Carson City, March 8th 1862.
Dear Billy:
As a good opportunity offers, I have embraced it to send you some legal and letter paper, and a copy of the laws.1 I send the pencils, pens, &c., because I don’t know whether you have run out of such things or not. If you have got plenty of stationery, maybe Sam and Tom2 have not. I also send you some more envelops. The Colonel3 proposes to start [to-morrow ]or next day.
I hunted up Fall, but he would not sell me his ground for Sam. Then I told him he had better go to Unionville and [“nurse” ]a good thing while he had it. He said he would.
John Kinney has gone to the States, via San Francisco.
Your Father has purchased the Keokuk “Journal,”—so he will hardly come out here this year—hey?4
I have heard from several reliable sources that Sewall will be here shortly, and has sworn to whip me on sight. Now what would you advise a fellow to do?—take a thrashing [ fo from ]the son-of-a-bitch, or bind him over to keep the peace? I don’t see why he should dislike me. He is a yankee,—and I [naturaly ]love a yankee.5
I stole a bully dog the other day—but he escaped again. Look out for one. That other dog, over whose fate a dark mystery hangs, has not revisited the glimpses of the moon yet, in this vicinity, although he has been seen in a certain locality—whereof it would be Treason to speak. D—n the beast—does he intend to haunt us like a nightmare for the balance of his days?
The Governor’s Cavalcade left for California the other day. Some of the retainers I will name: the Governor and Gov. Roop, Boundary-line Commissioners; accompanied by Mr. Gillson, Mr. Kinkead and others—and followed by Bob Howland, Chief Valet de Chambre to His Excellency, and Bob Haslan, Principal Second Assistant ditto ditto.6 What do [you [make of] that], for instance? There were quite a number in the Cavalcade, and Haslan brought up the rear on a mule. Bob Howland expects to sell some ground in San Francisco.
You say the “Annie Moffett Company”—isn’t that the name of the ledge, too? I hope so.
I would like to write you some news, Billy, but unfortunately, I haven’t got any to write. I couldn’t write it, though, if I had, for I am in a bad humor, and am only writing anyhow, because I hate to lose the opportunity. You see I have been playing cards with Bunker, and the d—d old Puritan wouldn’t play fairly—and I made injurious remarks and jumped the game.
I send a St. Louis Republican for Tom. There is something in it from “Ethan Spike.”7
Enclosed please find Mr. Cox’s Speech.8
If you and Dad intend coming down, Billy, with the wagon, don’t fail to write and say about what time you will be here. I leave for Esmeralda next week some time, with Major General BBBunker, L.L.D., Esq—provided “nothing happens.” But [this do ]happen in this country, constantly. In fact, it is about the d—est country in the world for things to happen in. My calculations never come out right. However, as I said before, We May be Happy Yet.
Remember me kindly to the boys—not forgetting “the old man,” of course. I have labored hard to get a copy of “Fannie Hill”9 for him to read, but I have failed sadly.
Sunday.—I intended to finish this letter to-day, but I went to church—and busted! For a man who can listen for an hour to Mr. White, the whining, nasal, Whangdoodle preacher, and then sit down and write, without shedding melancholy from his pen as [ a ducks water slides ]from a duck’s back, is more than mortal. Or less. I fear I shall not feel cheerful again until the beans I had for dinner begin to operate.10
Which reminds me of that afternoon in Sacramento cañon,11 when I gained such a brilliant victory [ of over ]Oliver and Mr. [Tillou w ], and drove them in confusion and dismay from behind my batteries.
We have not heard from home for some time, and I have only written two letters to St Louis since I arrived here.
John D. Winters has sold out his interest in the Ophir for a hundred thousand dollars.12
J. L. G. and his father13 are still flourishing in Chinatown. Mr. Bunker saw them there the other day.
Tom Nye is down at Fort Churchill. Write, at your earlies[t] convenience.
Your sincere friend
Sam L. Clemens
Wm. H. Clagett, Esq. |Unionville, |Humboldt Co. |N.T. [no postage stamp]
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
A DOWN EAST JURYMAN. [“Ethan Spike”
contributes to the Portland Transcript a sketch of his experience as
a juryman. The first cases he was called to try were capital
ones—the criminals being a German and a
“nigger” respectively.” “Hev you formed any opinion for or
agin the prisoners?” said the judge. “Not perticular agin the
Jermin,” says I, “but I hate niggers as a
general principle, and shall go for hanging this here old white
wooled cuss, whether he killed Mr. Cooper or not,” says
I. “Do you know the nature of an
oath?” the clark axed me. “I orter,” says I.
“I’ve used enough of’em. I begun to
swear when I was only about—” “That’ll do,”
says the clark. “You kin go bum,” says he,
“you won’t be wanted in this ere
case,” says the clark, says he. “What?” says I,
“aint I to try this nigger at all?” “No,” says the clark. “But I’m a
jewryman,” says I, “and you can’t
hang the nigger onless I’ve sot on him,” says
I. “Pass on,” says the clark,
speaking rather cross. “But,” says I,
“you mister, you don’t mean as you say;
I’m a regular jewryman, you know. Drawed aout of the box
by the seelick man,” says I. “I’ve
ollers had a hankering to hang a nigger, and now, when a merciful
dispensatory seems to have provided one for me, you say I
shan’t sit on him! Ar this your free institutions? Is
this the nineteenth centry? And is this our
boasted”— Here somebody hollored
“Silence in Court.” “The Court
be—!” I didn’t finish the remark
fore a couple of constables had holt of me, and in the twinkling of
a bed post I was hustled down stairs into the street. “Naow, Mr. Editor, let me ask, what
are we comin’ to, when jewrymen—legal, lawful
jewrymen, kin be tossed about in this way? Talk about Cancers,
Mormons, Spiritualism, free love and panics—whar are they
in comparison? Here’s a principle upsot. As an
individual, perhaps, I’m of no great account;
t’an’t fur me to say; but when as an
enlightened jewryman, I was tuk and carried down stairs by profane
hands, just for assertin my right to sit on a nigger—why
it seems to me the pillows of society were shook; that in my sacred
person the hull State itself was, figgeratively speakin, kicked down
stairs! If thar’s law in the land I’ll have
this case brought under a writ of habeus Corpus or icksey
Dicksit. The 3 February Republican,
presumably sent by Jane Clemens and Pamela Moffett, probably was
Clemens’s enclosure. It is conceivable that he enclosed a
weekly Republican containing both the Ethan Spike
excerpt and the speech discussed in note 8, but no copy of such a paper
has been located. In chapter 6 of Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1885), Clemens was to have the disreputable Pap Finn
deliver an antigovernment, antiblack harangue similar to Ethan
Spike’s.
Source text(s):
Previous publication:
L1, 169–174.
Provenance:deposited at ViU on 23 Apr 1960.
Emendations and textual notes:
to-|morrow • to-morrow
“nurse” • [“]nurse” [dry pen]
fo from • forom [‘r’ over ‘o’]
naturaly • [sic]
you [make of] that • you |that
this do • [Clemens may have meant ‘things do’.]
a ducks water slides • [‘water s’ over ‘a ducks’]
of over • ofver [‘v’ over ‘f’]
Tillou w • [‘u’ over ‘w’]