieart-broken by tlie misfor- tunes she lias undergone, and so confused by the conflicting counsels of misguided friends and insidious enemies, that she does not know what course to pursue in order to extricate her- self from the web of difiiculties in which she seems almost hopelessly involved. In this di- lemma she turns to me for help, and suppli- cates for my guidance and instruction with a moving eloquence that would touch the heart of a statue. Hear her sad story :

She says that when she w^as sixteen years old she met and loved, with all the devotion of a

AUIiELIA'S VNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN. 2l

passionate nature, a yonng man from New- Jer- sey, named Williamson Breckinridge Carutliers, wlio was some six years lier senior. They were engaged, witli the free consent of their friends and relatives, and for a time it seemed as if their career was destined to Ibe characterized "by an immunity from sorrow l)eyond the usual lot of humanity. But at last the tide of fortune turned ; young Carutliers became infected with small-pox of the most virulent type, and when he recovered from his illness, his face was pit- ted like a waffle-mould and his comeliness gone forever. Aurelia thought to break off the en- gagement at first, l)ut pity for her unfortunate lover caused her to postpone the marriage-day for a season, and give him another trial.

The very day before the wedding was to have taken place, Breckinridge, while absorbed in watching the flight of a balloon, walked into a well and fractured one of his legs, and it had to be taken off above the knee. Again Aurelia was moved to break the engagement, but again love triumphed, and she set the day forward and gave him another chance to reform.

And again misfortune overtook the unhappy youth. He lost one arm by the premature dis-

'22 AURELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN.

charge of a Fourtli-of-Jiily cannon, and within three months he got the otlier pulled out by a carding-machine. Aurelia's heart was almost crushed Iby these latter calamities. She could not but "be deeply grieved to see her lover pass- ing from her by piecemeal, feeling, as she did, that he could not last forevei: under this disas- trous process of reduction, yet knowing of no way to stop its dreadful career, and in her tear- ful despair she almost regretted, like brokers who hold on and lose, that she had not taken him at first, before he had suffered such an alarming depreciation. Still, her brave soul bore her up, and she resolved to bear with her friend's unnatural disposition yet a little longer.

Again the wedding-day approached, and again disappointment overshadowed it : Car- uthers fell ill with the erysipelas, and lost the use of one of his eyes entirely. The friends and relatives of the bride, considering that she had already put up with more than could rea- sonably be expected of her, now came forward and insisted that the match should be broken off; but after wavering awhile, Aurelia, with a generous spirit which did her crediti, said

AUBELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN. 23

siie liad reflected calmly upon tlie matter, and could not discover that Breckinridge was to Iblame.

So slie extended tlie time once more, and lie broke Ms otlier leg.

It was a sad day for tlie poor girl wlien slie saw tlie surgeons reverently bearing away tlie sack whose uses she had learned by previous experience, and her heart told her the bitter truth that some more of her lover was gone. She felt that the field of her affections was growing more and more circumscribed every day, but once more she frowned down her re- latives and renewed her betrothal.

Shortly before the time set for the nuptials another disaster occurred. There v/as but one man scalped by the Owens River Indians last year. That man was Williamson Breckinridge Caruthers, of ^KTew- Jersey. He was hurrying home with happiness in his heart, when he lost his hair forever, and in that hour of bitterness he almost cursed the mistaken mercy that had spared his head.

At last Aurelia is in serious perplexity as to what she ought to do. She still loves her Breckinridge, she writes, with true womanly

24: AUBELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN.

feeling— slie still loves wliat is left of Mm — bufc Iter parents are l^itterly opposed to the matcli, because lie lias no property and is disabled from working, and site lias not sufficient means to support both comfortably. "JSTow, what should she do f she asks with painful and anxious solicitude.

It is a delicate question ; it is one which in- volves the lifelong happiness of a woman, and that of nearly two thirds of a man, and I feel that it would be assuming too great a responsi- bility to do more than make a mere suggestion in the case. How would it do to build to him ? If Aurelia can afford the expense, let her fur- nish her mutilated lover with Avooden arms and wooden legs, and a glass eye and a wig, and give him another show ; give him ninety days, without grace, and if he does not break his neck in the mean time, marry him and take the chances. It does not seem to me that there is much risk, any way, Aurelia, because if he sticks to his infernal propensity for damaging himself every time he sees a good opportunity, his next experiment is bound to finish him, and then you are all right, you know, married or single. If married, the wooden legs and such

lUBELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN. 25

otlu^r valuables as lie may possess, revert to tlie widow, and you see you sustain no actual loss save tlie cherished fragment of a noble but most unfortunate husband, who honestly strove to do right, but whose extraordinary instincts were against him. Try it, Maria! I have thought the matter over carefully and well, and it is the only chance I see for you. It would have been a happy conceit on the part of Car- uthers if he had started with his neck and bro- ken that first; but since he has seen fit to choose a difierent policy and string himself out as long as possible, I do not think we ought to upbraid him for it if he has enjoyed it. We must do the best we can under the circum- stances, and try not to feel exas]Derated at him.

A COMPLAINT ABOUT CORRESPONDENTS, DATED IN SAN FRANCISCO.

HAT do you take us for, on this side oi tlie continent ? I am addressing my- self personally, and with asperity ,to every man, woman, and child east of the Rocky Mountains. How do you suj)pose our minds are constituted, that you will write us such exe- crable letters — such poor, bald, uninteresting trash ? You complain that by the time a man has been on the Pacific coast six months, he seems to lose all concern about matters and things and people in the distant East, and ceases to answer the letters of his friends and even his relatives. It is your own fault. You need a lecture on the subject — a lecture which ought to read about as follows :

There is only one brief, solitary law for let- ter-writing, and yet you either do not know that law, or else you are so stupid that you

A COMPLAmT ABOUT CORRESPONDENTS. 27

never tliink of it. It is very easy and simple : Write only about things and people your cor- respondent takes a living interest in.

Can not you remember tliat law, liereafter, and abide by it ? If you are an old friend of tlie person you are writing to, you know a number of liis acquaintances, and you can rest satisfied tliat even the most trivial tilings you can write about tliem will be read with avidity out here on the edge of sunset.

Yet how do you write ? — how do the most of you write ? Why, you drivel and drivel and drivel along in your wooden-headed way about people one never heard of before, and things which one knows nothing at all about and cares less. There is no sense in that. Let me show up your style with a specimen or so. Here is a paragraph from my Aunt N'ancy's last letter — received four years ago, and not answered immediately — not at all, I may say :

" St. Louis, 1862.

" Dear Mark : We spent tlie evening very pleasantly at liome yesterday. The Rev. Dr. Macklin and wife, from Peoria, were here. He is an humble laborer in the vineyard, and takes his coffee strong. He is also subject to neuralgia — neuralgia in the head — and is so unassuming and prayerful. There are few such men We had soup for dinner likewise. Although I am

2y A C03IPLAINT ABOUT CORRESPONDENTS.

not fond of it. O Mark ! wLj dm't you try to lead a better life ? Read II. Kings, from cliap. 2 to cliap. 24 inclusive. It would be so gratifying to me if you would experience a change of heart. Poor Mrs. Gabrick is dead. You did not know her. She had fits, poor soul. On the 14th the entire army took up the line of march from "

I always stopped there, Ibecause I knew what was coming— the war news, in minute and dry detail— for I could never drive it into those numskulls that the overland telegraph enabled me to know here in San Francisco every day all that transpired in the United States the day before, and that the pony express brought me exhaustive details of all matters pertaining to the war at least two weeks before their letters could possibly reach me. So I naturally skip- ped their stale war reports, even at the cost of also skipping the inevitable suggestions to read this, that, and the other batch of chapters in the Scriptures, with which they were interlard- ed at intervals, like snares wherewith to trap the unwary sinner.

JSTow what was the Eev. Macklin to me ? Of what consequence was it to me that he was '^'an humble laborer in the vineyard," and 'Hook his coffee strong"?— and was ''unassuming," and ' ' neuralgic, ' ' and ' ' prayerful ' ' ? Such a strange

A COMPLAINT ABOUT CORBESPONBENTS. 29

conglomeration of virtues could only excite my admiration — nothing more. It could awake no living interest. That there are few such men, and that we had soup for dinner, is simply gratifying — that is all. '^Read twenty-Uvo chapters of II. Kings " is a nice shell to fall in the camp of a man who is not studying for the ministry. The intelligence that "poor Mrs. Gahrick" was dead, aroused no enthusiasm — mostly Ibecause of the circumstance that I had never heard of her before, I presume. But I was glad she had fits — although a stranger.

Don't you begin to understand., now ? Don't you see that there is not a sentence in that let- ter of any interest in the world to me ? I had the war news in advance of it ; I could get a much better sermon at church when I needed it ; I didn't care any thing about poor Gabrick, not knowing deceased ; nor yet the Rev. Mack- lin, not knowing him either. I said to myself, " Here's not a word about Mary Anne Smith — I wish there was ; nor about Georgiana Brown, or Zeb Leavenworth, or Sam Bowen, or Stro- ther Wiley — or about any body else I care a straw for." And so, as this letter was just of a pattern with all that went before it, it was

so A COMPLAINT ABOUT CORRESPONDENTS.

not answered, and one useless correspondence ceased.

My veneraWe mother is a toleralbly good cor- respondent— slie is albove the average, at any ratg. Slie puts on lier spectacles and takes lier scissors and wades into a x)ile of newspapers, and slashes out column after column — edito- rials, hotel arrivals, poetry, telegraph news, ad- vertisements, novelettes, old jokes, recipes for making pies, cures for "biles"— any thing that comes handy; it don't matter to her; she is entirely impartial ; she slashes out a column, and runs her eye down it over her spectacles — (she looks over them Ibecause she can't see thraugh them, but she prefers them to her more serviceable ones because they have got gold rims to them)— runs her eye down the column, and says, "Well, it's from a St. Louis paper, any way," and jams it into the envelope along with her letter. She writes about every body I ever knew or ever heard of ; but unhappily, she forgets that when she tells me that "J. B. is dead," and that " W. L. is going to marry T. D." and that "B. K. and R. M. and L. P. J. have all gone to ISTew-Orleans to live," it is more than likely that years of absence may

A COMPLAINT ABOUT COBBESPONDENTS. oi

have so dulled my recollection of once familiar names, tliat tlieir unexplained initials will be as unintelligible as Hebrew nnto me. She never writes a name in full, and so I never know whom she is talking about. Therefore I have to guess — and this was how it came that I mourned the death of Bill Kribben when I should have rejoiced over the dissolution of Ben Kenfuron. I failed to cipher the initials out correctly.

The most useful and interesting letters we get here from home are from children seven or eight years old. This is petrified truth. Hap- pily they have got nothing to talk about but home, and neighbors, and family — things their betters think unworthy of transmission thou- sands of miles. They write simply and natu- rally, and without straining for effect. They tell all they know, and then stop. They sel- dom deal in abstractions or moral homilies. Consequently their epistles are brief ; but, treating as they do of familiar scenes and per- sons, always entertaining. Now, therefore, if you would learn the art of letter- writing, let a little child teach you. I have preserved a let- ter from a small girl eight years of age — pre-

32 A COMPLAmT ABOUT CORRESPONDEIS^TS.

served it as a curiosity, Ibecause it was the only letter I ever got from the States that had any information in it. It runs thus :

St. Loms, I860.

" Uncle Mark, if you was liere, I coiild tell you aljout jNIoses in the Bulrusliers again, I know it better now. Mr. Sowerby lias got liis leg broke off a liorse. He was riding it on Sunda}-. Margaret, tliat's the maid, Llargaret has took all the spittoons, and slop-buckets, and old jugs out of your room, because she says she don't think you're ever coming back any more, you been gone so long. Sissy McElroy's mother has got another little baby. She has them all the time. It has got little blue eyes, like Mr. Swimley that boards there, and looks just like him. I have got a new doll, but Johnny Anderson piilled one of its legs out. Miss Doosenberry was here to-day ; I give her your picture, but she said she didn't Vv^ant it. My cat has got more kittens — oh! you can't think — twice as many as Lottie Belden's. And there's one, such a sweet little buff one with a short tail, and I named it for you. All of them's got names now — General Grant, and Halleck, and Moses, and Margaret, and Deuteronomy, and Captain Semmes, and Exodus, and Le- viticus, and Horace Greeley — all named but one, and I am saving- it because the one that I named for You's been sick all the time since, and I reckon it'll die. [It appears to have been mighty rough on the short-tailed kitten, naming it for me — I wonder how the reserved victim will stand it.] Uncle Mark, I do be- lieve Hattie Caldwell likes you, and I know she thinks you are pretty, because I heard her say nothing couldn't hm-t your good looks — nothing at all — she said, even if you was to have the small-pox ever so bad, you would be just as good-looking as you was before. And my ma says she's ever so smart. [Very.] Sc no more this time, because General Grant and Moses is fight- ing. AxxiE."

This child treads on my toes, in ey^-17

A CO^IPLAINT ABOUT COBBESPONDENTS. 33

other sentence, witli a perfect looseness, but in the simplicity of her time of life she doesn't know it.

I consider that a model letter — an eminently readable and entertaining letter, and, as I said before, it contains more matter of interest and more real information than any letter I ever received from the East. I had rather hear abont the cats at home and their truly remark- able names, than listen to a lot of stuff about people I am not acquainted with, or read " The Evil Effects of the Intoxicating Bowl," illus- trated on the back with a picture of a ragged scalliwag pelting away right and left, in the midst of his family circle, with a junk bottle.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

ORAL STATISTICIAN^." — I donH want any of your statistics. I took your whole Ibatcli and lit my j)ipe with it. I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man' s health is injured, and how much his intellect is im- paired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years' in- dulgence in the fatal practice of smoldng ; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee ; and in playing billiards occasionally ; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc., etc., etc. And you are always figuring out how many wo- men have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion of wearing expansive hoops, etc., etc., etc. You never see more than one side of the question. You are blind to the fact that most old men in America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they

A2^sw£:bs to cobeespondents. 35

ouglit to liave died young ; and that liearty old Englislimen drink wine and survive it, and port- ly old Dutclimen Ibotli drink and smoke free- ly, and yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man de- rives from smoking in the course of a lifetime, (which is worth ten times the money he would save "by letting it alone,) nor the appalling ag- gregate of happiness lost in a lifetime Iby your kind of people from not smoking. Of course you can save money Iby denying yourself all these little vicious enjoyments for fifty years ; but then what can you do with it ? What use can you put it to ? Money can't save your in- finitesimal soul. All the use that money can "be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this life ; therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment, where is the use in ac- cumulating cash? It won't do for you to say that you can use it to better purpose in furnish- ing a good table, and in charities, and in sup- porting tract societies, because you know your- self that you people who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that you stint yourselves so in the matter of food

36 AlfSW^JUS TO COBRESPONDEKTS.

that you are always feelble and liungry. Aud you never dare to laugh, in the daytime for fear some poor wretch, seeing you in a good humor,, will try to borrow a dollar of you ; and in church you are always down on your knees, with your eyes buried in the cushion, w^hen the contribution-box comes around ; and you never give the revenue officers a true statement of your income. Now you know all these things yourself, don't you ? Yery well, then, what is the use of your stringing out your miserable lives to a lean and withered old age ? What is the use of your saving money that is so utterly worthless to you? In a word, why don't you go off somewhere and die, and not be always trying to seduce people into becoming as '' ornery" and unlovable as you are yourselves, by your ceaseless and villainous " moral statis- tics" ? ]^ow, I don't approve of dissipation, and I don't indulge in it, either ; but I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatever, and so I don' t want to hear from you any more. I think you are the very same man who read me a long lec- ture, last week, about the degrading vice ' of gmoking cigars, and then came back, in my ab-

AN8WEBS TO COHBESPOIfDEJ^TS. 37

sence, witli your vile, repreliensible fire-proof gloves on, and carried off my Ibeautiful parlor- stove.

" SiMOiT Wheelee," Sonora. — The following simple and toucliing remarks and accompany- ing poem liave just come to liand from tlie ricli gold-mining region of Sonora :

To 3£r. Mark Twain : The within parson, which I have sot to poettry under the name and style of " He Done His Level Best," was one among the whitest men I ever see, and it an't every man that knowed Mm that can find it in his heart to say he's glad the poor cuss is busted and gone home to the States. He was here in an early day, and he was the handyest man about takin' holt of any thing that come along you most ever see, I judge. He was a cheerful, stirrin' cretur', always doin' something, and no man can say he ever see him do any thing by halvers. Preachin' was his nateral gait, but he warn't a man to lay back and twidle his thums because there didn't hap- pen to be nothin' doin' in his own espeshial line — no, sir, he was a man who would meander forth and stir up something for his- self. His last acts was to go his pile on " 'kmgB-and" (calklatin' to fill, but which he didn't fill,) when there was a " flush " out agin him, and naterally, you see, he went under. And so he was cleaned out, as you may say, and he struck the home-trail, cheerful but flat broke. I knowed this talented man in Arkan- saw, and if you would print this humbly tribute to his gorgia abillities, you would greatly obleege his onhappy friend.

HE DONE HIS LEVEL BEST.

Was he a mining on the flat — He done it with a zest ;

Was he a leading of the choir- He done his level best.

38 AlfSWIJBS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

, If lie'd a reg'lar task to do, He never took no rest ; Or if 'twas off-and-on — tlie same — He done his level best.

If he was preachin' on his beat,

He'd tramp from east to west. And north to south — in cold and heat

He done his level best.

He'd yank a sinner outen (Hades),*

And land him with the blest ; Then snatch a prayer 'n waltz in again.

And do his level best.

He'd cuss and sing and howl and pray.

And dance and drink and jest. And lie and steal — all one to him —

He done his level best.

Whate'er this man was sot to do,

He done it with a zest ; No matter what his contract was.

He'd do his level best.

Verily, tliis man was gifted with ^' gorgis albillities," and it is a happiness to me to em- balm the memoiy of their lustre in these col- umns. K it were not that the poet crop is nn- iisnally large and rank in California this year, I would encourage you to continue writing, Simon ; but as it is, perhaps it might be too

* Here I have taken a slight liberty with the original MS. " Hades " does not make such good metre as the other word of one syllable, but it sounds better.

aj^swj^jus to cobbespondents. 39

risky in you to enter against so nnicli oppo- sition,

"Ikquieee" wishes to know wliicli is tlie "best Ibrand of smoking tobacco, and liow it is manufactured. The most popular — mind, I do not feel at liberty to give an opinion as to the best, and so I simply say the most popular — smoking tobacco is the miraculous conglome- rate tliey call "Killikinick." It is composed of equal parts of tobacco stems, chopped straw, "old soldiers," fine shavings, oak leaves, dog- fennel, corn-shucks, sunflower petals, outside leaves of the cabbage plant, and any refuse of any description whatever that costs nothing and will burn. After the ingredients are tho- roughly mixed together, they are run through a chopping-machine and soaked in a spittoon. The mass is then sprinkled with fragrant Scotch snuif, packed into various seductive shapes, labeled '' Genuine Killikinick, from the old original manufactory at Eichmond," and sold to consumers at a dollar a pound. The choicest brands contain a double portion of "old sol- diers," and sell at a dollar and a half. " Gen- ume Turkish" tobacco contains a treble quan-

40 ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

tity of " old soldiers," and is worth two or three dollars, according to the amount of service the said " old soldiers " have previously seen. ]^. B. — This article is preferred by the Sultan of Turkey ; his picture and autograph are on the lahel. Take a handful of "Killikinick," crush it as fine as you can, and examine it closely, and you will find that you can make as good an analysis of it as I have done ; you must not expect to discover any particles of genuine tobacco by this rough method, how- ever— to do that, it will be necessary to take your sjpecimen to the mint and subject it to a fire-assay. A good article of cheap tobacco is now made of chopped pine- straw and Spanish moss ; it contains one '^old soldier" to the ton, and is called ^'Fine Old German Tobacco."

^'Peofessioital Beggae." — No; you are not obliged to take greenbacks at par.

* "MELTOiq- MowBEAY," Dutcli i^Zai^.— This correspondent sends a lot of doggerel, and says

* Tills piece of pleasantry, published in a San Francisco p<i- per, was mistaken by tlie country journals for seriousness, and many and loud were tlieir denunciations of the ignorance of au thor and editor, in not knowing that the lines in question were " written by Byron."

ANSWEBS TO COBRESPONDENTS. 41

it has been regarded as very good in Dutcb Flat. I give a specimen verse :

" The Assyrian came down, like a wolf on tlie fold. And Ills cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; And the sheen of his spears shone like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee."

There, that will do. That may be very good Dutch Flat poetry, but it won't do in the metro- polis. It is too smooth and blnbbery ; it reads like buttermilk gurgling from a jug. What the people ought to have is something spirit- ed— something like ' ' Johnny Comes Marching Home." However, keep on practicing, and you may succeed yet. There is genius in you, but too much blubber.

^'Amateue SeeenadePv." — Yes, I will give you some advice, and do it with a good deal of pleasure. I live in a neighborhood which is well stocked with young ladies, and conse- quently I am excruciatingly sensitive upon the subject of serenading. Sometimes I suffer. In the first place, always tune your instruments before you get within three hundred yards of your destination. This will enable you to take your adored unawares, and create a pleasant

42 ANSWEBS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

surprise Iby launciiing out at once upon your music. It astonislies tlie dogs and cats out of their presence of mind, too, so tliat, if you liurry, you can get tlirougli before tliey liave a chance to recover and interrupt you ; l)esides, there is nothing captivating in the sounds produced in tuning a lot of melancholy guitars and fiddles, and neither does a group of able-ltodied, senti- mental young men so engaged look at all digni- fied. Secondly, clear your throats and do all the coughing you have got to do l)efore you ar- rive at the seat of war. I have known a young lady to be ruthlessly startled out of her slum- bers by such a sudden and direful blowing of noses and "h'm-h'm-ing" and coughing, that she imagined the house was beleaguered by vic- tims of consumption from the neighboring hos- pital. Do you supjDOse the music was able to make her happy after that? Thirdly, don't stand right under the porch and howl, but get out in the middle of the street, or better still, on the other side of it. Distance lends enchant- ment to the sound. If you have previously transmitted a hint to the lady that she is going to be serenaded, she will understand whom the music is for ; besides, if you occupy a neutral

AJS'SW^HS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 43

position in the middle of the street, may "be all the neighbors round will take stock in your serenade, and invite you to take wine with them. Fourtlily, don't sing a whole opera through ; enough of a thing' s enough. Fifth- ly, don't sing '' Lily Dale." The profound sat- isfaction that most of us derive from the reflec- tion that the girl treated of in that song is dead, is constantly marred l)y the resurrection of the lugubrious ditty itself by your kind of people. Sixthly, don' t let your screaming tenor soar an octave above all the balance of the chorus, and remain there setting every body' s teeth on edge for four blocks around; iand, above all, don't let him sing a solo ; probably there is nothing in the world so suggestive of serene content- ment and perfect bliss as the spectacle of a calf chewing a dish-rag ; but the nearest approach to it is your reedy tenor, standing apart, in sickly attitude, with head thrown back and eyes uplifted to the moon, piping -his distressing solo. Now do not pass lightly over this matter, friend, but ponder it with that seriousness Tvhich its importance entitles it to. Seventhly, after you have run all the chickens and dogs and cats in the vicinity distracted, and roused them into

4-1- A]!{SWEMS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

a frenzy of crowing, and cackling, and yawling, and caterwauling, put up your dreadful instru- ments and go liome. Eighthly, as soon as you start, gag your tenor — otherwise he will be let- ting off a screech every now and then, to let the people know he is around. Your amateur tenor is notoriously the most self-conceited of all God's creatures. Tenthly, don't go serenading at all ; it is a wicked, unhappy, and seditious practice, and a calamity to all souls that are weary and desire to slumber and would be at rest. Eleventhly and lastly, the father of the young lady in the next block says that if you come prowling around his neighborhood again, with your infamous scraj)ing and tooting and yelling, he will sally forth and deliver you into the hands of the police. As far as I am con- cerned myself, I would like to have you come, and come often ; but as long as the old man is so prejudiced, perhaps you had better serenade mostly in Oakland, or San Jose, or around there somewhere.

" St, Clair Higgins," Los Angeles.—" My life is a failure ; I have adored, wldly, madly, and slie wl^m I love has turned coldly from me and shed her affections upon another. What would you advise me to do ?"

AlfSWBBS TO COMBESPONDENTS. 4.-0

You should slied your affections on anotlier, also — or on several, if there are enough to go round. Also, do every thing you can to make your former flame unhappy. There is an ab- surd idea disseminated in novels, that the hap- pier a girl is with another man, the happier it makes the old lover she has blighted. Don't allow yourseK to believe any such nonsense as that. The more cause that girl finds to regret that she did not marry you, the more comfort- able you will feel over it. It isn't poetical, but it is mighty sound doctrine.

" AniTHMETicus," Virginia, Nemda. — "If it -would take a cannon ball 3|- seconds to travel four miles, and 8| seconds to travel the next four, and 3f seconds to travel tlie next four, and if its rate of progress continued to diminisli in tlie same ratio, liow long would it take it to go fifteen hundred millions of miles ?"

I don't know.

'' Ambitious Leaet^ee," Ocikland. — Yes, you are right — America was not discovered by Alexander Selkirk.

" DiscAHDED Lover." — " I loved, and still love, the beautiful Edwitha Howard, and intended to marry her. Yet, during my temporary absence at Benicia, last week, alas ! she married Jones. Is my happiness to be thus blasted for life ? Have I no redress ?"

i6 ANSn^EMS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Of course you liave. All the law, written and unwritten, is on your side. The intention and not the act constitutes crime — in other words, constitutes the deed. If you call your bosom friend a fool, and intend it for an insult, it is an insult ; but if you do it playfully, and meaning no insult, it is not an insult. If you discharge a pistol accidentally, and kill a man, you can go free, for you have done no murder ; but if you try to kill a man, and manifestly in- tend to kill him, but fail utterly to do it, the law still holds that the intention constituted the crime, and you are guilty of murder. Er- go, if you had married Edwitha accidentally, and without really intending to do it, you would not actually be married to her at all, because the act of marriage could not be com- plete without the intention. And ergo, in the strict spirit of the law, since you deliberately intended to marry Edwitha, and didn't do it, you are married to her all the same — because, as I said before, the intention constitutes the crime. It is as clear as day that Edwitha is yoar wife, and your redress lies in taking a club and mutilating Jones with it as much as you can. Any man has a right to protect his

AJSrSWEBS TO C0RBESP0NDENT8. 47

own wife from tlie advances of other men. But yon liave anotlier alternative — yon were mar- ried to Edwitlia firsts Ibecanse of yonr deliber- ate intention, and now yon can prosecnte lier for bigamy, in snbseqnently marrying Jones. Bnt there is another phase in this complicated case : Yon intended to marry Edwitha, and consequently, according to law, she is yonr wife — there is no getting aronnd that ; bnt she didn't marry yon, and- if she nevei^ intended to marry you, yoic are not Iter Imsband^ of course. Ergo, in marrying Jones, she was guilty of bigamy, because she w^as the wife of another man at the time ; which is all very well as far as it goes — but then, don't you see, she had no other liiisband when she married Jones, and consequently she was not guilty of bigamy. Now, according to this view of the case, Jones married a spinster^ who was a loidow at the same time and another man's wife at the same time, and yet who had no liusband and ne'der liad one, and never had any intention of get- ting married, and therefore, of course, newT liad been married ; and by the same reasoning you are a hacTielor, because you have never been anyone's liusband; and a married man, 'he-

48 AJSfSWUHS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

cause you have a wife living ; and to all intents and purposes a widoicer, Ibecause you liave been deprived of that wife ; and a consummate ass for going off to Benicia in the first place, wliile things were so mixed. And Iby this time I have got myself so tangled up in the intrica- cies of this extraordinary case that I shall have to give up any further attempt to advise you — I might get confused and fail to make myself understood. I think I could take up the ar- gument where I left off, and by following it closely awhile, perhaps I could prove to your satisfaction, either that you never existed at all, or that you are dead now, and consequent- ly don't need the faithless Edwitha— I think I could do that, if it would afford you any com- fort.

^'Peesecuted Uneoetukate." — You say you owe six months' board, and you have no money to pay it with, and your landlord keeps harassing 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 matter to offer advice in a case like this, but your distress impels me to

AlfSYfBES TO CORRESPONDENTS. 49

make a suggestion, at least, since I can not ven- ture to do more. When lie next importunes you, liow would it do to take liim impressively by the hand and ask, with simulated emotion, ''^Monsieur Jean^ xotre cliien, comme se porte- ilf DouMless that is very bad French, but you will find that it will answer just as well as the unadulterated article.

"Aetiiur Augustus." — No, you are v/rong ; that is the proper way to throw a brickbat or a tomahawk ; but it doesn't answer so well for a bouquet ; you will hurt somebody if you keep it up. Turn your nosegay upside down, take it by the stems, and toss it with an upward sweep. Did you ever pitch quoits % that is the idea. The practice of recldessly heaving im- mense solid bouquets, of the general size and weight of prize cabbages, from the dizzy alti- tude of the galleries, is dangerous and very reprehensible. ISTow, night before last, at the Academy of Music, just after Signorina Sconcia had finished that exquisite melodj^-, '' Tlie Last Rose of Summer," one of these floral pile-driv- ers came cleaving down through the atmos- phere of applause, and if she hadn't deployed

50 ANSWERS TO COBBESPONDENTS.

suddenly to tlie riglit, it would have driven lier into tlie floor like a sMngle-nail. Of course that bouquet 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.

"Youjs-G MoTiiEE." — And so you think a baby is a thing of beauty and a joy forever ? Well, the idea is pleasing, but not original ; every cow thinks the same of its own calf. Per- haps the cow may not think it so elegantly, but still she thinks it, nevertheless. I honor the cow for it. We all honor this touching maternal instinct wherever we find it, be it in the home of luxury or in the humble cow-shed. But really, madam, when I come to examine the matter in all its bearings, I find that the cor- rectness of your assertion does not manifest itself in all cases. A sore-faced baby, with a neglected nose, can not be conscientiously re- garded as a thing of beauty ; and inasmuch as babyhood spans but three short years, no baby is competent to be a joy "forever." It pains me thus to demolish two thirds of your pretty sentiment in a sin ale sentence ; but the position

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS 51

I hold in this chair requires tliat I shall not permit yon to deceive and mislead the public ^^ith your plausible figures of speech. I know a female baby, aged eighteen months, in tliis city, which can not hold out as a "joy" twenty- four hours on a stretch, let alone "forever." And it possesses some of the most remarkable eccentricities of character and appetite that have ever fallen under my notice. I will set down here a statement of this infant's opera- tions, (conceived, planned, and carried out by itself, and without suggestion or assistance from its mother or any one else,) during a single day ; and what I shall say can be substantiated by the sworn testimony of witnesses.

It commenced by eating one dozen large blue- mass pills, box and all ; then it fell down a flight of stairs, and arose with a bruised and purple knot on its forehead, after which it proceeded in quest of further refreshment and amusement. It found a glass trinket ornamented with brass- work — mashed up and ate the glass, and then swallowed the brass. Then it drank about twenty drops of laudanum, and more than a dozen table- spoonfuls of strong spirits of cam phor. The reason why it took no more lauda

52 AlUBWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

nmn was "because there was no more to take. After this it lay down on its Iback, and slioved five or six inclies of a silver-headed whalebone cane down its throat ; got it fast there, and it was all its mother could do to pull the cane out again, without pulling out some of the child with it. Then, being hungry for glass again, it broke up several wine glasses, and fell to eat- ing and swallowing the fragments, not minding a cut or two. Then it ate a quantity of butter, pepper, salt, and California matches, actually taking a spoonful of butter, a spoonful of salt, a spoonful of pepper, and three or four lucifer mat ches at each mouthful. (I will remark here that this thing of beauty likes painted German lucifers, and eats all she can get of them ; but she infinitely prefers California matches, which I regard as a compliment to our liome manufac- tures of more than ordinary value, coming, as it does, from one who is too young to flatter.) Then she washed her head with soap and wa- ter, and afterward ate what soap w^as left, and drank as much of the suds as she had room for ; after which she sallied forth and took the cow familiarly by the tail, and got kicked heels over head. At odd times during the day, when this

AJ^SWEBS TO CORBESPONDENTS 53

joy forever liappened to have notlimg particu- lar on liand, slie put in tlie time Iby climbing np on places, and falling down off them, uniformly damaging lierself in the operation. As young as she is, she speaks many words tolerably dis- tinctly; and being plain-spoken in other re- sj)ects, blunt and to the point, she oj)ens con- versation with all strangers, male or female, with the same formula, "How do, Jim?" Not being familiar with the ways of children, it is possible that I have been magnifying into mat- ter of surprise things which may not strike any one who is familiar with infancy as being at all astonishing. However, I can not believe that such is the case, and so I repeat that my report of this baby's performances is strictly true ; and if any one doubts it, I can produce the child. I will further engage that she will devour any thing that is given her, (reserving to myself only the right to exclude anvils,) and fall down from any place to which she may be elevated, (merely stipulating that her preference for alighting on her head shall be respected, and, therefore, that the elevation chosen shall be high enough to enable her to accomplish this to her satisfac- tion.) But I find I have wandered from my

54 ANSWERS TO COBBESrONDENTS.

siilbject ; so, without further argument, I wiU reiterate my conviction that not all babies are things of beauty and joys forever.

" AniTmiETicus," Virginia, Nevada. — " I am an entliusiastic student of matliematics, and it is so vexatious to me to find my progress constantly impeded by these mysterious aritlimetical teclmicalities. Now do tell me what the difference is between geometry and conchology ?"

Here you come again, with your diabolical arithmetical conundrums, when I am suffering death with a cold in the head. If you could have seen the expression of ineffable scorn that darkened my countenance a moment ago and was instantly split from the center in every di^ rection like a fractured looking-glass by my last sneeze, you never would have written that disgraceful question. Conchology is a science which has nothing to do with mathematics ; it relates only to shells. At the same time, how- ever, a man who opens oysters for a hotel, or shells a fortified town, or sucks eggs, is not, strictly speaking, a conchologist — a fine stroke of sarcasm, that, but it will be lost on sucli an intellectual clam as you. K'ow compare conchology and geometry together, and you will see what the difference is. and your question

AlfSWUIlS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 55

will be answered. But don't torture me with any more of yonr gliastly aritlimetical liorrors (for I do detest figures any liow) until you know I am rid of my cold. I feel the bitterest animosity toward you at this moment — bother- ing me in this way, when I can do nothing but sneeze and swear and snort pocket-handker- chiefs to atoms. If I had you in range of my nose, now, I would blow your- brains out.

'^ SocEATES MuEPHY."— You speak of hav- ing given offense to a gentleman at the opera by unconsciously humming an air which the tenor was singing at the time. Now, part of that is a deliberate falsehood. You were not doing it "unconsciously;" no man does such a mean, vulgar, egotistical thing as that uncon- sciously. You were doing it to "show off;" you wanted the people around you to know you had been to operas before, and to think you were not such an ignorant, self-conceited, supercilious ass as you looked. I can tell you Arizona opera-sharps, any time ; you prowl around beer cellars and listen to some howling- dervish of a Dutchman exterminating an Ital- ian air, and then you come into the Academy

56 AJUSWJEES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

and prop yourself up against the wall with the stuffy aspect and the iml)ecile leer of a clothing store dummy, and go to droning along about half an octave below the tenor, and disgusting every body in your neighborhood with your beery strains. [N. B. — If this rough-shod elo- quence of mine touches you on a raw spot oc- casionally, recollect that I am talking for your good. Murphy, and that I am simplifying my language so as to bring it clearly within the margin of your comprehension ; it might be gra- tifying to you to be addressed as if you were an Oxford graduate, but then you wouldn't understand it, you know.] You have got another abominable habit, my sage-brush ama- teur. When one of those Italian footmen in British uniform comes in and sings, " O tol de rol ! — 0 Signo-o-o-ra ! — loango — congo — Yene- zue-e-e-la! whack fol de rol!" (which means, " O noble madame ! here's one of them dukes from the palace, out here, come to borrow a dollar and a half,") you always stand with ex- panded eyes and mouth, and one pile-driver uplifted, and your sprawling hands held apart in front of your face, like a couj)le of can- vas-covered hams, and when he gets almost

AJSSWJSBS TO CORMESPONDENTS. 57

tlirougli, liow you do uncork your pent-up en- tliusiasm, and applaud with, hoof and palm ! You have it pretty mucli to yourself, and then you look sheepish when you find every body staring at you. But how very idiotic you do look wlien something really fine is sung — you generally keep quiet, then. I^ever mind, though. Murphy, entire audiences do things at the opera that they have no business to do ; for instance, they never let one of those thousand- dollar singers finish — they always break in with their ill-timed applause, just as he or she, as the case may be, is preparing to throw all his or her concentrated sweetness into the final strain, and so all that sweetness is lost. Write me again. Murphy, I shall always be happy to hear from you.

AMO^^G THE FENIANS.

|ISHING to post myself on one of the most current topics of tlie day, I, Mark, liunted np an old friend, Dennis McCarthy, who is editor of the new Fenian jonrnal in San Francisco, TJie Irisli People. I found him sitting on a sumptuous candle-l)Ox, in his shirt-sleeves, solacing him- self with a whiff at the national dhudeen or caubeen or whatever they call it — a clay pipe with no stem to speak of. I thought it might flatter him to address him in his native tongue, and so I bowed with considerable grace and said :

''Arrah!"

And he said, "Be jabers !"

"Ochhone!" said I.

"Mavourneen dheelish, acushla machree," replied The McCarthy.

" Erin go bragh," I continued with vivacity.

AMONG THE FENIANS. 59

*^ Astliore !" responded The McCarthy.

"Tare an' ouns !" said I.

" Bhe dha husth ; fag a rogarah lums !" said the bold Fenian.

" Ye have me there, "be me sowl !" said I, (for I am not "up" in the niceties of the language, you understand ; I only know enough of it to enable me to "keep my end up" in an ordi- nary conversation.)

THE STORY OF THE BAD LTITLE BOY WHO DIDN'T COME TO GPJEF.

IN'CE tliere was a bad little boy, whose name was Jim — tliougli, if you wHl notice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly always called James in your Sunday-school books. It was very strange, but still it was true, that this one was caUed Jim.

He didn't have any sick mother, either — a sick mother who was pious and had the con- sumption, and would be glad to lie down in the grave and be at rest, but for the strong love she bore her boy, and the anxiety she felt that the world would be harsh and cold towards liim when she was gone. Most bad boys in the Sunday books are named James, and have sick mothers, who teach them to say, "K"ow I lay me down," etc., and sing them to sleep with sweet plaintive voices, and then kiss them good-

THE STORY OF THE BAD LIITLE BOY. 01

niglit, and kneel clown Iby the bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow. He was named Jim, and there wasn't any thing the matter with his mother — no consumption, or any thing of that kind. She was rather stout than otherwise, and she was not pious ; moreover, she was not anxious on Jim's ac- count. She said if he were to break his neck, it wouldn't be much loss. She always spanked Jim to sleej), and she never kissed him good- night ; on the contrary, she "boxed his ears when she was ready to leave him.

Once this little bad boy stole the key of the pantry and slipped in there and helped himself to some jam, and filled up the vessel with tar, so that his mother would never know the differ- ence ; but all at once a terrible feeling didn't come over him, and something didn't seem to whisper to him, ^' Is it right to disobey my mother ? Isn't it sinful to do this ? Where do bad little boys go who gobble up their good kind mother's jam?" and then he didn't kneel down all alone and promise never to be wicked any more, and rise up with a light, happy heart, and go and tell his mother all about it, and beg her forgiveness, and be blessed by her

62 THE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY.

with tears of pride and tliankfulness in lier eyes. iN'o ; that is the way with all other bad boys in the books ; but it happened otherwise mth this Jim, strangely enough. He ate that jam, and said it was bully, in his sinful, vulgar way ; and he put in the tar, and said that was bully also, and laughed, and observed that "the old woman would get up and snort" when she found it out ; and when she did find it out, he denied knowing any thing about it, and she whipped him severely, and he did the crying himself. Every thing about this boy was curious — every thing turned out differently with him from the way it does to the bad Jameses in the books.

Once he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's ap- ple-tree to steal apples, and the limb didn't break, and he didn't fall and break his arm, and get torn by the farmer's great dog, and then languish on a sick bed for weeks, and re- pent and become good. Oh ! no ; he stole as many apples as he wanted, and came down all right ; and he was all ready for the dog, too, and knocked him endways with a rock when he came to tear him. It was very strange — ■ nothing like it ever happened in those mild lit-

TEE STOBT OF THE BAD LITILE BOY. 63

tie books witli inarlbled backs, and witli jjic- tures in tkem of men with swallow-tailed coats, and bell-crowned hats, and pantaloons that are short in the legs, and women with the waists of their dresses nnder their arms and no hoops on. Nothing like it in any of the Sunday- school books.

Once he stole the teacher's penknife, and when he was afraid it would be found out, and he would get whijDped, he slipped it into George Wilson's cap — poor Widow Wilson' s son, the moral boy, the good little boy of the village, who always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth, and was fond of his lessons and in- fatuated with Sunday-school. And when the knife dropped from the cap, and poor George hung his head and blushed, as if in conscious guilt, and the grieved teacher charged the theft upon him, and was just in the very act of bringing the switch down upon his trembling shoulders, a white-haked improbable justice of the peace did not suddenly appear in their midst and strike an attitude and say, ^' spare this noble boy — there stands the cowering cul- prit ! I was passing the school-door at recess, and, unseen myself, I saw the theft commit-

64 THE STOBT OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY.

ted!" And tlien Jim didn't get wlialed, and the venerable justice didn't read the tearful school a homily, and take George by the hand and say such a boy deserved to be exalted, and then tell him to come and make his home with him, and sweep out the office, and make fires, and run errands, and chop wood, and study law, and help his wife to do household labors, and have all the balance of the time to play, and get forty cents a month, and be happy. 1^0 ; it would have happened that w^ay in the books, but it didn't happen that way to Jim. ISTo meddling old clam of a justice droj)ped in to make trouble, and so the model boy George got threshed, and Jim was glad of it ; because, you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he was "down on them milksops." Such was the coarse language of this bad, neglected boy. But the strangest things that ever happened to Jim was the time he went boating on Sun- day and didn't get drowned, and that other time that he got caught out in the storm when he was fishing on Sunday, and didn't get struck by lightning. Why, you might look, and look, and look through the Sunday-school books, from now till next Christmas, and you would

THE STORT OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY. 65

never come across any thing like tMs. Oil ! no ; you would find that all the bad boys vfho go boating on Sunday invariably get drowned ; and all the bad boys who get caught out in storms, when they are fishing on Sunday, infal- libly get struck by lightning. Boats with bad boys in them always iipset on Sunday, and it always storms when bad boys go fishing on the Sabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mys- tery to me.

This Jim bore a charmed life — that must have been the v^ay of it. Nothing could hurt him. He even gave the elephant in the menag- erie a plug of tobacco, and the elephant didn't knock the top of his head off with his trunk. He browsed around the cupboard after essence of pepioermint, and didn't make a mistake and drink aqua fortis. He stole his father's gun and went hunting on the Sabbath, and didn't shoot three or four of his fingers off. He struck his little sister on the temple with his fist when he. was angry, and she didn't linger in pain through long summer days, and die with sweet words of forgiveness upon her lips that redou- bled the anguish of his breaking heart. JSTo ; bIi^ g>t over it. He ran off and went to sea at

6(5 THE STOHY of tub BAB LITTLE BOY.

last, and didn't come back and find himself sad and alone in the world, his loved ones sleeping in the quiet chnrchyard, and the vine- eml)owered home of his boyhood tumbled down and gone to decay. Ah ! no ; he came home drunk as a piper, and got into the station-house the first thing.

And he grew up, and married, and raised a large family, and brained them all with an ax one night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating and rascality, and now he is the infer- nalest wickedest scoundrel in his native village, and is universally respected, and belongs to the Legislature.

So you see there never was a bad Jam^es in the Sunday-school books that had such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed lif3.

CURING A COLD.

|T is a good thing, ]3erliaps, to write for the amusement of the public, Ibnt it is a far higher and nobler thing to write for their instruction, their profit, their actual and tangible benefit. The latter is the sole ob- ject of this article. If it prove the means of restoring to health one solitary suflTerer among my race, of lighting up once more the fire of hope and joy in his faded eyes, of bringing back to his dead heart again the quick, gener- ous impulses of other days, I shall be amply rewarded for my labor ; my soul will be per- meated with the sacred delight a Christian feels when he has done a good, unselfish deed.

Having led a pure and blameless life, 1 am justified in believing that no man who knows me will reject the suggestions I am about to make, out of fear that I am trying to deceive him. Let the public do itself the honor to read

eS CURING A COLD.

my exioerience in doctoring a cold, as herein set forth, and then follow in my footsteps.

When the White Honse was burned in Yu-- ginia, I lost my home, my happmess, my con- stitution, and my trunk. The loss of the two first-named articles was a matter of no great consequence, since a home without a mother or a sister, or a distant young female relative in it, to remind you, by putting your soiled linen out of sight and taking your boots down oif the mantle-piece, that there are those who think about you and care for you, is easily ob- tained. And I cared nothing for the loss of my happiness, because, not being a poet, it could not be possible that melancholy would abide with me long.

But to lose a good constitution and a better trunk were serious misfortunes.

On the day of the fire my constitution suc- cumbed to a severe cold caused by undue exer- tion in getting ready to do something. I suf- fered to no purpose, too, because the plan I was figuring at for the extinguishing of the fire was so elaborate that I never got it completed until the middle of the following week.

The first time I began to sneeze, a friend told

(JUBING A COLD. (39

;ne to go and batlie my feet in liot water and go to bed. I did so. Shortly afterward, anotlier friend advised me to get up and take a cold sliower-batli. I did that also. Within the hour, another friend assured me that it was policy to "feed a cold and starve a fever." I had both. So I thought it best to fill myself up for the cold, and then keep dark and let the fever starve awhile.

In a case of this kind, I seldom do things by halves ; I ate pretty heartily ; I conferred my custom upon, a stranger who had just opened his restaurant that morning ; he waited near me in respectful silence until I had finished feeding my cold, when he inquired if the peo- ple about Virginia were much afflicted with colds ? I told him I thought they were. He hen went out and took in his sign. I started down toward the ofiice, and on the way encoun- tered another bosom friend, who told me that a quart of salt water, taken warm, would come as near curing a cold as any thing in the world. I hardly thought I had room for it, but I tried it any how. The result was surprising. I believe I threw up my immortal soul.

l!^ow, as I am giving my experience only for

70 CUBING A COLD.

the "benefit of tliose wlio are troubled witli the distemper I am writing ahont, I feel that they will see the propriety of my cautioning them against following such portions of it as proved inefficient with me, and acting upon this convic- tion, I warn them against warm salt water. It may be a good enough remedy, but I think it is too severe. If I had another cold in the head, and there were no course left me but to take either an earthquake or a quart of warm salt water, I would take my chances on the earthquake.

After the storm which had been raging in my stomach had subsided, and no more good Sa- maritans happening along, I went on borrowing handkerchiefs again and blowing them to atoms, as had been my custom in the early stages of my cold, until I came across a lady who had just arrived from over the plains, and who said she had lived in a part of the country where doctors were scarce, and had from neces- sity acquired considerable skill in the treat- ment of simple ''family complaints." I knew she must have had much experience, for she appeared to be a hundred and fifty years old. M

She mixed a decoction composed of molasses,

CUBING A COLD. Yl

aqua fortis, turpentine, and various other drugs, and instructed me to take a wine-glass full of it every fifteen minutes. I never took but on;) (lose ; that was enough ; it rolbbed me of all moral principle, and awoke every unworthy impulse of my nature. Under its malign influ- ence my brain conceived miracles of meanness, but my hands were too feeble to execute them ; at that time, had it not been that my strength had surrendered to a succession of assaults from infallible remedies for my cold, I am satis- fied that I would have tried to rob the grave- yard.

Like most other people I often feel mean, and act accordingly ; but until I took that medicine I had never reveled in such supernatural de- pravity and felt jiroud of it. At the end of two days I was ready to go to doctoring again. I took a few more unfailing remedies, and finally drove my cold from my head to my lungs.

I got to coughing incessantly, and my voice fell below zero ; I conversed in a thundering base, two octaves below my natural tone ; I could only compass my regular nightly repose by coughing myself down to a state of utter ex-

72 CUBING A COLD.

liaiistion, and tlien tlie moment I Ibegan to talk in my sleep, my discordant voice woke me up again.

My case grew more and more serious every day. Plain gin was recommended ; I took it., Then gin and molasses ; I took that also. Then gin and onions ; I added the onions, and took all three. I detected no particular result, however, except that I had acquired a l)reath like a l^uzzard' s.

I found I had to travel for m^y health. I v/ent to Lake Bigler with my reportorial com- rade, Wilson. It is gratifying to m^e to reflect that we traveled in considerahle style ; we went in the Pioneer coach, and my friend took all his Ibaggage with him, consisting of two excel- lent silk handkerchiefs and a daguerreotype of his grandmother. We sailed and hunted and fished and danced all day, and I doctored my cough all night. By managing in this way, I made out to improve every hour in the twenty- four. But my disease continued to grow worse.

A sheet-l)atli was recommended. I had never refused a remedy yet, and it seemed poor poli- cy to commence then ; therefore I determined

I

CURING A COLD. 73

to take a slieet-batli, notwitlistanding I liad no idea what sort of arrangement it was.

It was administered at midniglit, and the ^veather was very frosty. My breast and Iback were bared, and a sheet (there appeared to be a thousand yards of it) soaked in ice-water was wound around me until I resembled a swab for a Columbiad.

It is a cruel expedient. When the chilly rag touches one's warm flesh, it makes him start with sudden violence and gasp for breath just as men do in the death agony. It froze the marrow in my bones and stopped the beating of my heart. I thought my time had come.

Young Wilson said the circumstance re- minded him of an anecdote about a negro who was being baptized, and who slipped from the parson' s grasp, and came near being- drowned. He floundered around, though, and finally rose up out of the water considerably strangled and furiously angry, and started ashore at once, spouting water like a whale, and remarking, with great asperity, that "One o' dese days some gen'lman's nigger gwjaie to git killed wid jes' such dam foolishness as dis!"

74 CURING A COLD.

Never take a slieet-lbatli — never. I^ext to meeting a lady acquaintance, wlio, for reasons best known to lierself, don't see you when she looks at you, and don't know you when she does see you, it is the most uncomfortable tiling in the world.

But, as I was saying, when the sheet-hath failed to cure my cough, a lady friend recom- mended the application of a mustard j)laster to my breast. I believe that would have cured me effectually, if it had not been for young Wilson. "When I went to bed, I put my mus- tard plaster — which was a very gorgeous one, eighteen inches square — where I could reach it when I was ready for it. But young Wilson got hungry in the night, and ate it up. I never saw any body have such an appetite ; I am con- fident that lunatic would have eaten me if I had been healthy.

After sojourning a week at Lake Bigler, I went to Steamboat Springs, and beside the steam baths, I took a lot of the vilest medicines that were ever concocted. They would have cured me, but I had to go back to Virginia, where, notwithstanding the variety of new reme- dies I absorbed every day, I managed to aggra-

CURING A COLD. 75

vate my disease by carelessness and undue ex- posure.

I finally concluded to visit San Francisco, and tlie first day I got tliere, a lady at tlie Lick House told me to drink a quart of whisky every twenty-four hours, and a friend at the Occiden- tal recommended precisely the same course. Each advised me to take a quart ; that made half a gallon. I did it, and still live.

Now, with the kindest motives in the world, I ofier for the consideration of consumptive pa- tients the variegated course of treatment I have lately gone through. Let them try it ; if it don't cure them, it can't more than kill them.

AK INQUIRY ABOUT INSURANCES.

OMING down from Sacramento the other night, I found on a center- tahle in the saloon of the steamlboat, a pamphlet advertisement of an Accident In- surance Company. It interested me a good deal, with its General Accidents, and its Haz- ardous Tables, and Extra-Hazardous furniture of the same description, and I would like to know something more ahout it. It is a new thing to me. I want to invest if I come to like it. I want to ask merely a few questions of the man who carries on this Accident shop. For I am an orphan.

He publishes this list as accidents he is will- ing to insure people against.

General accidents include the Traveling Risk, and also all forms of Dislocations, Broken Bones, Ruptures, Tendons, Sprains, Concus- sions, Crushings, Bruising, Cuts, Stabs, Gun-

AN INQUIRY ABOUT INSURANCES. 77

shot Wounds. Poisoned Wounds, Burns and Scalds, Freezing, Bites, Unprovoked Assaults by Burglars, Robbers, or Murderers, tlie action of Lightning or Sunstroke, the effects of Exjjlo- sions. Chemicals, Floods, and Earthquakes, Suffocation by Drowning or Choking — where such accidental injury totally disables the per- son insured from following his usual avocation, or causes death within three months from the time of the happening of the injury. I want to address this party as follows : Now, Smith — I suppose likely your name is Smith — you don't know me and I don't know you, but I am willing to be friendly. I am ac- quainted with a good many of your family — I know John as well as I know any man — and I think we can come to an understanding about your little game without any hard feelings. For instance :

Do you allow the same money on a dog-bite that you do on an earthquake % Do you take special risks for specific accidents ? — that is to say, could I, by getting a policy for dog -bites alone, get it cheaper than if I took a chance in your w^hole lottery ? And if so, and supposing I got insured against earthquakes, would you

78 ^N IHQUIMY ABOUT INSURANCES.

charge any more for San Francisco earthqualves than for those that prevail in places that are better anchored down ? i\nd if I had a policy on earthquakes alone, I couldn't collect on a dog-lbite, may l)e, could I ?

If a man had such a policy, and an earth- quake shook him up and loosened his joints a good deal, hut not enough to incapacitate him from engaging in pursuits which did not re quire him to be tight, wouldn't you pay him some of his pension ? I notice you do not men- tion Biles. How about Biles ? Why do you discriminate between Provoked and Unpro- voked Assaults by Burglars ? If a burglar en- tered my house at dead of night, and I, in the excitement natural to such an occasion, should forget myself and say something that provoked him, and he should cripple me, wouldn't I get any thing? But if I provoked him. by pure accident, I would have you there, I judge ; be- cause you would have to pay for the Accident part of it any how, seeing that insuring against accidents is just your strong suit, you know. Now, that item about protecting a man against freezing is good. It will procure you all the custom you want in this country. Because,

Alf INQUIBY ABOUT INSURANCES. 79

you understand, tlie peoi^le lierea"bouts liave suffered a good deal from just sucli climatic drawbacks as tliat. Wliy, tiiree years ago, if a man — being a small fisli in tlie matter of money — went over to Wasiioe, and bouglit into a good silver mine, tliey would let that man go on and pay assessments till Ms purse got down to about tliirty-two Fahrenlieit, and then the big fish would close in on him and freeze him out. And from that day forth you might con- sider that man in the light of a bankrupt com- munity ; and you would have him down to a spot, too. But if you are ready to insure against that sort of thing, and can stand it, you can give Washoe a fair start. You might send me an agency. Business \ Why, Smith, 1 could get you more business than you could attend to. With such an understanding as that, the boys would all take a chance.

You don't appear to make any particular mention of taking risks on blighted affections. But if you should conclude to do a little busi- ness in that line, you might put me down for six or seven chances. I wouldn't mind ex- pense— you might enter it on the extra hazard- ous. J suppose I would get ahead of you in

80 -A.N INQUIBT ABOUT INSUBANCES.

the long run any liow, likely. I liave been blighted a good deal in my time.

But now as to those ''Effects of Lightning." Suppose the lightning were to strike out at one of your men and miss him, and fetch another party — could that other party come on you for damages ? Or could the relatives of the party thus suddenly snaked out of the bright world in the bloom of his youth come on you in case he was crowded for time ? as of course he would be, you know, under such circumstances.

You say you have ' ' issued over sixty thou- sand policies, forty -five of which have proved fatal and been paid for." Now, do you know, Smith, that that looks just a little shaky to me, in a measure ? You appear to have it pretty much all your own way, you see. It is all very well for the lucky forty -five that have died " and been paid for," but how about the other fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and fifty-five ? You have got their money, haven't you? but somehow the lightning don't seem to strike them and they don't get any chance at you. Won't their families get fatigued waiting for their dividends ? Don't your customers drop off rather slow, so to speak ?

AN INQUIRY ABOUT INSURANCE. 81

You will ruin yourself publishing sucli dam- aging statements as tTiat, Smith. I tell you as a friend. If you had said that the fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and fifty-five died, and that forty-five lived, you would have issued ahout four tons of policies the next week. But people are not going to get insured, when you take so much pains to prove that there is such precious little use in it. Good- by Smith I

LITERATURE IN THE DRY DIGGINGS.

LTHOUGH a resident of San Fran- cisco, I never heard mncli abont tlie "Art Union Association" of tliat city until I got liold of some old news- papers during my three months' stay in the Big Tree region of Calaveras county. Up there, you know, they read every tiling^ Ibecause in most of those little camps they have no libraries, and no hooks to speak of, except now and then a patent office report or a prayer- book, or literature of that kind, in a general way, that will hang on and last a good while when people are careful with it, like miners ; but as for novels, they pass them around and wear them out in a week or two. N'ow there was Coon, a nice, bald-headed man at the hotel in Angels' Camp, I asked him to lend me a book, one rainy day ; he was silent a moment, and a shade of melancholy flitted across his

LITEEATURE IN THE DRY DIGGINGS. 83

fine face, and tlien lie said: ''Well, I've got a miglity responsible old Webster Unabridged, what there is left of it, but tliey started lier sloshing around and sloshing around and sloshing around the camp before ever I got a chance to read her myself ; and next she went to Murphy' s, and from there she went to Jack- ass Gulch, and now she's gone to San An- dreas, and I don't expect I'll ever see that book again. But what makes me mad is, that for all they're so handy about keeping her sashshaying around from shanty to shanty and from camp to camp, none of 'em's ever got a good word for her. Now Coddington had her a week, and she was too many for Jiim — he couldn't spell the words ; he tackled some of them regular busters, tow'rd the middle, you know, and they throwed him ; next, Dyer, lie tried her a jolt, but he couldn't pronoitnce 'em — Dyer can hunt quail or play seven-up as well as any man, understand, but he can't pro- nounce worth a cuss ; he used to worry along well enough, though, tiU he' d flush one of them rattlers with a clatter of syllables as long as a string of sluice-boxes, and then he'd lose his grip and throw up his hand ; and so, finally,

84 LITERATURE JN THE DRY DIGGINGS.

Dick Stoker harnessed ker, up tkere at kis cakin, and sweated over ker and cussed over ker and rastled witk ker for as muck as tkree weeks, nigkt and day, till ke got as far as E, and tken passed ker over to 'Lige Pickerell, and said ske was tke all-firedest dryest reading tkat ever lie struck. Well, well, if ske' s come kack fi'om San Andreas, you can get ker, and prospect ker, kut I don't reckon tkere' s a good deal left of ker ky tkis time, tkougk time was wken ske was as kkely a kook as any in tke State, and as kefty, and kad an amount of general information in ker tkat was astonisking, if any of tkese cattle kad known enougk to get it out of ker.'- And ex-corporal Coon proceeded ckeerlessly to scout witk kis krusk after tke straggling kairs on tke rear of kis kead and drum tkem to tke front for inspection and roll-call, as was kis usual custom kefore turning in for liis regular after- noon nap.

"AFTER" JENKINS. GRAND affair of a Iball— tlie Pio-

some time ago. The following notes of the costumes worn loy the "belles of the occasion may not Ibe uninteresting to the gen- eral reader, and Jenkins may get an idea therefrom :

Mrs. W. M. was attired in an elegant pate de foie gras, made expressly for her, and. was greatly admired.

Miss S. had her hair done up. She was the center of attraction for the gentlemen and the envy of all the ladies.

Miss G. W. was tastefully dressed in a tout enserrible^ and was greeted with deafening ap- plause wherever she went.

Mrs. C. !N". was superl)ly arrayed in white kid gloves. Her modest and engaging manner accorded well with the unpretending simplicity

86 "AFTER" JENKINS.

of lier costume, and caused lier to be regarded witli absorbing interest by every one.

The cliarming Miss M. M. B. appeared in a thrilling waterfall, whose exceeding grace and volume compelled the homage of pioneers and emigrants alike. How beautiful she was !

The queenly Mrs. L. R. was attractively at- tired in her new and beautiful false teeth, and the 'bonjouT effect they naturally produced was heightened by her enchanting and well sus- tained smile. The manner of the lady is charmingly pensive and melancholy, and her troops of admirers desired no greater happiness than to get on the scent of her sozodont-sweet- ened sighs, and track her through her sinuous course among the gay and restless multitude.

Miss K. P., with that repugnance to ostenta- tion in dress, which is so peculiar to her, was attired in a simple white lace collar, fastened with a neat pearl-button solitaire. The line contrast between the sparkling vivacity of her natural optic and the steadfast attentiveness of her placid glass eye, was the subject of general and enthusiastic remark.

The radiant and sylph-like Mrs. T. wore hoops. She showed to good advantage, and

"AFTER" JENKINS. 87

created a sensation wherever slie appeared. She was tlie gayest of the gay.

Miss C. L. B. had her line nose elegantly en- ameled, and the easy grace with which she blew it from time to time, marked her as a cul- tivated and accomplished woman of the world ; its exquisitely modulated tone excited the admu^ation of all who had the happiness to hear it.

Being offended with Miss X. and our ac- quaintance having ceased permanently, I will take this opportunity of observing to her that it is of no use for her to be sloj)ping off to every ball that takes place, and flourishing around with a brass oyster-knife skewered through her waterfall, and smiling her sickly smile through her decayed teeth, with her dis- mal pug nose in the air. There is no u^e in it — she don't fool any body. Every body knows she is old ; every body knows she is repaired (you might almost say built) with artificial bones and hair and muscles and things, from the ground up — put together scrap by scrap ; and every body knows, also, that all one would have to do would be to pull out her key -pin and she would go to pieces like a Chinese puz-

88 ''AFTER'' JENKINS.

zle. There, now, my faded flower, take tliat paragraph home with you and amuse yourself with it ; and if ever you turn your wart of a nose up at me again, I will sit down and write something that will just make you rise up and howl.

LUCRETIA SMITH'S SOLDIER.

AM an ardent admirer of tliose nice, sickly war stories whicli have lately been so popular, and for the last three months I have been at work upon one of that character, which is now completed. It can be relied npon as true in every particular, inas- much as the facts it contains were compiled from the official records in the War Depart- ment at Washington. It is but just, also, that I should confess that I have drawn largely on JominVs Art of War, the Message of the Pres- ident and Accompanying Documents, and sun- dry maps and military works, so necessary foi reference in building a novel like this. To the accommodating Directors of the Overland Tele- graph Company I take pleasure in returning my thanks for tendering me the use of their wires at the customary rates. And finally, to all those kind friends who have, by good deeds

90 LUCBETIA SMITH'S SOLDIEB.

or encoiiragiDg words, assisted me in my labors upon this story of '' Lucretia Smith's Soldier," during the past three months, and whose names are too numerous for special mention, I take this method of tendering my sincerest grati- tude.

CHAPTER I.

On a balmy May morning in 1861, the lit- tle village of Bluemass, in Massachusetts, lay wrapped in the splendor of the newly-risen sun. Reginald de Whittaker, confidential and only clerk in the house of Bushrod & Ferguson, gen- eral drygoods and grocery dealers and keep- ers of the post-office, rose from his bunk under the counter, and shook himself. After yawn- ing and stretching comfortably, he sprinkled the floor and proceeded to sweep it. He had only half finished his task, however, when he sat down on a keg of nails and fell into a reve- rie. "This is my last day in this shanty," said he. ''How it will surprise Lucretia when she hears I am going for a soldier ! How j)roud she will be, the little darling!" He pictured

LUOBETIA SMITH'S SOLDIER. 91

liiinself in all manner of warlike situations ; the liero of a thousand extraordinary adventures ; the man of rising fame ; the pet of Fortune at last ; and beheld himself, finally, returning to his own home, a iDronzed and scarred brigadier- general, to cast his honors and his matured and perfect love at the feet of his Lucretia Borgia Smith.

At this point a thrill of joy and pride suf- fused his system ; but he looked down and saw his broom, and blushed. He came toppling down from the clouds he had been soaring among, and was an obscure clerk again, on a salary of two dollars and a half a week.

CHAPTER II.

At eight o'clock that evening, with a heart pal]Ditating with the proud news he had brought for his beloved, Reginald sat in Mr. Smith's parlor awaiting Lucretia' s appearance. The moment she entered, he sprang to meet her, his face lighted by the torch of love that was blaz- ing in his head somewhere and shining through,

92 LUCllETIA SMITH'S SOLDIER.

and ejaculated, "Mine own !" as lie opened Ms arms to receive her.

" Sir !" said slie, and drew herself up like an offended queen.

Poor Reginald was stricken dumb with as- tonishment. This chilling demeanor, this angry rebuff, where he had expected the old, tender welcome, banished the gladness from his heart as the cheerful brightness is swept from the landscape when a dark cloud drifts athwart the face of the sun. He stood bewildered a moment, with a sense of goneness on him like one who finds himself suddenly overboard upon a midnight sea, and beholds the ship pass into shrouding gloom, while the dreadful conviction falls upon his soul that he has not been missed. He tried to speak, but his pallid lips refused their office. At last he murmured :

" 0 Lucretia ! what have I done ; what is the matter ; why this cruel coldness ? Don't you love your Reginald any more ?"

Her lips curled in bitter scorn, and she re- plied, in mocking tones :

" Don't I love my Reginald any more ? No, I clonH love my Reginald any more ! Go back to your pitiful junk-shop and grab your pitiful

LUCBETIA SMITH'S SOLDIER. 93

yard- stick, and stuif cotton in your ears, so that yon can't hear your country shout to you to fall in and shoulder arms. Go !" And then, unheeding the new light that flashed from his eyes, she fled from the room and slammed the door behind her.

Only a moment more ! Only a single mo- ment more, he thought, and he could have told her how he had already answered the summons and signed his name to the muster-roll, and all would have iDeen well ; his lost bride would have come Iback to his arms with words of praise and thanksgiving upon her lij)s. He made a step forward, once, to recall her, but he remembered that he was no longer an effemi- nate drygoods student, and his warrior soul scorned to sue for quarter. He strode from the place with martial firmness, and never looked behind him.

CHAPTER III.

When" Lucretia awoke next morning, the faint music of fife and the roll of a distant drum

94 LUCBETm SMITH'S SOLDIER.

came floating upon tlie soft spring Ibreeze, and as sli8 listened the sounds grew more subdued, and finally passed out of hearing. She lay ab- sorbed in tliought for many minutes, and then she sighed and said : ' ' Oh ! if he were only Avitli that band of fellows, how I could love him!"

In the course of the day a neighbor dropped in, and when the conversation turned uj^on the soldiers, the visitor said :

' Reginald de Whittaker looked rather down-hearted, and didn't shout when he marched along with the other boys this morn- ing. I expect it's owing to you. Miss Loo, though when I met him coming here yesterday evening to tell you he'd enlisted, he thought

you'd like it and be j)roud of Mercy !

what in the nation's the matter with the girl ?"

IS'othing, only a sudden misery had fallen like" a blight upon her heart, and a deadly pallor telegraphed it to her countenance. She rose up without a word and walked with a firm step out of the room ; but once within the sacred seclusion of her own chamber, her strons: will erave way and she burst into a flood of passionate tears. Bitterly she upbraided

LUCRETTA SMITIPS SOLDIER. 95

herself for her foolish haste of the night before, and her harsh treatment of her lover at the very moment that he had come to anticipate the proudest wish of her heart, and to tell her that he had enrolled himself nnder the battle-flag, and Avas going forth to fight as Jier soldier. Alas ! other maidens would have soldiers in those glorious fields, and be entitled to the sweet pain of feeling a tender solicitude for them, but she would be unrepresented. No soldier in all the vast armies would breathe her name as he breasted the crimson tide of war ! She wept again — or, rather, she went on weep- ing where she left oiT a moment before. In her bitterness of spirit she almost cursed the pre- cipitancy that had brought all this sorrow upon her young life. "Drat it!" The words were in her bosom, but she locked them there, and closed her lips against their utterance.

For weeks she nursed her grief in silence, while the roses faded from her cheeks. And through it all she clung to the hope that some day the old love would bloom again in Regi- nald's heart, and he would write to her ; but the long summer days dragged wearily along, and still no letter came. The newspapers

96 LUCRETIA SMITH'S SOLDIER.

teemed witli stones of battle and carnage, and eagerly she read tliem, but always with the same result : the tears welled up and blurred the closing lines — the name she sought was looked for in vain, and the dull aching returned to her sinking heart. Letters to the other girls sometimes contained brief mention of him, and presented always the same picture of him — a morose, unsmiling, desperate man, always in the thickest of the fight, begrimed with powder, and moving calm and unscathed through tem- pests of shot and shell, as if he bore a charmed life.

But at last, in a long list of maimed and killed, poor Lucretia read these terrible words, and fell fainting to the floor: '^ B. D. Whitta- Icer, private soldier^ desperately wounded P^

CHAPTER ly.

On a couch in one of the w^ards of a hospital at Washington lay a wounded soldier ; his head was so profusely bandaged that his features were not visible ; but there was no mistaking the happy face of the young girl who sat be-

[

LUGBETIA SMITH'S SOLDIER. . 97

side liim — it was Lucretia Borgia Smith's. She liad liunted him out several weeks before, and since that time she had patiently watched by him and nursed him, coming in the morning as soon as the surgeon had finished dressing his wounds, and never leaving him until relieved at nightfall. A ball had shattered his lower jaw, and he could not utter a syllable ; through all her weary vigils she had never once been blessed v/ith a grateful word from his dear lips ; yet she stood to her post bravely and without a murmur, feeling that when he did get well again she would hear that which would more than reward her for all her devotion.

At the hour we have chosen for the opening of this chapter, Lucretia was in a tumult of happy excitement ; for the surgeon had told her that at last her Whittaker had recovered suffi- ciently to admit of the removal of the ban- dages from his head, and she was now waiting with feverish impatience for the doctor to come and disclose the loved features to her view. At last he came, and Lucretia, with beaming eyes and fluttering heart, bent over the couch with anxious ex^Dectancy. One bandage was re- moved, then another and another, and lo ! the

98 LUGRETIA SMITH'S SOLDIER.

poor wounded face was revealed to the light of day.

' ' 0 my own dar ' '

What have we here ! What is the matter I Alas ! it was the face of a stranger !

Poor Lucretia ! With one hand covering her upturned eyes, she staggered back with a moan of anguish. Then a spasm of fury distorted her countenance as she brought her fist down with a crash that made the medicine bottles on the table dance again, and exclaimed :

'*0h! confound my cats, if I haven't gone and fooled aw^ay three mortal weeks here, snuf- fling and slobbering over the wrong soldier !"

It was a sad, sad truth. The wretched but innocent and unwitting impostor was R. D., or Richard Dilworthy Whittaker, of Wisconsin, the soldier of dear little Eugenie Le Mulligan, of that State, and utterly unknown to our un- happy Lucretia B. Smith. •

Such is life, and the tail of the serpent is over us all. Let us draw the curtain over this melancholy history — for melancholy it must still remain, during a season at least, for the real Reginald dp Whittaker has not turned up

yet.

THE

KILLING OP JULIUS Ci:SAR " LOCALIZED/^

BEINa THE OI^LY TEUE AIs^D RELIABLE AC- COUNT EVER PUBLISHED ; TAKEIT FROM THE

ROMATT

DATE OF THAT TREMEI^'DOUS OCCURRETTCE.

OTHING in tlie world affords a news- paper reporter so mucli satisfaction i^^^^mi as gathering np tlie details of a bloody and mysterious murder, and writing tliem up with, aggravated circumstantiality. He takes a living delight in this labor of love — for such it is to him^especially if he knows that all the other papers have gone to press, and his will be the only one that will contain the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret has often come over me that I was not report-

100 KILLING OF JULIUS C^SAH.

ing in Kome when CaBsar was killed — reporting on an evening paper, and tlie only one in the city, and getting at least twelve honrs ahead of the morning paper boys with this most mag- nificent ^'item" that ever fell to the lot of the craft. Other events have happened as startling as this, l)ut none that possessed so peculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite "item" of the present day, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high rank, fame, and social and political standing of the actors in it. In imagination I have seen myself skirmishing around old Rome, button-holing soldiers, sen- ators, and citizens by turns, and transferring "all the particulars" from them to my note- book ; and, better still, arriving at the base of Pompey' s statue in time to say persuasively to the dying Csesar, "Oh ! come now, you an't so far gone, you know, but what you could stir yourself up a little and tell a fellow just how this thing happened, if you was a mind to, couldn't you ? — now do !" and get the "straight of it" from his own li];)S, and be envied by the morning paper hounds !

Ah! if I had lived in those days, I would have written up that item gloatingly, and spiced

KILLING OF JULIUS C^SAB. 101

it with a little moralizing liere and plenty of blood there ; and some dark, shuddering mys- tery ; and praise and pity for some, and mis- representation and abnse for others, (who did not patronize the paper,) and gory gashes, and notes of warning as to the tendency of the times, and extravagant descriptions of the ex- citement in the Senate-house and the street, and all that sort of thing.

However, as I w^as not permitted to report Csesar's assassination in the regular way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to trans- late the following able account of it from the original Latin of the Roman Daily Evening Fasces of that date — second edition.

'' Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild excitement yesterday by the occurrence of one of those bloody affrays which sicken the heart and fill the soul with fear, while they inspire all thinldng men with forebodings for the future of a city where hu- man life is held so cheaply, and the gravest laws are so openly set at defiance. As the re- sult of that affray, it is our painful duty, as public journalists, to record the death of one of our most esteemed citizens — a man whose

102 KILLING OF JULIUS C^SAR.

name is known wherever this paper ckcnlatea, and whose fame it has Ibeen onr pleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from the tongue of slander and falsehood, to the Ibest of our poor al)ility. We refer to Mr. J. Caesar, the Emperor-elect.

^'The facts of the case, as nearly as our re- porter could determine them from the conflict- ing statements of eye-witnesses, w^ere about as follows : The afiair w^as an election row, of course. Mne tenths of the ghastly butcheries that disgrace the city nowadays grow out of the bickerings and jealousies and animosities engendered by these accursed elections. Rome would be the gainer by it if her very constables were elected to serve a century ; for in our ex- perience we have never even been able to choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen knock-downs and a general cramming of the station-house with drunken vagabonds over night. It is said that when the immense majority for Caesar at the polls in the market was declared the other day, and the crown was offered to that gentleman, even his amazing unselfishness in refusing it three times was not sufficient to save him from the whis-

KILLING OF JULIUS GJESAR. 103

pered insults of sucli men as Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other heelings of the disappointed candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth and other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically and con- temptuously of Mr. Csesar's conduct upon that occasion.

"We are further informed that there are many among us who think they are justified in believing that the assassination of Julius Csesar was a put-up thing — a cut-and-dried arrange- ment, hatched by Marcus Brutus and a lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only too faith- fully according to the programme. Whether there be good grounds for this suspicion or not, we leave to the people to judge for themselves, only asking that they will read the following account of the sad occurrence carefully and dispassionately before they render that judg- ment.

"The Senate was already in session, and Csesar was coming down the street toward the capitol, conversing with some personal friends, and followed, as usual, by a large number of citizens. Just as he was passing in front of De- mosthenes & Thucydides's drug-stoie, he was

10-1 KILLING OF JULIUS C^SAR.

observing casually to a gentleman, who, our in- formant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides of March Avere come. The reply was, ' Yes, they are come, but not gone yet.' At this mo- ment Artemidorus stepped up and passed the time of day, and asked Csesar to read a sche- dule or a tract, or something of the kind, which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus also said something about an ' humble suit ' which he wanted read. Artemidorus beg- ged that attention might be paid to his first, be cause it was of personal consequence to Csesar. The latter replied that what concerned him- self should be read last, or words to that effect. Artemidorus begged and beseeched him to read the paper instantly."^ However, Csesar shook him off, and refused to read any petition in the street. He then entered the capitol, and the crowd followed him.

*' About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we consider that, taken in connection with the events which succeeded it.

* Mark tliat : it is liinted by William Shakespeare, yw\\o saw tlie beginning and tlie end of tlie unfortunate affray, tliat tliis " schedule " was simply a note discovering to Ciesar that a plot was brewing to take his life.

KILLING OF JULIUS CJESAB. 105

it bears an appalling significance : Mr. Papilius Lena remarked to George 'W. Cassius, (com- monly known as tlie ' Nobby Boy of tlie Third Ward,') a bruiser in tlie pay of tlie Opioositiou, that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive ; and when Cassius asked, ' What en- terprise'^' he only closed his left eye tempo- rarily and said with simulated indifierence, ' Fare you well,' and sauntered toward Cfiesar. Marcus Brutus, wdio is suspected of being the ringleader of the band that killed Csesar, asked wdiat it was that Lena had said. Cassius told him, and added in a low tone, ^I fear our jpur- pose is discover ed.^

' ' Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena, and a moment after Cassius urged that lean and hungry vagrant, Casca, whose reputation here is none of the best, to be sudden, for Tie feared ])reT>ention. He then turned to Brutus, apparently much excited, and asked what should be done, and swore that either he or Csesar sliould never turn Ijack — he would kill himself first. At this time Csesar was talking to some of the back-country members about the approaching fall elections, and paying little attention to what was going

100 KILLING OF JULIUS CJEJSAM.

Oil around Mm. Billy Trebouius got into con- versation with tliQ people's friend and Caesar's — Mark Antony — and nnder some pretense or otlier got liim away, and Brutus, Decius Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and others of the gang of infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at present, closed around the doomed Csesar. Then Metellus Cimber knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from banish- ment, but Csesar rebuked him for his fawning, sneaking conduct, and refused to grant his pe- tition. Immediately, at Cimber' s request, first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the banished Publius ; but CaBsar still re- fused. He said he could not be moved ; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and pro- ceeded to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that star, and its steady character. Then he said he was like it, and he believed he was the only man in the country tha-t was ; therefore, since he was ' constant ' that Cimber should be banished, he was also * constant' that he should stay banished, and he'd be d — d if he didn't keep him so !

" Instantly seizing uj)on this shallow pretext for a fight, Casca sprang at Ca3sar and struck

KILLING OF JULIUS GJiSAR. 10?

liini witli a dirk, Csesar gra"bbing liiin "by the arm witli his right hand, and launching a blow straight from the shoulder with his left, that sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He then backed vo^ against Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants. Cas- sius and Cimber and Cinna rushed upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former suc- ceeded in inflicting a wound upon Ms body ; but before he could strike again, and before either of the others could strike at all, Csesar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as many blows of his powerful fist. By this time the Senate was in an indescribable uproar ; the throng of citizens in the lobjjies had block- aded the doors in their frantic efforts to escape from the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants were struggling with the assassins, venerable senators had cast aside their encum- bering robes, and were leaping over benches and flying down the aisles in wild confusion toward the shelter of the committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting, ' Po-lice ! Po-lice !' in discordant tones that rose above the frightful din like shrieking winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it all,

108 KILLING OF JULIUS CjESAB.

great Caesar stood with liis back against tlie statue, like a lion at bay, and fonglit Lis assail- ants weaponless and liand to Land, with tlie defiant bearing and tlie nnwavering courage wLicli lie Lad sLown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and Caius Legarius struck liim witli tlieir daggers and fell, as tlieir brother- conspirators before tliem Lad fallen. But at last, wLen Csesar saw Lis old friend Brutus step forward, armed with a murderous knife, it is said he seemed utterly overpowered with grief and amazement, and dropping his in- vincible left arm by his side, he hid his face in the folds of his mantle and received the treach- erous blow witlK)ut an effort to stay the hand that gave it. He only said, '• Et tu^ Brute f^ and fell lifeless on the marble pavement.

'' We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was the same he wore in his tent on the afternoon of the day he overcame the ISTervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse it was found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different places. There was noth- ing in the pockets. It will be exhibited at the coroner' s inquest, and will be damning proof of the fact of the killing. These latter facts may

KILLING OF JULIUS C^SAR. 109

be relied on, as we get tliem from Mark Antony, wliose position enables liim to learn every item of news connected witli tlie one snbject of ab- sorbing interest of to-day.

" Latee. — While tlie coroner was summon- ing a jury, Mark Antony and other friends of the late Csesar got hold of the body, and lugged it off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony and Brutus were making speeches over it and raising such a row among the people that, as we go to press, the chief of police is satisfied there is going to l)e a riot, and is taking mea- sures accordingly."

AN ITEM WHICH THE EDITOR HIMSELF COULD NOT UNDERSTAND.

UE, esteemed friend, Mr. John WHliani Skae, of Virginia City, walked into the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last night, with an expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon his coun- tenance, and, sighing heavily, laid the following item reverently upon the desk, and walked slowly out again. He paused a moment at the door, and seemed struggling to command his feelings sufficiently to enable him to speak, and then, nodding his head toward his manuscript, ejaculated in a broken voice, '' Friend of mine — oh ! how sad !' ' and burst into tears. We were so moved at his distress that we did not think to call him back and endeavor to comfort him until he was gone and it was too late. The paper had already gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider the publication

MR. SKAE'S ITEM. HI

of this item important, and cherishing the hope that to print it would afford a melancholy satis- faction to his sorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted it in onr colnmns :

Distressing Accident. — Last evening about 6 o'clock, as Mr. William Scliuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park, was leaving his residence to go down town, as has been his usual custom for many years, with the exception only of a short interval in the spring of 1850, during which he was con- fined to his bed by injuries received in attempting to stop a run- aAvay horse by thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its v/ake and throwing up his hands and shouting, which, if he had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more mel- ancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and saw the sad occurrence, notwith- standing it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitering in another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and on the lookout, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her own mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upwards of three years ago, aged 86, being a Christian woman and without guile, as it were, or property, in consequence of the fire of 1849, which destroyed every blasted thing she had in the world. But such is life. Let us all take warning by tliis solemn occurrence, and let us endeavor so to con- duct ourselves that when we come to die we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our hearts, and say with earnestness and sincerity that from this day forth we will beware of the intox- icating bowl. — First Edition of the Califorrdan.

The l30SS-editor has l^een in here raising the very miscliief, and tearing his hau' and kicking

112 MR. SKAE'S ITEM.

the furniture al)out, and albusing me like a pickpocket. He says tliat every time lie leaves me in charge of the paper for half an hour. I get imposed upon by the first infant or the first idiot that comes along. And he says that dis- tressing item of Johnny Skae' s is nothing hut a lot of distressing hosh, and^ has got no point to it and no sense in it and no information in it, and that there was no earthly necessity for stop- ping the press to publish it. He says every man he meets has insinuated that somebody about The CALiFOEiNriAK ofiice has gone crazy. N"ow all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as unaccommodating and unsympa- thetic as some people, I would have told Johnny Skae that I wouldn't receive his communica- tion at such a late hour, and to go to blazes with it ; but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped at the chance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read his item to see whether there was any thing wrong about it, but hastily wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to the printers. And what has my kindness done for me ? It has done nothing but bring down upon me a storm of abuse and ornamental blasphemy.

MR. SKAE'S ITEM. US

► Novf, I will just read tliat item myself, and see if there is any foundation for all this fuss. And if there is, the author of it shall hear from me.

I have read it, and I am iDound to admit that it seems a little mixed at a first glance. How- ever, I will peruse it once more.

I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more mixed than ever.

I have read it over five times, Ibut if I can get at the meaning of it, I wish I may get my just deserts. It won't Ibear analysis. There are things about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say whatever became of William Schuy- ler. It just says enough ah out him to get one interested in his career, and then drops him. Who is William Schuyler, any how, and what part of South Park did he live in, and if he started down-town at six o'clock, did he ever get there, and if he did, did any thing happen to him ? Is 7ie the individual that met with the

114 MR. SKAE'S ITEM.

''distressing accident"? Considering the ela-* borate circumstantiality of detail observable in the item, it seems to me that it ought to contain more information than it does. On the con- trary, it is obscure — and not only obscure, bat utterly incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr. Schuyler's leg, fifteen years ago, the ''distressing accident" that plunged Mr. Skae into unspeakable grief, and caused him to come up here at dead of night and stop our press to acquaint the world with the unfortunate cir- cumstance ? Or did the ' ' distressing accident ' ' consist in the destruction of Schuyler's mother- in-law's property in early times ? Or did it con- sist in the death of that person herself three years ago ? (albeit it does not appear that she died by accident.) In a word, what did that ''distressing accident" consist in? What did that driveling ass of a Schuyler stand in tlie wake of a runaway horse for, with his shouting and gesticulating, if he wanted to stop him ? And how the mischief could he get run over by a horse that had already passed beyond him ? And what are we to " take warning" by? and how is this extraordinary chapter of incompre- hensibilities going to be a " lesson' ' to us ? And

MB. SKAE'S ITEM. 115

above all, what lias tlie "intoxicating bowl" got to do witli it, any liow ? It is not stated that Sclniyler drank, or that his wife drank, or that his mother-in-law drank, or that the horse drank — wherefore, then, the reference to the intoxicating bowl ? It does seem to me that, if Mr. Skae had let the intoxicating bowl alone himself, he never wonld have got into so much trouble about this infernal imaginary distress- ing accident. I have read his absurd item over and over again,* with all its insinuating plausi- bility, until my head swims ; but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly seems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is impossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was the sufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to request that the next time any thing happens to one of Mr. Skae's friends, he will append such explanatory notes to his account of it as will enable me to find out what sort of an acci- dent it was and whom it happened to. I had rather all his friends should die than tliat I should be driven to the verge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out the meaning of another such production as the above.

AMONG THE SPIRITS.

TnERE was a seance in town a few nights since. As I was making for it, in company with the reporter of an evening paper, he said he had seen a gambler named Gus Graham shot down in a town in Illinois years ago by a mob, and as he was j)i'obably the only 2:)erson in San Francisco who knew of the circumstance, he thought he would "give the spirits Graham to chaw on awhile." [N". B. — This young crea- ture is a Democrat, and speaks with the native strength and inelegance of his tribe.] In the course of the show he wrote his 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 already had about five hundred similar documents in it. The pile was dumped on the table, and the medium began to take them up one by one and lay them aside, asking, "Is

AMONG THE SPIRITS. 117

this spirit i)resent? or tliis ? or tliis ?" About one ill fifty would rap, and tlie person wlio sent up tlie name would rise in his place and ques- tion the defunct. At last a spirit seized the medium's hand and wrote " Gus Graham " backward. Then the medium w^ent skirmish- ing through the papers for the corresponding name. And that old sport knew his card by the back ! When the medium came to it, after picking up fifty others, he rapped ! A commit- teeman unfolded the paper, and it was the right one. I sent for it and got it. It was all right. However, I suppose all Democrats are on so- ciable terms with the devil. The young man got up and asked :

" Did you die in '51 ? '52 ? '53 ? '54 ? "

Gliost — "Rap, rap, rap."

'' Did you die of cholera ? diarrhea ? dysen- tery ? dog-bite ? small-pox ? violent death ? "

''Rap, rap, rap."

''Were you hanged? drowned? stabbed? shot? "

"Rap, rap, rap."

"Did you die in Mississippi? Kentucky? New- York ? Sandwich Islands ? Texas ? Illi- nois? "

118 AMONG THE SPIRITS.

'^Raj), rap, rap."

" In Adams county ? Madison ? Ran dolpli? "

"Rap, rap, rap."

It was no nse trying to catch the departed gambler. He knew Ms hand, and played it like a major.

About this time a couple of Germans stepped forward, an elderly man and a spry young fel- low, cocked and primed for a sensation. They wrote some names. Then young Ollendorff said something which sounded like —

'' 1st ein geist hieraus ?" [Bursts of laughter from the audience.]

Three raps— signifying that there was a geist hieraus.

" Yollen sie schriehen ?" [More laughter.]

Three raps.

'Tinzig stollen, linsowfterowlickterhau^owf- terfrowleineruhackfolderol ?"

Incredible as it may seem, the spirit cheer- fully answered Yes to that astonishing propo- sition.

The audience grew more and more boister- ously mirthful with every fresh question, and they were informed that the performance could

AMONa THE SPIRITS. 119

not go on in tlie midst of so mucli levity. Tliey became quiet.

Tlie German gliost didn't appear to kno^v any thing at all — couldn't answer tlie simplest questions. Young Ollendorff finally stated some numbers, and tried to get at tlie time of the spirit's death ; it appeared to be con- siderably mixed as to whether it died in 1811 or 1812, which was reasonable enough, as it had been so long ago. At last it wrote "12."

Tableau ! Young Ollendorff sprang to his feet in a state of consuming excitement He exclaimed :

"Laties nnd shentlemen ! I write de name fon a man vot lifs ! Speerit-rabbing dells me he ties in yahr eighteen hoondred nnd dwelf, but he yoos as live nnd lielty as "

The Medium—" Sit down, sir !"

Ollendorff— "But I vant to "

Medium — "Yon are not here to make speeches, sir — sit down !" [Mr. O. had sqnared himself for an oration.]

Mr. O. "But de speerit cheat! — dere m no

such speerit " [All this time applause and

laughter by turns from the audience.]

120 AMONG THE SPIRITS.

Medium — ''Take your seat, sir, and I ^Yill exj)lain this matter."

And slie explained. And in that explana- tion she let off a blast which was so terrific that I half expected to see young Ollendorff shot up through the roof. She said he had come up there with fraud and deceit and cheating in his heart, and a kindred spirit had come from the land of shadows to commune with him 1 She was terribly bitter. She said in substance, though not in words, that perdition was full of just such fellows as Ollendorfi*, and they were ready on the slightest pretext to rush in and assume any body's name, and rap and write and lie and swindle with a perfect looseness whenever they could rope in a living afiinity like poor Ollendorff to communicate with ! [Great applause and laughter.]

Ollendorff stood his ground with good pluck, and was going to open his batteries again, when a storm of cries arose all over the house, "Get down ! Go on ! Clear out ! Speak on — we'll hear you ! Climb down from that platform ! Stay where you are ! Yamose ! Stick to your post — say your say !"

The medium rose up and said if Ollendorff

A3I0Na THE SPIRITS. 121

remained, slie would not. She recognized no one's riglit to come tliere and insnlt lier "by practicing a deception npon lier, and attempting to bring ridicule upon so solemn a tiling as lier religious belief. The audience then became quiet, and the subjugated Ollendorff retired from the platform.

The other German raised a spirit, questioned it at some length in his own language, and said the answers were correct. The medium claimed to be entirely unacquainted with the German language.

Just then a gentleman called me to the edge of the platform and asked me if I were a Spiritualist. I said I was not. He asked me if I were prejudiced. I said not more than any other unbeliever ; but I could not believe in a thing which I could not understand, and I had not seen any thing yet that I could by any pos- sibility cipher out. He said, then, that he didn't think I was the cause of the diffidence shown by the spirits, but he knew there was an an- tagonistic influence around that table some- ■v^here ; he had noticed it from the first ; there was a painful negative current passing to Ms sensitive organization from that direction con-

122 AMONG THE SPIRITS.

stantly. I told liim I guessed it was that otlier fellow ; and I said, Blame a man wlio was all tlie time sliedding these infernal negative cur- rents ! This appeared to satisfy the mind of the inquiring fanatic, and he sat down.

I had a very dear friend, who, I had heard, had gone to the spirit- land, or perdition, or some of those places, and I desired to know some- thing 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 a low and trembling voice :

'' Is the spirit of John Smith present?" (You never can depend on these Smiths ; you c?Jl for one, and the whole tribe will come clat- tering out of hell to answer you.)

'^ Whack! whack! whack! whack!" Bless me ! I believe all the dead and damned John Smiths between San Francisco and perdi- tion boarded that poor little table at once ! I v^as considerably set back — stunned, I may say. The audience urged me to go on, how- ever, and I said :

" What did you die of «"

AMONG TUE SPIRITS. 123

Tlie femitlis answered to every disease and casualty tliat men can die of.

"Where did you die?"

They answered Yes to every locality I could name while my geography held out.

" Are you happy where you are ?"

There was a vigorous and unanimous "JSTo !" 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 aAvay !"

"Dead loads of them !"

I fancied I heard the shadowy Smiths chuckle at this feeble joke — the rare joke that there could Ibe live loads of Smiths where all are dead.

"How many Smiths are present ?"

"Eighteen millions — the procession now reaches from here to the other side of China."

"Then there are many Smiths in the king- dom of the lost ?"

"The Prince AjDoUyon calls all new comers Smith on general principles ; and continues to

124 AMONG THE SPIRllS.

do SO until lie is corrected, if lie cliances to "be mistaken."

"What do lost spirits call their dread abode?"

"They call it the Smithsonian Institute."

I got hold of the right Smith at last — the par- ticular Smith I was after — my dear, lost, la- mented friend — and learned that he died a vio- lent death. I feared as much. Se said his wife talked him to death. Poor wretch !

By and by up started another Smith. A gen- tleman in the audience said that this was his Smith. So he questioned him, and this Smith said he too died by violence. He had been a good deal tangled in his religious belief, and was a sort of a cross between a Universalist and a Unitarian ; has got straightened out and changed his opinions since he left here ; said he was perfectly happy. We proceeded to question this talkative and frolicsome old par- son. Among spirits I judge he is the gayest of the gay. He said he had no tangible body ; a bullet could pass through him and never make a hole ; rain could pass through him as through vapor, and not discommode him in the least, (so I suppose he don't know enough to come

AMONa THE SPIEIT8. 125

in when it rains — or don't care enougli ;) says heaven and hell are simply mental conditions ; spirits in the former have happy and contented minds, and those in the latter are torn l^y re- morse of conscience ; says as far as he is con- cerned, he is all right — he is happy ; wonld not say whether he was a very good or a very bad man on earth, (the shrewd old water-proof non- entity ! I asked the question so that I might average my own chances for his luck in the other world, but he saw my drift ;) says he has an occupation there — puts in his time teaching and being taught ; says there are spheres — grades of perfection — he is making very good progress — has been promoted a sphere or so since his matriculation ; (I said mentally, ' ' Go slow, old man, go slow, you have got all eter- nity before you," and he replied not ;) he don't know how many spheres there are, (but I sup- pose there must be millions, because if a man goes galloping through them at the rate this old Universalist is doing, he mil get through an infinitude of them by the time he has been there as long as old Sesostris and those ancient mummies ; and there is no estimating how high he will get in even the iu fancy of eternity — I

126 AMONG THE SPIRITS

am afraid tlie old man is scouring along rather too fast for tlie style of liis surroundings, and the length of time he has got on his hands ;) says spirits can not feel heat or cold, (which militates somewhat against all my notions of orthodox damnation — fire and l^rimstone ;) says spirits commune with each other by thought — they have no language ; says the distinctions of sex are preserved there— and so forth and so on.

The 0I4 parson wrote and talked for an hour, and showed l)y his quick, shrewd, intelligent replies, that he had not been sitting up nights in the other world for nothing; he had heen prying into every thing worth knowing, and finding out every thing he possibly could — as he said himself — when he did not understand a thing he hunted up a spuit who could explain it, consequently he is pretty thoroughly posted. And for his accommodating conduct and his uniform courtesy to me, I sincerely hope he will continue to progress at his present velocity until lie lands on the very roof of the highest sphere of all, and thus achieves perfection.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GEORGE WASHINGTOi^.

HIS clay, many years ago precisely, George Wasliington was Iborn. How full of significance the tlionglit ! Es-

pecially to those among ns who have had a similar experience, though subsequently; and still more especially to the young, who should take him for a model, and faithfully try to l)e like him, undeterred by the frequency with which the same thing has been attempted by American youths before them and not satis- factorily accomplished. George Washington was the youngest of nine children, eight of whom were the offspring of his uncle and his aunt. As a boy, he gave no promise of the greatness he was one day to achieve. He was ignorant of the commonest accomplish- ments of youth. He could not even lie. But then he never had any of those precious advan-

128 SKETCH OF GEORGE WASHINGTON:

tages wliicli are witliin the reach of the hum- blest of the boys of the present day. Any boy can lie now. I could lie before I could stand — yet this sort of sprightliness was so common in our family that little notice was taken of it. Young George appears to have had no sagacity whatever. It is related of him that he once chopped down his father' s favorite cherry-tree, and then didn't know enough to keep dark about it. He came near going to sea once, as a midshipman ; but when his mother represented to him that he must necessarily be absent when he was away from home, and that this must continue to be the case until he got back, the sad truth struck him so forcibly that he or- dered his trunk ashore, and quietly but firmly refused to serve in the navy and fight the bat- tles of his king so long as the efiect of it would be to discommode his mother. The great rule of his life was, that procrastination was the thief of time, and that we should always do unto others somehow. Tliis is the golden rule. Therefore, he would never discommode his mother.

Young George Washington was actuated in all things by the highest and purest principles

SKETCH OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 129

of morality, justice, and right. He was a model in every way worthy of the emulation of youth. Young George was always prompt and faithful in the discharge of every duty. It has been said of him, 'hj the historian, that he w^as always on hand, like a thousand of brick. And well deserved was this compliment. The aggregate of the building material specified might have been largely increased — might have been doubled, even — without doing full justice to these high qualities in the subject of this sketch. Indeed, it would hardly be possible to express in bricks the exceeding promptness and fidelity of young Gfeorge Washington. His was a soul whose manifold excellencies were beyond the ken and computation of mathe- matics, and bricks are, at the least, but an in- adequate vehicle for the conveyance of a com- prehension of the moral sublimity of a nature so pure as his.

Young George W. was a surveyor in early life— a surveyor of an inland port — a sort of county surveyor ; and under a commission from Governor Dinwiddle, he set out to survey his way four hundred miles through trackless for- ests, infested with Indians, to procure the liber-

130 SKETCH OF GEORGE WASIIIWGTOJS'.

ation of some Englisli prisoners. Tlie historian says the Indians were the most depraved of their species, and did nothing but lay for white men, whom they killed for the sake of robbing them. Considering that white men only tra.v- eled through the country at the rate of one a year, they were probably unable to do what might be termed a land-office business in their line. They did not rob young Q. W. ; one savage made the attempt, but failed ; he fired at the subject of this sketch from behind a tree, but the subject of this sketch immediately snaked him out from behind the tree and took him prisoner.

The long journey failed of success ; the French would not give up the prisoners, and Wash went sadly back home again. A regi- ment was raised to go and make a rescue, and he took command of it. He caught the French out in the rain and tackled them with great in- trepidity. He defeated them in ten minutes, and their commander handed in his checks. This was the battle of Great Meadows.

After this, a good while, George Washington became Commander-in-Chief of the American armies, and had an exceedingly dusty time of

SKETCH OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 131

it all tliroiigli tlie Revolution. But every now and then he turned a Jack from the bottom and surprised the enemy. He kept up his lick for seven long years, and hazed the British from Harrisburg to Halifax — and America was free ! He served two terms as President, and would have been President yet if he had lived — even so did the peoj)le honor the Father of his Country. Let the youth of America take his incomparable character for a model, and try it one jolt, any how. Success is possible — ^let them remember that — success is possible, though there are chances against it.

I could continue this biography with profit to the rising generation, but I shall have to drop the subject at present, because of other matters which must be attended to.

A TOUCHING STORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD.

F it please your neiglibor to break tlie sacred calm of niglit witli the snort- ing of an unholy trombone, it is your duty to put up with his wretched music and your privilege to pity him for the unhappy instinct that moves him to delight in such dis- cordant sounds. I did not always think thus : this consideration for musical amateurs was born of certain disagreeable personal exper- iences that once followed the development of a like instinct in myself. Now this infidel over the way, who is learning to play on the trom- bone, and the slowness of whose progress is al- most miraculous, goes on with his harrowing work every night, uncursed by me, but ten- derly pitied. Ten years ago, for the same offense, I would have set fire to his house. At that time I was a prey to an amateur violinist

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD. 133

for two or tliree weeks, and tlie sufferings I en- dured at Ms hands are inconceivable. He played "Old Dan Tucker," and lie never played any tiling else ; but lie performed that so badly that lie could throw me into fits with it if I were awake, or into a nightmare if I were asleep. As long as he confined himself to ''Dan Tucker," though, I bore with him and abstained from violence ; but when he pro- jected a fresh outrage, and tried to do "Sweet Home," I went over and burnt him out. My next assailant was a wretch who felt a call to play the clarionet. He only played the scale, however, with his distressing instrument, and I let him run the length of his tether, also ; but finally, when he branched out into a ghast- ly tune, I felt my reason deserting me under the exquisite torture, and I sallied forth and burnt him out likewise. During the next two years I burned out an amateur cornet player, a bugler, a bassoon-sophomore, and a barbarian whose talents ran in the base-drum line.

I would certainly have scorched this trom- bone man if he had moved into my neighbor- hood in those days. But as I said before, I leave him to his own destruction now, because

13-1 GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD.

I have liad experience as an amateur myself, and I feel nothing Ibut compassion for that kind of people. Besides, I have learned that there lies dormant in the souls of all men a penchant for some particular musical instrument, and an unsuspected yearning to learn to play on it, that are bound to wake up and demand atten- tion some day. Therefore, you who rail at such as disturb your slumbers with unsuccess- ful and demoralizing attempts to subjugate a fiddle, beware ! for sooner or later your own time will come. It is customary and popular to curse these amateurs when they wrench you out of a pleasant dream at night with a pe- culiarly diabolical note ; but seeing that we are all made alike, and must all develop a distort- ed talent for music in the fullness of time, it is not right. I am charitable to my trombone maniac ; in a moment of inspiration he fetches a snort, sometimes, that brings me to a sitting posture in bed, broad awake and weltering in a cold perspiration. Perhaps my first thought is, that there has been an earthquake ; perhaps I hear the trombone, and my next thought is, that suicide and the silence of the grave would be a happy release from this nightly agony ; perhaps the old instmct comes strong upon me

OEOIiGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD. Ig5

to go after my matclies ; Ibut my first cool, col- lected tliouglit is, tliat the trombone man' s des- tiny is upon liim, and lie is working it ont in suffering and tribulation ; and I banisli from me tlie unwortliy instinct tliat would prom2:)t me to burn liim out.

After a long immunity from tlie dreadful in- sanity tliat moves a man to become a musician in defiance of tlie will of God tliat lie sliould confine liimself to sawing wood, I finally fell a victim to tlie instrument they call the accordeon. At this day I hate that icontrivance as fervently as any man can, but at the time I speak of I suddenly acquired a disgusting and idolatrous affection for it. I got one of powerful capacity, and learned to play '' Auld Lang Syne " on it. It seems to me, now, that I must have been gifted with a sort of inspiration to be enabled, in the state of ignorance in which I then was, to select out of the whole range of musical composition the one solitary tune that sounds vilest and most distressing on the accordeon. I do not suppose there is another tune in the world with which I could have inflicted so much anguish upon my race as I did with that one during my short musical career.

After I had been playing '' Lang Syne "

136 GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD.

about a week, I liad the vanity to think I could improve the original melody, and I set about adding some little flourishes and varia- tions to it, but with rather indifferent success, I suppose, as it brought my landlady into my presence with an expression about her of being opposed to such desperate enterprises. Said she, "Do you know any other tune but that, Mr. Twain?" I told her, meekly, that I did not. "Well, then," said she, "stick to it just as it is ; don't put any variations to it, because it' s rough enough on the boarders the way it is now."

The fact is, it was something more than sim- 23ly "rough enough" on them; it was alto- gether too rough ; half of them left, and the other half would have followed, but Mrs. Jones saved them by discharging me from the prem- ises.

I only staid one night at my next lodgmg- house. Mrs. Smith was after me early in the morning. She said, "You can go, sk ; I don't want you here ; I have had one of your kind before — a poor lunatic, that played the banjo and danced breakdowns, and jarred the glass all out of the windows. You kept me awake all

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD. 137

niglit, and if you was to do it again, I'd take and masli that thing over your head !" I could see that this woman took no delight in music, and I moved to Mrs. Brown's.

For three nights in succession I gave my new neighbors "Auld Lang Syne," plain and un- adulterated, save by a few discords that rather improved the general effect than otherwise. But the very first time I tried the variations the boarders mutinied. I never did find any body that would stand those variations. I was very well satisfied with my efforts in that house, however, and I left it without any regrets ; I drove one boarder as mad as a March hare, and another one tried to scalp his mother. I reflected, though, that if I could only have been allowed to give this latter just one more touch of the variations, he would have finished the old woman.

I went to board at Mrs. Murphy's, an Italian lady of many excellent qualities. The very first time I struck up the variations, a haggard, care-worn, cadaverous old man walked into my room and stood beaming upon me a smile of ineffable happiness. Then he placed his hand upon my head, and looking devoutly aloft, he

138 GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD.

said with feeling unction, and in a voice trem- bling witli emotion, "God bless you, young man ! God bless you ! for you have done that for me which is beyond all praise. For years I have suffered from an incurable disease, and knowing my doom was sealed and that I must die, I have striven with all my power to resign myself to my fate, but in vain — the love of life was too strong within me. But Heaven bless you, my benefactor ! for since I heard you play that tune and those variations, I do not want to live any longer — I am entirely resigned — I am willing to die — in fact, I am anxious to die." And then the old man fell upon my neck and wept a flood of happy tears. I was surprised at these things ; but I could not help feeling a little proud at wdiat I had done, nor could I help giving the old gentleman a parting blast in the way of some peculiarly lacerating varia- tions as he w^ent out at the door. They doubled him up like a jack-knife, and the next time he left his bed of pain and suffering he was all right, in a metallic coffin.

My passion for the accordeon finally spent itself and died out, and I was glad when I found myself free from its unw^holesome in-

QEOEQE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD. 139

flueiice. While the fever was upon me, I was a living, breathing calamity wherever I went, and desolation and disaster followed in my wake. I Ibred discord in families, I crushed the spirits of the light-hearted, I drove the mel- ancholy to despair, I hurried invalids to prem- ature dissolution, and I fear me I disturl^ed the very dead in their graves. I did incalculable harm, and inflicted untold suff"ering upon my race with my execrable music ; and yet to atone for it all, I did but one single blessed act, in making that weary old man willing to go to his long home.

Still, I derived some little benefit from that accordeon ; for while I continued to practice on it, I never had to pay any board — landlords were always willing to compromise, on my leaving before the month was up.

'Now, I had two objects in view in v/riting the foregoing, one of which was to try and recon- cile people to those poor unfortunates who feel that they have a genius for music, and who drive their neighbors crazy every night in try- ing to develop and cultivate it; and the other was to introduce an admirable story about Lit- tle G-eorge Washington, who could JSTot Lie,

140 GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD.

and the Cheny-Tree — or tlie Apple-Tree — I liave forgotten now wliicli, although it was told me only yesterday. And writing such a long and elaborate introductory has caused me to forget the story itself ; but it was very touching.

A PAGE FROM A CALIFORNIAN ALMAMC.

T tlie instance of several friends who feel a boding anxiety to know be- forehand what sort of phenomena we may expect the elements to exhibit during the next month or two, and who have lost all con- fidence in the various patent medicine alma- nacs, because of the unaccountable reticence of those works concerning the extraordinary event of the 8th inst., I have compiled the following almanac expressly for the latitude of San Fran- cisco :

Oct. 17. — Weather hazy ; atmosphere murky and dense. An expression of profound melan- choly will be observable upon most coun- tenances.

Oct 18. — Slight earthquake. Countenances grow more melancholy.

Oct. 19.— Look out for rain. It would be ab-

142 ^ PAGE FROM A CALIFOBNIAN ALMANAC.

surd to look iu for it. The general depression of spirits increased.

Oct. 20.— More weather.

Oct. 21.— Same.

Oct 22. — Light winds, perhaps. K they blow, it will Ido from the '' east'ard, or the nor'ard, or the west'ard, or the snth'ard," or from some general direction approximating more or less to these points of the compass or otherwise. Winds are uncertain — more especially when they Iblow from whence they cometh and whither they listeth. N. B. — Such is the nature of winds.

Oct. 23. — Mild, l)almy earthquakes.

Oct. 24.— Shaky.

Oct. 25. — Occasional shakes, followed l>y light showers of l)ricks and plastering. N. B. — Stand from under !

Oct. 26. — Considerahle phenomenal atmos- pheric foolishness. Al)Out this time erxj)ect more earthquakes ; but do not look for tliem, on account of the bricks.

Oct. 27. — Universal despondency, indicative of approaching disaster. Abstain from smil- ing, or indulgence in humorous conversation, or exasperating jokes.

Oct. 28. — Misery, dismal forebodings, and

A PAGE FMOM A CALIFOBNIAN ALMANAC. 143

despair. Beware of all ligM discourse— a joke uttered at tliis time would produce a popular outlDreak.

Oct 29.— Beware !

Oct. 30.— Keep dark !

Oct. 31.— Go slow !

Nov. 1. — Terrific earthquake. Tliis is the great earthquake month. More stars fall and more worlds are slathered around carelessly and destroyed in Il^ovember than in any other month of the twelve.

JSfov. 2. — Spasmodic but exhilarating earth- quakes, accompanied by occasional showers of rain and churches and things.

Nov. 3. — Make your will.

Nov. 4.— Sell out.

Nov. 5. — Select your "last words." Those of John Qui]icy Adams wdll do, with the addi- tion of a syllable, thus : ' ' This is the last of earthquakes."

Nov. 6. — Prepare to shed this mortal coil.

Nov. 7.— Shed !

Nov. 8. — The sun will rise as usual, perhaps ; but if he does, he will doubtless be staggered some to find nothing but a large round hole eight thousand miles in diameter in the place where he saw this world serenely spinning the day before.

INFORMATION FOR THE MILLION.

YOUNG man anxious for information writes to a friend residing in Yirginia City, Nevada, as follows :

" Sjpiungfield, Mo., April 12. " Dear Sir : My object in WTiting to you is to liave you give me a full history of Nevada. What is the character of its cli- mate ? What are the productions of the earth ? Is it healthy ? What diseases do they die of mostly ? Do you think it would he advisable for a man who can make a living in INIissouri to emigrate to that part of the country ? There are several of us who would emigrate there in the spring if we could ascertain to a certainty that it is a much better country than this. I suppose you know Joel H. Smith ? He used to live here ; he lives in Nevada now ; they say he owns considerable in a mine there. Hoping to hear from you soon, etc., I remain yours, truly,

William ."

The letter was handed in to a newspaper office for reply. For the benefit of all who con- template moving to IN'evada, it is perhaps best to publish the correspondence in its entirety :

Deaeest William : Pardon my familiarity — hut that name touchingly reminds me of the

INFOBMATION FOR THE MILLION. 145

loved and lost, wliose name was similar. I have taken tlie contract to answer yonr letter, and altlioiigli we are now strangers, I feel we shall cease to be so if we ever become acquaint- ed with each other. The thought is worthy of attention, William. I will now respond to your several propositions in the order in which you have fulminated them.

Your object in writing is to have me give you a full history of J^evada. The flattering con- fidence you repose in me, William, is only equaled by the m^odesty of your request. I could detail the history of Nevada in five hun- dred pages octavo ; but as you have never done me any harm, I will spare you, thougli it will be apparent to every body that I would be jus- tified in taking advantage of you if I were a mind to. However, I will condense. K'evada v/as discovered many years ago by the Mor^ mons, and was called Carson county. It only became l^evada in 1861, by act of Congress. There is a popular tradition that the Almighty created it ; but v/hen you come to see it, Wil- liam, you will think differently. Do not let that discourage you, tliough. The country looks something like a singed cat, owing to the

146 INFOBMATION FOR THE MILLION.

scarcity of slirulblbeiy, and also resemlbles that animal in the respect that it has more merits than its personal appearance would seem to in- dicate. The Groscli brothers found the first silver lead here in 1857. They also founded Silver City, I l)elieve. Signify to your friends, however, that all the mines here do not pay dividends as yet ; you may make this state- ment with the utmost unyielding inflexibility — it will not be contradicted from this quarter. The population of this Territory is about 35,000, one half of which number reside in the united cities of Virginia and Gold Hill. However, I will discontinue this history for the present, lest I get you too deeply interested in this distant land, and cause you to neglect your family or your religion. But I will address you again upon the subject next year. In the mean time, allow me to answer your inquiry as to the char- acter of our climate.

It has no character to speak of, William, and alas ! in this respect it resembles many, ah ! too many chambermaids in this wretched, wretched world. Sometimes we have the sea- sons in their regular order, and then again we have winter all the summer, and summer all

INFOBMATION FOB THE MILLION. 147

winter. Consequently, we liave never yet come across an almanac that would just exactly fit tills latitude. It is miglity regular about not raining, tliougli, William. It will start in here in l^J'ovember and rain about four, and some- times as much as seven days on a stretch; after that you may loan out your umbrella for twelve months, with the serene confidence which a Christian feels in four aces. Sometimes the winter begins in N'ovember and v/inds up in June ; and sometimes there is a bare suspicion of winter in March and April, and summer all the balance of the year. But as a general thing, William, the climate is good, what there is of it.

AVhat are the productions of the earth % You mean in Nevada, of course. On our ranches here any thing can be raised that can be pro- duced on the fertile fields of Missouri. But ranches are very scattering — as scattering, per- haps, as lawyers in heaven. ISTevada, for the most part, is a barren waste of sand, embel- lished with melancholy sage-brush, and fenced in with snow-clad mountains. But these ghast ly features were the salvation of the land, W^il- liam ; for no rightly constituted American would

148 INFORMATION FOB THE MILLION.

have ever come liere if the phace had been easy of access, and none of our pioneers would have staid after they got here, if they had not felt satisfied that they could not find a smaller chance for making a living anywhere else. Such is man, William, as he crops out in America.

" Is it healthy V Yes, I think it is as healthy here as it is in any part of the West. But never permit a question of that kind to vegetate in your brain, William ; because as long as Prov- idence has an eye on you, you will not be likely to die until your time comes.

"What diseases do they die of mostly?" Well, they used to die of conical balls and cold steel, mostly, but here lately erysipelas and the intoxicating bowl have got the bulge on those things, as w^as very justly remarked by Mr. Rising last Sunday. I will observe, for your information, William, that Mr. Rising is our Episcopal minister, and has done as much as any man among us to redeem this community from its pristine state of semi-barbarism. We are afiiicted with all the diseases incident to the same latitude in the States, I believe, with one or two added and half a dozen subtracted on

INFORMATION FOR THE MILLION. 149

account of our superior altitude. However, tlie doctors are about as successful here, both in killing and curing, as tliey are anywhere.

Now, as to whether it would be advisable for a man who can make a living in Missouri to emigrate to Nevada, I confess I am somewhat mixed. If you are not content in your present condition, it naturally follows that you would be entirely satisfied if you could make either more or less than a living. You would exult in the cheerful exhilaration always produced by a change. Well, you can find your opportunity here, where, if you retain your health, and are sober and industrious, you will inevitably make more than a living, and if you don't, you won't. You can rely upon this statement, William. It contemplates any line of business except the selling of tracts. You can not sell tracts here, William ; the people take no interest in tracts ; the very best efforts in the tract line— even with pictures on them — ^liave met with no encourage- ment. Besides, the newspapers have been in- terfering; a man gets his regular text or so from the Scriptures in his paj)er, along Avitli the stock sales and the war news, every day now. If you are in the tract business, William, take

150 INFORMATION FOR THE MILLION.

no cliances on Waslioe ; Ibut you can succeed at any thing else here.

*' I suppose you know Joel H. Smith?-' Well — the fact is — I believe I don't. Now isn' t that singular ? Isn't it very singular ? And he owns "considerable " in a mine here too. Hap- py man ! Actually owns in a mine here in IS'e- vada Territory, and I never even heard of him. Strange — strange — do you knov/, William, it is the strangest thing that ever happened to me % And then he not only owns in a mine, but owns "considerable ;" that is the strangest part about it — how a man could own considerable in a mine in Waslioe, and I not know any thing about it. He is a lucky dog, though. But I strongly suspect that you have made a mistake in the name ; I am confident you have ; you mean John Smith — I know you do ; I know it from the fact that he owns considerable in a mine here, because I sold him the property at a ruinous sacrifice on the very day he arrived here from over the plains. That man will be rich one of these days. I am just as well satis- fied of it as I am of any precisely similar in- stance of the kind that has come under my no- tice. I said as much to him yesterday, and he

INFORMATION FOB THE MILLION 151

said he was satisfied of it also. But lie did not say it with, that air of triumphant exultation wliich a heart lilie mine so delights to behold in one to whom I have endeavored to be a ben- efactor in a small way. He looked pensive awhile, but, finally, says he, ''Do you know, I think I'd a been a rich man long ago if they'd ever found the d — d ledge?" That was my idea about it. I always thought, and I still think, that if they ever do find that ledge, his chances will be better than they are now. I guess Smith will be all right one of these cen- turies, if he keeps up his assessments — he is a young man yet. JSTow, William, I have taken a liking to you, and I would like to sell you "considerable" in a mine in Washoe. Let me hear from you on the subject. Greenbacks at par is as good a thing as I want. But seri- ously, William, don't you ever invest in a mining stock which you don' t know any thing about ; beware of John Smith' s experience !

You hope to hear from me soon ? Very good.

I shall also hope to hear from you soon, about

that little matter above referred to. ITow, Wil-

Ham, ponder this epistle well ; never mind the

'.arcasm here and there, and the nonsense, but

152 INFORMATION FOB THE MILLION.

reflect upon tlie plain facts set fortli, because tliey are facts, and are meant to Ibe so under- stood and "believed.

Remember me affectionately to your friends and relations, and especially to your venerable grandmother, witli wliom I have not the pleas- ure to be acquainted — ^but that is of no conse- quence, you know. I have been in your town many a time, and all the towns of the neigh- boring counties — the hotel-keepers will recol- lect me vividly. Eemember me to them — I bear them no animosity.

Yours affectionately.

THE lAMGR OF THE STEAMER CAPITAL

r GET MR. MUFF NICKERSOIT TO GO WITH ME AND ASSIST IlSr EEPORTIIN-G THE GREAT STEAM- BOAT LAUI^TCH. — HE RELATES THE II^TEREST- IISTG HISTORY OF THE TRAVELING PANORA- MIST.

WAS just starting off to see the launcii of the great steamboat Cap- ital, on Saturday week, when I came across Mnlph, Mulff, Muff, Mumph, Murph, Mumf, Murf, Mumford, Mulford, Murphy Mckerson — (he is weU known to the public by all these names, and I can not say which is the right one) — bound on the same errand. This was the man I wanted. We set out in a steamer whose decks were crowded with persons of all ages, who were happy in their nervous anxiety to behold the novelty of a steamboat launch.

154 LAUNCH OF THE STEAMER CAPITAL.

As we approaclied the spot Avliore the launch was to take place, a gentleman from Reese River, by the name of Thompson, came np, with several friends, and said he had been pros- pecting on the main deck, and had found an object of interest — a bar. This was all very well, and showed him to be a man of parts ; but like many another man who produces a favorable impression by an introductory re- mark replete with wisdom, he followed it up with a vain and unnecessary question — Would we take a drink ? This to me !— This to M. M. M., etc., Mckerson !

We proceeded, two by two, arm-in-arm, down to the bar in the nether regions, chattmg pleasantly and elbowing the restless multitude. We took pure, cold, health-giving water, with some other things in it, and clinked our glasses together, and were about to drink, when Smith, of Excelsior, drew forth his handkerchief and wiped away a tear ; and then, noticing that the action had excited some attention, he explained it by recounting a most affecting incident in the history of a venerated aunt of his — now de- ceased— and said that, although long years had passed since the touching event he had nar-

LAUNCH OF THE STEAMER CAPITAL. 155

rated, lie could never take a drink witliont thinking of the kind-hearted old lady.

Mr. Mckerson Hew his nose, and said with deep emotion that it gave him a iDetter opinion of hnman nature to see a man who had had a good aunt, eternally and forever thinking albout her.

This episode reminded Jones, of Mud Springs, of a circumstance which happened many years ago in the home of his childhood, and we held our glasses untouched and rested our elbows on the counter, while we listened with rapt attention to his story.

There was sometliing in it about a good-na- tured, stupid man, and this reminded Thomp- son, of Reese River, of a person of the same kind whom he had once fallen in with while traveling through the back settlements of one of the Atlantic States, and we postponed drink- ing until he should give us the facts in the case. The hero of the tale had unintentionally creat- ed some consternation at a camp-meeting by one of his innocent asinine freaks ; and this reminded Mr. M. Nickerson of a reminiscence of his temporary sojourn in the interior of Con- necticut some months ago ; and again our up-

156 LAUNCH OF THE STEAMER CAPITAL.

lifted glasses were staid on tlieir way to our lips, and we listened attentively to

THE ENTERTAINII^a HISTORY OF THE SCKIP- TUPwAL PAIS-OEAMIST.

[I give the history in Mr. Mckerson s own language.]

There was a fellow traveling around, in that country, (said Mr. JSTickerson,) with a moral religious show — a sort of a scriptural panora- ma — and he hired a wooden-headed old slal) to play the piano for him. After the first night's performance, the showman says :

"My friend, you seem to know pretty much all the tunes there are, and you worry along first-rate. But then didn't you notice that sometimes last night the piece you hap^Dened to be playing was a little rough on the proprieties, so to speak — didn't seem to jibe with the gener- al gait of the picture that was passing at the time, as it were — was a little foreign to the sub- ject, you know— as if you didn't either trump or follow suit, you understand?"

''Well, no," the fellow said; he hadn't noticed, but it might be ; he had played along just as it came handy.

LAUNCH OF THE STEAMER CAPITAL. IJ,?

So tliey put it up that the smiple old dummy was to keep his eye on the panorama after tii:^:, and as soon as a stunning picture was reeled out, he was to fit it to a dot with a piece of mu- sic that would help the audience get the idea of the sul^ject, and warm them up like a camp- meeting revival. That sort of thing would cor- ral their sympathies, the showman said.

There was a big audience that night — mostly middle-aged and old people v/ho belonged to the church and took a strong interest in Bible matters, and the balance were pretty much young bucks and heifers — t7iey always come out strong on panoramas, you know, because it gives them a chance to taste one another' s mugs in the dark.

Well, the shov^^man began to swell himself up for his lecture, and the old mud-dobber tackled the piano and run his fingers up and down once or twice to see that she was all right, and the fellows behind the curtain commenced to grind out the panorama. The showman bal- anced his weight on his right foot, and propped his hands on his hips, and flung his eye over his shoulder at the scenery, and says :

"Ladies and gentlemen, the painting now be-

158 LAUNCH OF THE STEAMER CAPITAL.

fore you illustrates tlie beautiful and touching parable of tlie Prodigal Son. Observe the happy expression just breaking over the fea- tures of the poor suffering youth — so worn and weary with his long march ; note also the ec- stasy beaming from the uplifted countenance of the aged father, and the joy that sparkles in the eyes of the excited group of youths and maidens, and seems ready to, burst in a welcoming chorus from their lips. The lesson, my friends, is as solemn and instructive as the story is tender and beautiful."

The mud-dobber was all ready, and the second the speech was finished he struck up:

" oil ! we'll all get blind drunk When Jolinny comes marcliing home !"

Some of the people giggled, and some groaned a little. The showman couldn't say a word. He looked at the piano-sharp ; but he was all lovely and serene — lie didn't know there was any thing out of gear.

The panorama moved on, and the showman drummed up his grit and started in fresh :

'' Ladies and gentlemen, the fine picture now

LAUNCH OF THE STEAMER CAPITAL. I59

unfoldiDg itself to your gaze exhibits one of the most notable events in Bible history — our Saviour and his disciples upon the Sea of Gali- lee. How grand, how awe-inspiring are the reflections which the subject invokes ! "VYhat sublimity of faith is revealed to us in this les- son from the sacred writings ! The Saviour rebukes the angry waves, and walks securely upon the bosom of the deep !"

All around the house they were whispering, "Oh! how lovely! how beautiful!" and the orchestra let himself out again :

" oil ! a life on tlie ocean wave, And a home on tlie rolling deep !"

There was a good deal of holiest snickering turned on this time, and considerable groaning, and one or two old deacons got up and went out. The showman gritted his teeth and cursed the piano man to himself ; but the fellow sat there like a knot on a log, and seemed to tliir.k he was doing first-rate.

After things got quiet, the showman thought he would make one more stagger at it, any how, though his confidence was beginning to get mighty shaky. The supes started the

100 LAUNCH OF TEE STEAMER CAPITAL.

panorama to grinding along again, and Jie

sajs :

'' Ladies and gentlemen, tins exquisite paint- ing illustrates tlie raising of Lazarus from the dead by our Saviour. The subject has been handled with rare ability by the artist, and such touching sweetness and tenderness of ex- pression has he thrown into it, that I have known peculiarly sensitive persons to be even affected to tears by looking at it. Observe the half-confused, haK-inquiring look, upon the countenance of the awakening Lazarus. Ob- serve, also, the attitude and expression of the Saviour, who takes him gently by the sleeve of his shroud with one hand, while he points with the other toward the distant city."

Before any body could get off an opinion in the case, the innocent old ass at the piano struck up :

" Come, rise up, William Ei-i-ley And go along witli me !"

It was rough on the audience, you bet you. All the solemn old flats got up in a huff to go, and every body else laughed till the windows rattled.

LAUNCH OF THE STEAMER CAPITAL. 161

Tlie sliowman went down and gra'blbed the orchestra, and shook Mm up, and says :

''That lets you out, you know, you chow- der-headed old clam ! Go to the doorkeeper and get your money, and cut your stick ! vamose the ranche ! Ladies and gentlemen, circumstances over which I have no control compel me prematurely to dismiss ' '

"By George! it was splendid! Come! all hands ! let's take a drink !"

It was Phelim O'Flannigan, of San Luis Obispo, who interrupted. I had not seen him before.

"What was splendid?" I inquired.

"The launch!"

Our party clinked glasses once more, and drank in respectful silence.

P. S. — You will excuse me from making a model report of the great launch. I was with Mulf Mckerson, who was going to "explain the whole thing to me as clear as glass ;" but, you see, they launched the boat with such in- decent haste, that we never got a chance to see it. It was a great pity, because Mulpli Mcker- son understands launches as well as any man.

ORIGIN OF ILLUSTRIOUS MEN.

OHN" SMITH was the son of liis fatlier. He formerly lived in JSTew- York and other places, but he has removed to San Francisco now.

AYilliam Smith was the son of his mother. This party's grandmother is deceased. She was a hrick.

John Brown was the son of old Brown. The body of the latter lies mouldering in the grave.

Edward Brown was the son of old Brown by a particular friend.

Henry Jones was the son of a sea-cook.

Ed Jones was a son of a gun.

John Jones was a son of temperance.

In early life Gabriel Jones was actually a shoemaker. He is a shoemaker yet.

Previous to the age of eighty-five, Caleb

OBIGIN OF ILLUSTRIOUS MEN. 163

Jones liad never given evidence of extraordi- nary albilitj. He has never given any since.

Patrick Murphy is said to have been of Irish extraction.

James Peterson was the son of a common weaver, who was so miraculously poor that his friends were encouraged to iDelieve that in case the Scriptures were carried out he would ' ' in- herit the earth." He never got his property.

John Davis's father was the son of a soap- Iboiler, and not a very good soap-boiler at that. John never arrived at maturity — died in child- birth— ^he and his mother.

John Johnson was a blacksmith. He died. It was published in the j)apers, with a head over it, "Deaths." It was, therefore, thought he died to gain notoriety. He has got an aunt living somewhere.

Up to the age of thirty-four Hosea Wilker- son never had any home but Home Sweet Home, and even then he had it to sing himself. At one time it was believed that he would have been famous if he became celebrated. He died. He was greatly esteemed for his many virtues. There was not a dry eye in the crowd when they planted him.

ADVICE FOR GOOD LITTLE GIRLS.

OOD little girls ouglit not to make moutlis at their teachers for every trifling offense. This kind of retal-

iation should only l)e resorted to under pe- culiarly aggravating circumstances.

If you have nothing but a rag doll stuffed with saw-dust, while one of your more fortu- nate little playmates has a costly china one, you should treat her with a show of kindness, nevertheless. And you ought not to attempt to make a forcible swap with her unless your con- science would justify you in it, and you know you are able to do it.

You ought never to take your little brother's " chawing-gum " away from him by main force ; it is better to rope him in with the pro- mise of the first two dollars and a half you find floating down the river on a grindstone. In the artless simplicity natural to his time

ADVICE FOE GOOD LITTLE GIRLS. 165

of life, he will regard it as a perfectly fair transaction. In all ages of the world this eminently plausible fiction has lured the ob- tuse infant to financial ruin and disaster.

If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not correct him with mud — never on any account throw mud at him, be- cause it will soil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little ; for then you attain two de- sirable results — you secure his immediate at- tention to the lesson you are inculcating, and, at the same time, your hot water will have a tendency to remove impurities from his per- son— and possibly tlie skin also, in spots.

If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wTong to reply that you won't. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then afterw^ard act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your better judgment.

You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you are indebted for your food and your nice bed and your beau- tiful clothes, and for the privilege of staying home from school Avhen you let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought to respect their

160 ADVICE FOR GOOD LITTLE GIRLS.

little prejudices and liiimor tlieir little Avliims and put up with their little foibles, until they get to crowding you too much.

Good little girls should always show marked deference for the aged. You ought never to "sass" old people — unless they "sass" you first.

COXCERNIKG CHAMBERMAIDS.

GAINST all cliambermaids, of whatso- ever age or nationality, I launcli the curse of bachelordom ! Because :

They always put the pillows at the opposite end of the Ibed from the gas-burner, so that while you read and smoke before sleeping, (as is the ancient and honored custom of bache- lors,) you have to hold your book aloft, in an uncomfortable position, to keep the light from dazzling your eyes.

When they find the pillows removed to the other end of the bed in the morning, they re- ceive not the suggestion in a friendly spirit ; but, glorying in their absolute sovereignty, and un- pitying your helplessness, they make the bed just as it was originally, and gloat in secret over the pang their tyranny will cause you.

Always after that, when they find you have transposed the pillows, they undo your work,

168 CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS.

and thus defj and seek to embitter tlie life tliat God has given you.

If they can not get the light in an incon- venient position any other Vv^ay, they move the bed.

If you pull your trunk out six inches from the wall, so, that the lid will stay up when you open it, they always shove that trunk hack again. They do it on purpose.

If you want the spittoon in a certain spot, where it will be handy, they don't, and so they move it.

They always put your other boots into inac- cessible places. They chiefly enjoy depositing them as far under the bed as the v/all will per- mit. It is because this compels you to get down in an undignified attitude and make wild sweeps for them in the dark with the boot-jack, and swear.

They always put the match-box in some other place. They hunt up a new place for it every day, and put up a bottle, or other per- ishable glass thing, where the box stood before. This is to cause you to break that glass thing, groping in the dark, and get yourself into trouble.

CONGEBNINQ CHAMBERMAIDS. 169

They are forever and ever moving the furni- ture. When you come in, in the night, .you can calculate on finding the iDureau where the ward- robe was in the morning. And when you go out in the morning, if you leave the slop- bucket by the door and rocking-chair Iby the window, when you come in at midnight, or thereabouts, you will fall over that rocking- chaii-, and you will proceed toward the window and sit down in that slop-tub. This will dis- gust you. They like that.

JN'o matter where you put any thing, they are not going to let it stay there. They will take it and move it the first chance they get. It is their nature. And, besides, it gives them pleasure to be mean and contrary this way. They would die if they couldn't be villains.

They always save up all the old scraps of printed rubbish you throw on the floor, and stack them up carefully on the table, and start the fire with your valuable manuscripts. If there is any one particular old scrap that you are more down on than any other, and which you are gradually wearing your life out trying to get rid of, you may take all the p'ains you possibly can in that direction, but it won't be

170 CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS.

of any use, because they will always fetch that old scrap Iback and put it in the same old place again every time. It does them good.

And they use up more hair-oil than any six men. If charged with purloining the same, they lie about it. What do they care about a hereafter ? Absolutely nothing.

If you leave your key in the door for con- venience sake, they will carry it down to the office and give it to the clerk. They do this under the vile pretense of ixjmg to protect your property from thieves ; but actually they do it because they want to make you tramp back down- stairs after it when you come home tired, or put you to the trouble of sending a waiter for it, which waiter will expect you to pay him something. In which case I suppose the degraded creatures divide.

They keep always trying to make your bed before you get up, thus destroying your rest and inflictmg agony upon you ; but after you get up, they don't come any more till next day.

They do all the mean things they can think of, and they do them just out of pure cussed- ness, and nothing else.

CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS. 17]

Cliambermaids are dead to every human in- stinct..

I have cursed them in behalf of outraged bachelordom. They deserve it. If I can get a bill through the Legislature abolishing cham- bermaids, I mean to do it

REMARKABLE INSTANCES OF PRESENCE OF MIND.

HE steamer Ajax encountered a ter- rible storm on lier down trip from San Francisco to the Sandwicli Isl- ands. It tore lier liglit sjDars and rigging all to slireds and splinters, upset all furniture tliat could be upset, and spilled passengers around and knocked them hither and thither with a perfect looseness. For forty-eight hours no table could be set, and every body had to eat as best they might under the circumstances. Most of the party went hungry, though, and attended to their praying. But there was one set of ''seven-up" players who nailed a card- table to the floor and stuck to their game

through thick and thin. Captain F , of a

great banking-house in San Francisco, a man of great coolness and presence of mind, was of this party. One night the storm suddenly cul-

INSTANCES OF PRESENCE OF MIND. 173

minated in a climax of nnparalleled fury ; tlie vessel went down on lier l)eam ends, and every tiling let go with a crash — passengers, talbles, cards, bottles — every thing came clattering to the floor in a chaos of disorder and confusion. In a moment fifty sore distressed and pleading voices ejaculated, ^'O Heaven! help us in our extremity!" and one voice rang out clear and sharp above the plaintive chorus and said, "Remember, boys, I played the tray for low !" It was one of the gentlemen I have mentioned who spoke. And the remark showed good presence of mind and an eye to business.

Lewis L , of a great hotel in San Francis- co, was a passenger. There were some savage grizzly bears chained in cages on deck. One night, in the midst of a hurricane, which was accompanied by rain and thunder and light- ning, Mr. L. came up, on his way to bed. Just as he stepx)ed into the pitchy darkness of the deck and reeled to the still more pitchy mo- tion of the vessel, (bad,) the captain sang out hoarsely through his speaking-trumpet, '' Bear a hand aft, there !" The words were sadly marred and jumbled by the roaring wind. Mr. L thought the captain said, " The bears are

174 INSTANCES OF PBESENCE OF MIND.

after you there!" and lie "let go all holts" and went down into his boots. He murmured, " I knew how it was going to be — I just knew it from the start — I said all along that those bears would get loose some time ; and now I'll be the jSrst man that they'll snatch. Captain ! captain ! — can't hear me — storm roars so ! O God ! what a fate ! I have avoided wild beasts all my life, and now to be eaten by a grizzly bear in the middle of the ocean, a thousand miles from land ! Captain ! O captain ! — bless my soul, there's one of them — I've got to cut and run !" 'And he did cut and run, and smashed through the door of the first state- room he came to. A gentleman and his wife were in it. The gentleman exclaimed, "Who's that?" The refugee gasped out, "O great Scot- land ! those bears are loose, and just raising merry hell all over the ship !" and then sank down exhausted. The gentleman sprang out of bei and locked the door, and prepared for a siege. After a while, no assault being made, a reconnoissance was made from the window, and a vivid flash of lightning revealed a clear deck. Mr. L then made a dart for his own state- room, gained it, locked himself in, and felt that

INSTANCES OF PRESENCE OF MINI). 175

Ms body' s salvation was accomplislied, and by little less tlian a miracle. The next day the sub- ject of this memoir, though still very feeble and nervous, had the hardihood to make a joke upon his adventure. He said that when he found himself in so tight a place (as he thought) he didn't bear it with much fortitude, and when he found himself safe at last in his state-room, he regarded it as the bearest escape he had ever had in his life. He then went to bed, and did not get up again for nine days. This un- questionably bad joke cast a gloom over the whole ship's company, and no effort was suf- ficient to restore their wonted cheerfulness until the vessel reached her port, and other scenes erased it from their memories.

HONORED AS A CURIOSITY IN HONOLULU.

MF you get into conversation with a. stranger in Honolulu, and experience tliat natural desire to know what sort of ground you are treading on Iby 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 track, ask him where he preaches. It is a safe bet that he is either a missionary or captain of a whaler. I became personally acquainted with seventy-two captains and ninety-six mission- aries. The captains and ministers form one half of the population ; the third fourth is com- posed of common Kanakas and mercantile for- eigners and their families ; and the final fourth is made up of high ofiicers of the Hawaiian government. And there are just about cats enough for three apiece all around.

HONORED A8 A GUBIOSITT IN HONOLULU. 177

A solemn stranger met me in the subnrlbs one day, and said :

"Good morning, your reverence. Preacli in the stone church yonder, no doulbt?"

" J^o, I don't. I'm not a preacher."

*' Really, I l)eg your pardon, captain. I trust you had a good season. How much on "

'' Oil ! Why, what do you take me for ? I'm not a whaler."

'' Oh ! I beg a thousand pardons, your Ex- cellency. Major-General in the household troops, no doubt ? Minister of the Interior, likely ? Secretary of War ? First Gentleman of the Bed-chamber % Commissioner of the Royal "

'' Stuff ! man. I'm no official. I'm not con- nected in any way with the government."

" Bless my life ! Then who the mischief are you ? what the mischief are yon ? and how the mischief did you get here ? and where in thun- der did yon come from?"

"I'm only a private personage — an nnas- suming stranger — lately arrived fiom Amer- ica."

"No! IN'ot a missionary! not a whaler!

178 HONORED AS A CURIOSITY IN HONOLULU.

not a memlber of liis Majesty's government! not even Secretary of tlie IN'avy ! Ah ! heaven ! it is too Iblissful to "be true ; alas ! I do "but dream. And yet that nolble, honest counte- nance— those oblique, ingenuous eyes — that massive head, incapable of— of— any thing ; your hand ; give me your hand, bright waif. Excuse these tears. For sixteen weary years I

have yearned for a moment like this, and "

Here his feelings were too much for him, and he swooned away. I pitied this poor creature from the bottom of my heart. I was deeply moved. I shed a few tears on him, and kissed him for his mother. I then took what small change he had, and "shoved."

THE STEED "OAHU."

HE landlord of the American hotel at Honolulu said the party had heen gone nearly an hour, but that he could give me my choice of several horses that could easily overtake them. I said, Never mind — I preferred a safe horse to a fast one — I would like to have an excessively gentle horse — a horse with no spirit whatever — a lame one, if he had such a thing. Inside of ^ve minutes I was mounted, and perfectly satisfied with my outfit. I had no time to lahel him, " This is a horse," and so if the puMic 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 horse, and I just hung my hat on one of them, be- hind the saddle, and swahhed the perspiration from my face and started. I named him after this island, " Oahu," (pronounced 0-waw-hoo.)

180 THE STEED " OAHU."

The first gate lie came to lie started in ; I had neither whij) nor spur, and so I simply argued the case with him. He firmly resisted argu- ment, iDut ultimately 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 yards he crossed the street fourteen times, and attempted thir- teen gates, and in the mean time the tro^Dical sun was beating down and threatening to cave the top of my head in, and I was literally drip- ping 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 v^ent along j)eaceably enough, but absorbed in meditation. I noticed this latter circumstance, 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 other ; no horse ever thought over a subject so pro- foundly as this one is doing just for nothing. The more this thing preyed upon my mind the more uneasy I became, until at last the sus- pense became unbearable, and I dismounted to

THE STEED " OASU." 181

see if tliere was any thing wild in Ms eye ; for I had heard that the eye of this noblest of our domestic animals is very expressive. I can not describe what a load of anxiety was lifted from my mind when I found that he was only asleep. I woke him up and started him into a faster walk, and then the inborn villainy of his na- ture c?Lme out again. He tried to climb over a stone wall ^vq or six feet high. I saw that I must apply force to this horse, and that I might as well begin first as last. I plucked a stout switch from a tamarind tree, and the mo- ment he saw it he gave in. He broke into a convnlsive sort of a canter, which had three short steps in it and one long one, and remind- ed me alternately of the clattering shake of the great earthquake and the sweeping plunging of the Ajax in a storm.

A STRANGE DREAM.

DEEAMED AT THE VOLCAITO HOUSE, CEATER OF ^'KI

1, 1866.

KILAUEA," SAITDWICH ISLAT^-DS, APEIL

LL day long I liave sat apart and pon- dered over tlie mysterious occur- rences of last niglit. . . There is no link lacking in the chain of incidents — my memory presents each in its proper order with

perfect