To Orion Clemens
per Fanny C. Hesse
10 December 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS, revised by SLC: CU-MARK, UCCL 01511)

Hartford Dec 10th 1877

My dear brother.

Please ask your papers to give this item a start.1 Get some discreet friend—dont go yourself—to go to that canvasser & be ingenious enough to get out of him the address of theat “Franklin Publishing Company”—that is to say the name of the thief that calls himself the Franklin Pub. Co—& his private or official address. I [mean find] out where this man gets his books from. It is most likely that he gets them from a [MS page 2] subordinate thief—but at the same time the head [quaters] are of course out west somewhere & not in New York. So it is not doubt possible to get the head [quaters] address which is what I want.2

“The Post” does not make a living—has not paid expenses for two or three years.3

Get your Editors to make editorial reference to the fact that that book is being canvassed for, in Keokuk & the contracts made with the canvasser are binding upon nobody.

Your brother

Samℓ L. Clemens.
Pr F C. H.