[figure description] 503EAF. Page 101. In-line image; opening image for the story "The Great Beef Contract." The image is of an office filled with couples poring over documents.[end figure description]

In as few words as possible I wish to lay before the nation what
share, howsoever small, I have had in this matter—this matter
which has so exercised the public mind, engendered so much
ill-feeling, and so filled the newspapers of both continents with
distorted statements and extravagant comments.

The origin of this distressful thing was this—and I assert here
that every fact in the following résumé can be amply proved by
the official records of the General Government:—

John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased,
contracted with the General Government, on or about the 10th day of
October, 1861, to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty barrels
of beef.

Very well.

He started after Sherman with the beef, but when he got to Washington
Sherman had gone to Manassas; so he took the beef and followed him there,

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 102. Disturbing image of a man sitting in a filed with a tomahawk through the center of his skull. Near him is an Indian crying war signals, while in the far distant background a caravan of wagons is on fire.[end figure description]

but arrived too late; he followed him to Nashville, and from Nashville to
Chattanooga, and from Chattanooga to Atlanta—but he never could overtake
him. At Atlanta he took a fresh start and followed him clear through his
march to the sea. He arrived too late
again by a few days; but hearing
that Sherman was going out in the
Quaker City excursion to the Holy
Land, he took shipping for Beirut,
calculating to head off the other vessel.
When he arrived in Jerusalem with
his beef, he learned that Sherman had
not sailed in the Quaker City, but
had gone to the Plains to fight the
Indians. He returned to America
and started for the Rocky Mountains.
After sixty eight days of arduous
travel on the Plains, and when
he had got within four miles of Sherman's
head-quarters, he was tomahawked
and scalped, and the
Indians got the beef. They got all of it but one barrel. Sherman's army
captured that, and so even in death, the bold navigator partly fulfilled his contract.
In his will, which he had kept like a journal, he bequeathed the contract to
his son Bartholomew W. Bartholomew W. made out the following bill, and
then died:—

The United States
In account with John Wilson Mackensie, of New Jersey, deceased.	Dr.
To thirty barrels of beef for General Sherman, at 8100	$3,000
To traveling expenses and transportation	14,000
Total	$17,000
Rec'd Pay't.

He died then; but he left the contract to Wm. J. Martin, who tried to collect

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 103. Image of two men standing in a plush living room. One man is standing in front of a large fireplace, smoking a cigar, clasping his hands behind his back. On the wall behind him is a portrait of George Washington. The other man is bowing slightly towards him and holding out a sheaf of papers.[end figure description]

it, but died before he got through. He left it to Barker J. Allen, and he tried
to collect it also. He did not survive. Barker J. Allen left it to Anson G.
Rogers, who attempted to collect it, and got along as far as the Ninth Auditor's
Office, when Death the great Leveller, came all unsummoned, and foreclosed on
him also. He left the bill to a relative of his in Connecticut, Vengeance Hopkins
by name, who lasted four weeks and two days, and made the best time on
record, coming within one of reaching the Twelfth Auditor. In his will he gave
the contract bill to his uncle, by the name of O-be-joyful Johnson. It was too
undermining for Joyful. His last words were: “Weep not for me—I am
willing to go.” And so he was,
poor soul. Seven people inherited
the contract after that; but they all
died. So it came into my hands at
last. It fell to me through a relative
by the name of Hubbard—Bethlehem
Hubbard, of Indiana. He had
had a grudge against me for a
long time; but in his last moments
he sent for me, and forgave me everything,
and, weeping gave me the
beef contract.

This ends the
history of it up to the time that I succeeded
to the property. I will now
endeavor to set myself straight
before the nation in everything that
concerns my share in the matter. I
took this beef contract, and the bill for mileage and transportation, to the President
of the United States.

He said, “Well, sir, what can I do for you?”

I said, “Sire, on or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie,
of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with
the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty
barrels of beef—”

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

He stopped me there, and dismissed me from his presence—kindly, but firmly.
The next day I called on the Secretary of State.

He said, “Well, sir?”

I said, “Your Royal Highness: on or about the 10th day of October, 1861,
John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased,
contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the
sum total of thirty barrels of beef—”

“That will do, sir—that will do; this office has nothing to do with contracts
for beef.”

“I was bowed out. I thought the matter all over, and finally, the following
day, I visited the Secretary of the Navy, who said, “Speak quickly, sir; do not
keep me waiting.”

I said, “Your Royal Highness, on or about the 10th day of October, 1861,
John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased,
contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the
sum total of thirty barrels of beef—”

Well, it was as far as I could get. He had nothing to do with beef contracts
for General Sherman either. I began to think it was a curious kind of a
Government. It looks somewhat as if they wanted to get out of paying for that
beef. The following day I went to the Secretary of the Interior.

I said, “Your Imperial Highness, on or about the 10th day of October—”

“That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you before. Go, take your infamous
beef contract out of this establishment. The Interior Department has nothing
whatever to do with subsistence for the army.”

I went away. But I was exasperated now. I said I would haunt them; I
would infest every department of this iniquitous Government till that contract
business was settled. I would collect that bill, or fall, as fell my predecessors,
trying. I assailed the Postmaster-General; I besieged the Agricultural Department;
I waylaid the Speaker of the House of Representatives. They had nothing
to do with army contracts for beef. I moved upon the Commissioner of the
Patent Office.

I said, “Your August Excellency, on or about—”

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

“Perdition! have you got here with your incendiary beef contract, at last?
We have nothing to do with beef contracts for the army, my dear sir.”

“Oh, that is all very well—but somebody has got to pay for that beef. It has
got to be paid now, too, or I'll confiscate this old Patent Office and everything
in it.”

“But, my dear sir—”

“It don't make any difference, sir. The Patent Office is liable for that beef,
I reckon; and, liable or not liable, the Patent Office has got to pay for it.”

Never mind the details. It ended in a fight. The Patent Office won. But I
found out something to my advantage. I was told that the Treasury Department
was the proper place for me to go to. I went there. I waited two hours
and a half, and then I was admitted to the First Lord of the Treasury.

I said, “Most noble, grave, and reverend Signor, on or about the 10th day of
October, 1861, John Wilson Macken—”

“That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you. Go to the First Auditor of the
Treasury.”

I did so. He sent me to the Second Auditor. The Second Auditor sent me
to the Third, and the Third sent me to the First Comptroller of the Corn-Beef
Division. This began to look like business. He examined his books and all
his loose papers, but found no minute of the beef contract. I went to the Second
Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division. He examined his books and his loose
papers, but with no success. I was encouraged. During that week I got as far
as the Sixth Comptroller in that division; the next week I got through the
Claims Department; the third week I began and completed the Mislaid Contracts
Department, and got a foothold in the Dead Reckoning Department. I
finished that in three days. There was only one place left for it now. I laid
siege to the Commissioner of Odds and Ends. To his clerk, rather—he was not
there himself. There were sixteen beautiful young ladies in the room, writing
in books, and there were seven well-favored young clerks showing them how.
The young women smiled up over their shoulders, and the clerks smiled back
at them, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Two or three clerks that were
reading the newspapers looked at me rather hard, but went on reading, and

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

nobody said anything. However, I had been used to this kind of alacrity from
Fourth-Assistant-Junior Clerks all through my eventful career, from the very
day I entered the first office of the Corn-Beef Bureau clear till I passed out of
the last one in the Dead Reckoning Division. I had got so accomplished by
this time that I could stand on one foot from the moment I entered an office till
a clerk spoke to me, without changing more than two, or maybe three times.

So I stood there till I had changed four different times. Then I said to one of
the clerks who was reading—

“Illustrious Vagrant, where is the Grand Turk?”

“What do you mean, sir? whom do you mean? If you mean the Chief of the
Bureau, he is out.”

“Will he visit the harem to-day?”

The young man glared upon me awhile, and then went on reading his paper.
But I knew the ways of those clerks. I knew I was safe if he got through before
another New York mail arrived. He only had two more papers left. After
awhile he finished them, and then he yawned and asked me what I wanted.

“Renowned and honored Imbecile: On or about—”

“You are the beef contract man. Give me your papers.”

He took them, and for a long time he ransacked his odds and ends. Finally
he found the North-West Passage, as I regarded it—he found the long-lost
record of that beef contract—he found the rock upon which so many of my
ancestors had split before they ever got to it. I was deeply moved. And yet I
rejoiced—for I had survived. I said with emotion, “Give it me. The Government
will settle now.” He waved me back, and said there was something yet to
be done first.

“Where is this John Wilson Mackenzie?” said he.

“Dead.”

“When did he die?”

“He didn't die at all—he was killed.”

“How?”

“Tomahawked.”

“Who tomahawked him?”

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

“Why, an Indian, of course. You didn't suppose it was the superintendent of
a Sunday-school, did you?”

“No. An Indian, was it?”

“The same.”

“Name of the Indian?”

“His name? I don't know his name.”

“Must have his name. Who saw the tomahawking done?”

“I don't know.”

“You were not present yourself, then?”

“Which you can see by my hair. I was absent.”

“Then how do you know that Mackenzie is dead?”

“Because he certainly died at that time, and I have every reason to believe
that he has been dead ever since. I know he has, in fact.”

“We must have proofs. Have you got the Indian?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, you must get him. Have you got the tomahawk?”

“I never thought of such a thing.”

“You must get the tomahawk. You must produce the Indian and the tomahawk.
If Mackenzie's death can be proven by these, you can then go before the
commission appointed to audit claims with some show of getting your bill under
such headway that your children may possibly live to receive the money and
enjoy it. But that man's death must be proven. However, I may as well tell
you that the Government will never pay that transportation and those traveling
expenses of the lamented Mackenzie. It may possibly pay for the barrel of beef
that Sherman's soldiers captured, if you can get a relief bill through Congress
making an appropriation for that purpose; but it will not pay for the twentynine
barrels the Indians ate.”

“Then there is only a hundred dollars due me, and that isn't certain! After
all Mackenzie's travels in Europe, Asia, and America with that beef; after all
his trials and tribulations and transportation; after the slaughter of all those
innocents that tried to collect that bill! Young man, why didn't the First
Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division tell me this.”

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

“He didn't know anything about the genuineness of your claim.”

“Why didn't the Second tell me? why didn't the Third? why didn't all those
divisions and departments tell me?”

“None of them knew. We do things by routine here. You have followed
the routine and found out what you wanted to know. It is the best way. It is
the only way. It is very regular, and very slow, but it is very certain.”

“Yes, certain death. It has been, to the most of our tribe. I begin to feel
that I, too, am called. Young man, you love the bright creature yonder with
the gentle blue eyes and the steel pens behind her ears—I see it in your soft
glances; you wish to marry her—but you are poor. Here, hold out your hand—
here is the beef contract; go, take her and be happy! Heaven bless you, my
children!”

This is all I know about the great beef contract, that has created so much talk
in the community. The clerk to whom I bequeathed it died. I know nothing
further about the contract, or any one connected with it. I only know that if a
man lives long enough he can trace a thing through the Circumlocution Office
of Washington, and find out, after much labor and trouble and delay, that which
he could have found out on the first day if the business of the Circumlocution
Office were as ingeniously systematized as it would be if it were a great private
mercantile institution.

p503-108 THE CASE OF GEORGE FISHER. *

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 109. In-line image; opening image for the story "The Case of George Fisher." In the background of the image a house is burning and two Indians are running towards the foreground with a group of oxen and food. In the foreground of the image are two Indians drinking alcohol out of a large jug.[end figure description]

THIS is history. It is not a
wild extravaganza, like “John
Williamson Mackenzie's Great
Beef Contract,” but is a plain statement
of facts and circumstances with
which the Congress of the United
States has interested itself from time
to time during the long period of half
a century.

I will not call this matter of George
Fisher's a great deathless and unrelenting
swindle upon the Government
and people of the United States—for

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

it has never been so decided, and I hold that it is a grave and solemn wrong for a
writer to cast slurs or call names when such is the case—but will simply present
the evidence and let the reader deduce his own verdict. Then we shall do nobody
injustice, and our consciences shall be clear.

On or about the 1st day of September 1813, the Creek was being then in progress
in Florida, the crops, herds, and houses of Mr. George Fisher, a citizen, were
destroyed, either by the Indians or by the United States troops in pursuit of them.
By the terms of the law, if the Indians destroyed the property, there was no relief
for Fisher; but if the troops destroyed it, the Government of the United States was
debtor to Fisher for the amount involved.

George Fisher must have considered that the Indians destroyed the property,
because, although he lived several years afterward, he does not appear to have ever
made any claim upon the Government.

In the course of time Fisher died, and his widow married again. And by and
by, nearly twenty years after that dimly-remembered raid upon Fisher's cornfields,
the widow Fisher's new husband petitioned Congress for pay for the property, and
backed up the petition with many depositions and affidavits which purported to
prove that the troops, and not the Indians, destroyed the property; that the troops,
for some inscrutable reason, deliberately burned down “houses” (or cabins) valued
at $600, the same belonging to a peaceable private citizen, and also destroyed
various other property belonging to the same citizen. But Congress declined to
believe that the troops were such idiots (after overtaking and scattering a band of
Indians proved to have been found destroying Fisher's property) as to calmly
continue the work of destruction themselves, and make a complete job of what the
Indians had only commenced. So Congress denied the petition of the heirs of
George Fisher in 1832, and did not pay them a cent.

We hear no more from them officially until 1848, sixteen years after their first
attempt on the Treasury, and a full generation after the death of the man whose

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

fields were destroyed. The new generation of Fisher heirs then came forward and
put in a bill for damages. The Second Auditor awarded them $8,873, being half
the damage sustained by Fisher. The Auditor said the testimony showed that at
least half the destruction was done by the Indians “before the troops started in pursuit,”
and of course the Government was not responsible for that half.

2. That was in April, 1848. In December 1848, the heirs of George Fisher,
deceased, came forward and pleaded for a “revision” of their bill of damages.
The revision was made, but nothing new could be found in their favor except an
error of $100 in the former calculation. However, in order to keep up the spirits
of the Fisher family, the Auditor concluded to go back and allow interest from the
date of the first petition (1832) to the date when the bill of damages was awarded.
This sent the Fishers home happy with sixteen years' interest on $8,873—the same
amounting to $8,997.94. Total, $17,870.94.

3. For an entire year the suffering Fisher family remained quiet—even satisfied,
after a fashion. Then they swooped down upon Government with their wrongs
once more. That old patriot, Attorney-General Toucey, burrowed through the
musty papers of the Fishers and discovered one more chance for the desolate
orphans—interest on that original award of $8,873 from date of destruction of the
property (1813) up to 1832! Result, $10,004.89 for the indigent Fishers. So
now we have:—First, $8,873 damages; second, interest on it from 1832 to 1848,
$8,997.94; third, interest on it dated back to 1813, $10,004.89. Total, $27,875.83!
What better investment for a great-grandchild than to get the Indians to burn a
cornfield for him sixty or seventy years before his birth, and plausibly lay it on
lunatic United States troops?

4. Strange as it may seem, the Fishers let Congress alone for five years—or,
what is perhaps more likely, failed to make themselves heard by Congress for that
length of time. But at last in 1854, they got a hearing. They persuaded Congress
to pass an act requiring the Auditor to re-examine their case. But this time they
stumbled upon the misfortune of an honest Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. James
Guthrie), and he spoiled everything. He said in very plain language that the
Fishers were not only not entitled to another cent, but that those children of many
sorrows and acquainted with grief had been paid too much already.

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

5. Therefore another interval of rest and silence ensued—an interval which
lasted four years—viz., till 1858. The “right man in the right place” was then
Secretary of War—John B. Floyd, of peculiar renown! Here was a master intellect;
here was the very man to succor the suffering heirs of dead and forgotten
Fisher. They came up from Florida with a rush—a great tidal wave of Fishers
freighted with the same old musty documents about the same immortal cornfields
of their ancestor. They straightway got an Act passed transferring the Fisher
matter from the dull Auditor to the ingenious Floyd. What did Floyd do? He
said, “IT WAS PROVED that the Indians destroyed everything they could before the
troops entered in pursuit.” He considered, therefore, that what they destroyed must
have consisted of “the houses with all their contents, and the liquor” (the most trifling
part of the destruction, and set down at only $3200 all told), and that the Government
troops then drove them off and calmly proceeded to destroy—

Two hundred and twenty acres of corn in the field, thirty-five acres of wheat, and
nine hundred and eighty-six head of live stock! [What a singularly intelligent army
we had in those days, according to Mr. Floyd—though not according to the
Congress of 1832.]

So Mr. Floyd decided that the Government was not responsible for that $3200
worth of rubbish which the Indians destroyed, but was responsible for the property
destroyed by the troops—which property consisted of (I quote from the printed
United States Senate document)—

	Dollars.
Corn at Bassett's Creek	3,000
Cattle	5,000
Stock hogs	1,050
Drove hogs	1,204
Wheat	350
Hides	4,000
Corn on the Alabama River	3,500
Total	18,104

That sum, in his report, Mr. Floyd calls the “full value of the property destroyed
by the troops.” He allows that sum to the starving Fishers, TOGETHER WITH

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 113. Image of a man standing in an archive. He is standing in the center of stacks of papers and is holding one up to read.[end figure description]

INTEREST FROM 1813. From this new sum total the amounts already paid to the
Fishers were deducted, and then the cheerful remainder (a fraction under forty
thousand dollars) was handed to them, and again they retired to Florida in a condition
of temporary tranquility. Their ancestor's farm had now yielded them,
altogether, nearly sixty-seven thousand dollars in cash.

6. Does the reader suppose that that was the end of it? Does he suppose those
diffident Fishers were satisfied? Let the evidence show. The Fishers were quiet
just two years. Then they came swarming up out of the fertile swamps of Florida
with their same old documents, and besieged Congress once more. Congress
capitulated on the first of June, 1860, and instructed Mr. Floyd to overhaul those
papers again and pay that bill. A Treasury clerk was ordered to go through those
papers and report to Mr. Floyd what amount was still due the emaciated Fishers.
This clerk (I can produce him whenever he is wanted) discovered what was apparently
a glaring and recent forgery in the papers, whereby a witness's testimony as

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

to the price of corn in Florida in 1813 was made to name double the amount which
that witness had originally specified as the price! The clerk not only called his
superior's attention to this thing, but in making up his brief of the case called particular
attention to it in writing. That part of the brief never got before Congress,
nor has Congress ever yet had a hint of a forgery existing among the Fisher papers.
Nevertheless, on the basis of the double prices (and totally ignoring the clerk's
assertion that the figures were manifestly and unquestionably a recent forgery), Mr.
Floyd remarks in his new report that “the testimony, particularly in regard to the
corn crops DEMANDS A MUCH HIGHER ALLOWANCE than any heretofore made by the
Auditor or myself.” So he estimates the crop at sixty bushels to the acre (double
what Florida acres produce), and then virtuously allows pay for only half the crop,
but allows two dollars and a half a bushel for that half, when there are rusty old
books and documents in the Congressional library to show just what the Fisher
testimony showed before the forgery—viz., that in the fall of 1813 corn was only
worth from $1.25 to $1.50 a bushel. Having accomplished this, what does Mr.
Floyd do next? Mr. Floyd (“with an earnest desire to execute truly the legislative
will,” as he piously remarks) goes to work and makes out an entirely new bill of
Fisher damages, and in this new bill he placidly ignores the Indians altogether—
puts no particle of the destruction of the Fisher property upon them, but, even
repenting him of charging them with burning the cabins and drinking the whisky
and breaking the crockery, lays the entire damage at the door of the imbecile
United States troops, down to the very last item! And not only that, but uses the
forgery to double the loss of corn at “Bassett's Creek,” and uses it again to absolutely
treble the loss of corn on the “Alabama River.” This new and ably conceived
and executed bill of Mr. Floyd's figures up as follows (I copy again from
the printed U. S. Senate document):—

The United States in account with the legal representatives of George Fisher, deceased.

	Dol. C.
1813.—To 350 head of cattle, at 10 dollars	5,500 00
To 86 head of drove hogs	1,204 00
To 350 head of stock hogs	1,750 00
To 100 ACRES OF CORN ON Bassett's Creek	6,000 00
To 8 barrels of whisky	350 00

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

To 2 barrels of brandy	280 00
To 1 barrel of rum	70 00
To dry goods and merchandise in store	1,100 00
To 35 acres of wheat	350 00
To 2,000 hides	4,000 00
To furs and hats in store	600 00
To crockery ware in store	100 00
To smiths' and carpenters' tools	250 00
To houses burned and destroyed	600 00
To 4 dozen bottles of wine	48 00
1814.—To 120 acres of corn on Alabama River	9,500 00
To crops of peas, fodder, etc.	3,250 00
Total	34,952 00
To interest on $22,202, from July 1813 to November 1860,
47 years and 4 months	63,053 68
To interest on $12,750, from September 1814 to November 1860,
46 years and 2 months	35,317 50
Total	133,323 18

He puts everything in this time. He does not even allow that the Indians
destroyed the crockery or drank the four dozen bottles of (currant) wine. When it
came to supernatural comprehensiveness in “gobbling,” John B. Floyd was without
his equal, in his own or any other generation. Subtracting from the above total the
$67,000 already paid to George Fisher's implacable heirs, Mr. Floyd announced
that the Government was still indebted to them in the sum of sixty-six thousand five
hundred and nineteen dollars and eighty-five cents, “which,” Mr. Floyd complacently
remarks, “will be paid, accordingly, to the administrator of the estate of George
Fisher, deceased, or to his attorney in fact.”

But, sadly enough for the destitute orphans, a new President came in just at this
time, Buchanan and Floyd went out, and they never got their money. The first
thing Congress did in 1861 was to rescind the resolution of June 1, 1870, under
which Mr. Floyd had been ciphering. Then Floyd (and doubtless the heirs of
George Fisher likewise) had to give up financial business for a while, and go into
the Confederate army and serve their country.

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

Were the heirs of George Fisher killed? No. They are back now at this very
time (July 1870), beseeching Congress through that blushing and diffident creature,
Garrett Davis, to commence making payments again on their interminable and
insatiable bill of damages for corn and whisky destroyed by a gang of irresponsible
Indians, so long ago that even government red-tape has failed to keep consistent
and intelligent track of it.

Now, the above are facts. They are history. Any one who doubts it can send
to the Senate Document Department of the Capitol for H. R. Ex. Doc. No. 21,
36th Congress, 2nd Session, and for S. Ex. Doc. No. 106, 41st. Congress 2nd Session,
and satisfy himself. The whole case is set forth in the first volume of the
Court of Claims Reports.

It is my belief that as long as the continent of America holds together, the heirs
of George Fisher, deceased, will still make pilgrimages to Washington from the
swamps of Florida, to plead for just a little more cash on their bill of damages
(even when they received the last of that sixty-seven thousand dollars, they said it
was only one-fourth what the Government owed them on that fruitful corn-field),
and as long as they choose to come, they will find Garrett Davises to drag their
vampire schemes before Congress. This is not the only hereditary fraud (if fraud
it is—which I have before repeatedly remarked is not proven) that is being quietly
handed down from generation to generation of fathers and sons, through the persecuted
Treasury of the United States.

p503-116 DISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION OF A BOY.

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

IN San Francisco, the other day, “A well-dressed boy, on his way to Sunday-school,
was arrested and thrown into the city prison for stoning Chinamen.”

What a commentary is this upon human justice! What sad prominence it
gives to our human disposition to tyrannize over the weak! San Francisco has
little right to take credit to herself for her treatment of this poor boy. What
had the child's education been? How should he suppose it was wrong to stone
a Chinamen? Before we side against him, along with outraged San Francisco,
let us give him a chance—let us hear the testimony for the defence.

He was a “well-dressed” boy, and a Sunday-school scholar, and therefore,
the chances are that his parents were intelligent, well-to-do people, with just
enough natural villainy in their composition to make them yearn after the
daily papers, and enjoy them; and so this boy had opportunities to learn all
through the week how to do right, as well as on Sunday.

It was in this way that he found out that the great commonwealth of California
imposes an unlawful mining-tax upon John the foreigner, and allows Patrick
the foreigner to dig gold for nothing—probably because the degraded
Mongol is at no expense for whisky, and the refined Celt cannot exist without it.

It was in this way that he found out that a respectable number of the taxgatherers—
it would be unkind to say all of them—collect the tax twice, instead
of once; and that, inasmuch as they do it solely to discourage Chinese immigration
into the mines, it is a thing that is much applauded, and likewise regarded
as being singularly facetious.

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

It was in this way that he found out that when a white man robs a sluice-box
(by the term white man is meant Spaniards, Mexicans, Portuguese, Irish, Hondurans,
Peruvians, Chileans, &c., &c.), they make him leave the camp; and when
a Chinaman does that thing, they hang him.

It was in this way that he found out that in many districts of the vast Pacific
coast, so strong is the wild, free love of justice in the hearts of the people, that
whenever any secret and mysterious crime is committed, they say, “Let justice
be done, though the heavens fall,” and go straightway and swing a Chinaman.

It was in this way that he found out that by studying one half of each day's
“local items,” it would appear that the police of San Francisco were either
asleep or dead, and by studying the other half it would seem that the reporters
were gone mad with admiration of the energy, the virtue, the high effectiveness,
and the dare-devil intrepidity of that very police—making exultant mention of
how “the Argus-eyed officer So-and-so,” captured a wretched knave of a Chinaman
who was stealing chickens, and brought him gloriously to the city prison;
and how “the gallant officer Such-and-such-a-one,” quietly kept an eye on the
movements of an “unsuspecting, almond-eyed son of Confucius” (your reporter
is nothing if not facetious), following him around with that far-off look of
vacancy and unconsciousness always so finely affected by that inscrutible being,
the forty-dollar policeman, during a waking interval, and captured him at last
in the very act of placing his hands in a suspicious manner upon a paper of
tacks, left by the owner in an exposed situation; and how one officer performed
this prodigious thing, and another officer that, and another the other—and
pretty much every one of these performances having for a dazzling central
incident a Chinaman guilty of a shilling's worth of crime, an unfortunate, whose
misdemeanor must be hurraed into something enormous in order to keep the
public from noticing how many really important rascals went uncaptured in
the meantime, and how overrated those glorified policemen actually are.

It was in this way that the boy found out that the Legislature, being aware
that the Constitution has made America an asylum for the poor and the
oppressed of all nations, and that, therefore, the poor and oppressed who fly to
our shelter must not be charged a disabling admission fee, made a law that

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

every Chinman, upon landing, must be vaccinated upon the wharf, and pay to
the State's appointed officer ten dollars for the service, when there are plenty of
doctors in San Francisco who would be glad enough to do it for him for fifty
cents.

It was in this way that the boy found out that a Chinaman had no rights
that any man was bound to respect; that he had no sorrows that any man was
bound to pity; that neither his life nor his liberty was worth the purchase of a
penny when a white man needed a scapegoat; that nobody loved Chinamen,
nobody befriended them, nobody spared them suffering when it was convenient
to inflict it; everybody, individuals, communities, the majesty of the State itself,
joined in hating, abusing, and persecuting these humble strangers.

And, therefore, what could have been more natural than for this sunny-hearted
boy, tripping along to Sunday-school, with his mind teeming with freshly-learned
incentives to high and virtuous action, to say to himself—

“Ah, there goes a Chinaman! God will not love me if I do not stone him.”

And for this he was arrested and put in the city jail.

Everything conspired to teach him that it was a high and holy thing to stone
a Chinaman, and yet he no sooner attempts to do his duty that he is punished
for it—he, poor chap, who has been aware all his life that one of the principal
recreations of the police, out toward the Gold Refinery, is to look on with
tranquil enjoyment while the butchers of Brannan Street set their dogs on unoffending
Chinamen, and make them flee for their lives.*

Keeping in mind the tuition in the humanities which the entire “Pacific
coast” gives its youth, there is a very sublimity of incongruity in the virtuous
flourish with which the good city fathers of San Francisco proclaim (as they

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

have lately done) that “The police are positively ordered to arrest all boys, of
every description and wherever found, who engage in assaulting Chinamen.”

Still, let us be truly glad they have made the order, notwithstanding its
inconsistency; and let us rest perfectly confident the police are glad, too.
Because there is no personal peril in arresting boys, provided they be of the
small kind, and the reporters will have to laud their performances just as loyally
as ever, or go without items.

The new form for local items in San Francisco will now be:—“The ever
vigilant and efficient officer So-and-so succeeded, yesterday afternoon, in arresting
Master Tommy Jones, after a determined resistance,” etc., etc., followed by
the customary statistics and final hurrah, with its unconscious sarcasm: “We
are happy in being able to state that this is the forty-seventh boy arrested by
this gallant officer since the new ordinance went into effect. The most extraordinary
activity prevails in the police department. Nothing like it has been seen
since we can remember.”

p503-120 THE JUDGE'S “SPIRITED WOMAN. ”

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 121. In-line image; opening image for the story "The Judge's Spirited Woman." The image centers around a courtroom, where a woman, dressed in black and wearing a veil, is pointing a gun at a man about to approach the witness box. In the background are three men staring in horror and the judge who is standing up from his seat with hands raised.[end figure description]

I WAS sitting here,” said the judge, “in this old pulpit, holding court, and we
were trying a big, wicked-looking Spanish desperado for killing the husband
of a bright, pretty Mexican woman. It was a lazy summer day, and an awfully
long one, and the witnesses were tedious. None of us took any interest in the trial
except that nervous, uneasy devil of a Mexican woman—because you know how
they love and how they hate, and this one had loved her husband with all her
might, and now she had boiled it all down into hate, and stood here spitting it at that
Spaniard with her eyes; and I tell you she would stir me up, too, with a little of her
summer lightning, occasionally. Well, I had my coat off and my heels up, lolling
and sweating, and smoking one of those cabbage cigars the San Francisco people
used to think were good enough for us in those times; and the lawyers they all had
their coats off, and were smoking and whittling, and the witnesses the same, and so
was the prisoner. Well, the fact is, there warn't any interest in a murder trial then,
because the fellow was always brought in “not guilty,” the jury expecting him to do
as much for them some time; and, although the evidence was straight and square

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

against this Spaniard, we knew we could not convict him without seeming to be
rather high-handed and sort of reflecting on every gentleman in the community;
for there warn't any carriages and liveries then, and so the only `style' there was,
was to keep your private graveyard. But that woman seemed to have her heart set
on hanging that Spaniard; and you'd ought to have seen how she would glare on
him a minute, and then look up at me in her pleading way, and then turn and for
the next five minutes search the jury's faces, and by and by drop her face in her
hands for just a little while as if she was most ready to give up; but out she'd
come again directly, and be as live and anxious as ever. But when the jury
announced the verdict—Not Guilty, and I told the prisoner he was acquitted and
free to go, that woman rose up till she appeared to be as tall and grand as a seventy-four-gun-ship,
and says she—

“`Judge, do I understand you to say that this man is not guilty, that murdered
my husband without any cause before my own eyes and my little children's, and
that all has been done to him that ever justice and the law can do?”

“`The same,' says I.

“And then what do you reckon she did? Why, she turned on that smirking
Spanish fool like a wild cat, and out with a `navy' and shot him dead in open court!”

“That was spirited, I am willing to admit.”

“Wasn't it, though?” said the judge admiringly. “I wouldn't have missed it
for anything. I adjourned court right on the spot, and we put on our coats and
went out and took up a collection for her and her cubs, and sent them over the
mountains to their friends. Ah, she was a spirited wench!”

p503-122 INFORMATION WANTED.

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 123. In-line image; opening image for the story "Information Wanted." In the image Twain's uncle is standing in front of an erupting volcano. He is holding the top of his balding head and looking down in shock at his hat, which is on the ground.[end figure description]

“Washington, December 10, 1867.

“COULD you give me any information
respecting such islands,
if any, as the Government is
going to purchase?”

It is an uncle of mine that wants to
know. He is an industrious man and
well-disposed, and wants to make a
living in an honest, humble way, but
more especially he wants to be quiet.
He wishes to settle down, and be quiet
and unostentatious. He has been to
the new island St. Thomas, but he
says he thinks things are unsettled
there. He went there early with an attaché of the State department, who was sent
down with money to pay for the island. My uncle had his money in the same

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

box, and so when they went ashore, getting a receipt, the sailors broke open the box
and took all the money, not making any distinction between Government money,
which was legitimate money to be stolen, and my uncle's, which was his own
private property, and should have been respected. But he came home and got
some more and went back. And then he took the fever. There are seven kinds
of fever down there, you know; and, as his blood was out of order by reason of
loss of sleep and general wear and tear of mind, he failed to cure the first fever,
and then somehow he got the other six. He is not a kind of man that enjoys
fevers, though he is well-meaning and always does what he thinks is right, and so
he was a good deal annoyed when it appeared he was going to die.

But he worried through, and got well and started a farm. He fenced it in, and
the next day that great storm came on and washed the most of it over to Gibralter,
or around there somewhere. He only said, in his patient way, that it was gone,
and he wouldn't bother about trying to find out where it went to, though it was his
opinion it went to Gibralter.

Then he invested in a mountain, and started a farm up there, so as to be out of
the way when the sea came ashore again. It was a good mountain, and a good
farm, but it wasn't any use; an earthquake came the next night and shook it all
down. It was all fragments, you know, and so mixed up with another man's
property, that he could not tell which were his fragments without going to law; and
he would not do that, because his main object in going to St. Thomas was to be
quiet. All that he wanted was to settle down and be quiet.

He thought it all over, and finally he concluded to try the low ground again,
especially as he wanted to start a brickyard this time. He bought a flat, and put
out a hundred thousand bricks to dry preparatory to baking them. But luck
appeared to be against him. A volcano shoved itself through there that night, and
elevated his brickyard about two thousand feet in the air. It irritated him a good
deal. He has been up there, and he says the bricks are all baked right enough,
but he can't get them down. At first, he thought maybe the Government would
get the bricks down for him, because since Government bought the island, it ought
to protect the property where a man has invested in good faith; but all he wants is
quiet, and so he is not going to apply for the subsidy he was thinking about.

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

He went back there last week in a couple of ships of war, to prospect around the
coast for a safe place for a farm where he could be quiet; but a great “tidal wave”
came, and hoisted both of the ships out into one of the interior counties, and he
came near losing his life. So he has given up prospecting in a ship, and is
discouraged.

Well, now, he don't know what to do. He has tried Alaska; but the bears kept
after him so much, and kept him so much on the jump, as it were, that he had to
leave the country. He could not be quiet there with those bears prancing after
him all the time. That is how he came to go to the new island we have bought—
St. Thomas. But he is getting to think St. Thomas is not quiet enough for a man
of his turn of mind, and that is why he wishes me to find out if Government is
likely to buy some more islands shortly. He has heard that Government is thinking
about buying Porto Rico. If that is true, he wishes to try Porto Rico, if it is a
quiet place. How is Porto Rico for his style of man? Do you think the Government
will buy it?

p503-125 SOME LEARNED FABLES, FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS.

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 126. In-line image; opening image for the story "Some Learned Fables, for good old boys and girls." The image stretches vertically along the left side of the page and finishes along the bottom. It depicts a steady stream of animals, such as turtles, crickets, worms, spiders, frogs, and lizards leaving the forest[end figure description]

IN THREE PARTS.

HOW THE ANIMALS OF THE WOOD SENT OUT A
SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION.

ONCE the creatures of the forest held a great
convention and appointed a commission
consisting of the most illustrious scientists
among them to go forth, clear beyond the forest
and out into the unknown and unexplored world,
to verify the truth of the matters already taught in
their schools and colleges and also to make discoveries. It was the most imposing
enterprise of the kind the nation had ever embarked in. True, the government

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

had once sent Dr. Bull Frog, with a picked crew, to hunt for a north-westerly
passage through the swamp to the right-hand corner of the wood, and had since
sent out many expeditions to hunt for Dr. Bull Frog; but they never could find
him, and so government finally gave him up and ennobled his mother to show
its gratitude for the services her son had rendered to science. And once government
sent Sir Grass Hopper to hunt for the sources of the rill that emptied into the
swamp; and afterwards sent out many expeditions to hunt for Sir Grass; and at
last they were successful—they found his body, but if he had discovered the sources
meantime, he did not let on. So government acted handsomely by deceased, and
many envied his funeral.

But these expeditions were trifles compared with the present one; for this one
comprised among its servants the very greatest among the learned; and besides it
was to go to the utterly unvisited regions believed to lie beyond the mighty forest—
as we have remarked before. How the members were banqueted, and glorified,
and talked about! Everywhere that one of them showed himself, straightway
there was a crowd to gape and stare at him.

Finally they set off, and it was a sight to see the long procession of dry-land
Tortoises heavily laden with savans, scientific instruments, Glow-Worms and FireFlies
for signal-service, provisions, Ants and Tumble-Bugs to fetch and carry and
delve, Spiders to carry the surveying chain and do other engineering duty, and so
forth and so on; and after the Tortoises came another long train of iron-clads—
stately and spacious Mud Turtles for marine transportation service; and from every
Tortoise and every Turtle flaunted a flaming gladiolus or other splendid banner;
at the head of the column a great band of Bumble-Bees, Mosquitoes, Katy-Dids
and Crickets discoursed martial music; and the entire train was under the escort
and protection of twelve picked regiments of the Army Worm.

At the end of three weeks the expedition emerged from the forest and looked
upon the great Unknown World. Their eyes were greeted with an impressive
spectacle. A vast level plain stretched before them, watered by a sinuous stream;
and beyond, there towered up against the sky a long and lofty barrier of some kind,
they did not know what. The Tumble-Bug said he believed it was simply land
tilted up on its edge, because he knew he could see trees on it. But Prof. Snail
and the others said:

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

“You are hired to dig, sir—that is all. We need your muscle, not your brains.
When we want your opinion on scientific matters, we will hasten to let you know.
Your coolness, is intolerable, too—loafing about here meddling with august matters
of learning, when the other laborers are pitching camp. Go along and help handle
the baggage.”

The Tumble-Bug turned on his heel uncrushed, unabashed, observing to himself,
“If it isn't land tilted up, let me die the death of the unrighteous.”

Professor Bull Frog, (nephew of the late explorer,) said he believed the ridge
was the wall that enclosed the earth. He continued:

“Our fathers have left us much learning, but they had not traveled far, and so
we may count this a noble new discovery. We are safe for renown, now, even
though our labors began and ended with this single achievement. I wonder what
this wall is built of? Can it be fungus? Fungus is an honorable good thing to
build a wall of.”

Professor Snail adjusted his field-glass and examined the rampart critically.
Finally he said:

“The fact that it is not diaphanous, convinces me that it is a dense vapor formed
by the calorification of ascending moisture dephlogisticated by refraction. A few
endiometrical experiments would confirm this, but it is not necessary.—The thing
is obvious.”

So he shut up his glass and went into his shell to make a note of the discovery
of the world's end, and the nature of it.

“Profound mind!” said Professor Angle-Worm to Professor Field-Mouse; “profound
mind! nothing can long remain a mystery to that august brain.”

Night drew on apace, the sentinel crickets were posted, the Glow Worm and
Fire-Fly lamps were lighted, and the camp sank to silence and sleep. After
breakfast in the morning, the expedition moved on. About noon a great avenue
was reached, which had in it two endless parallel bars of some kind of hard black
substance, raised the height of the tallest Bull Frog above the general level. The
scientists climbed up on these and examined and tested them in various ways.
They walked along them for a great distance, but found no end and no break in
them. They could arrive at no decision. There was nothing in the records of

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 129. Image of the forest animals fleeing from train tracks and an approaching train at night.[end figure description]

science that mentioned anything of this kind. But at last the bald and venerable
geographer, Professor Mud Turtle, a person who, born poor, and of a drudging low
family, had, by his own native force raised himself to the headship of the geographers
of his generation, said:

“My friends, we have indeed made a discovery here. We have found in a palpable,
compact and imperishable
state what the wisest of our
fathers always regarded as a
mere thing of the imagination.
Humble yourselves, my
friends, for we stand in a majestic
presence. These are parallels
of latitude!” Every heart
and every head was bowed, so
awful, so sublime was the magnitude
of the discovery. Many
shed tears. The camp was
pitched and the rest of the day
given up to writing voluminous
accounts of the marvel, and correcting
astronomical tables to
fit it. Toward midnight a demoniacal
shriek was heard, then
a clattering and rumbling noise,
and the next instant a vast terrific eye shot by, with a long tail attached, and disappeared
in the gloom, still uttering triumphant shrieks.

The poor camp laborers were stricken to the heart with fright, and stampeded
for the high grass in a body. But not the scientists. They had no superstitions.
They calmly proceeded to exchange theories. The ancient geographer's opinion
was asked. He went into his shell and deliberated long and profoundly. When
he came out at last, they all knew by his worshiping countenance that he brought
light. Said he:

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

“Give thanks for this stupendous thing which we have been permitted to witness.—
It is the Vernal Equinox!”

There were shoutings and great rejoicings.

“But,” said the Angle-worm, uncoiling after reflection, “this is dead summer
time.”

“Very well,” said the Turtle, “we are far from our region; the season differs
with the difference of time between the two points.”

“Ah, true. True enough. But it is night. How should the sun pass in the
night?”

“In these distant regions he doubtless passes always in the night at this hour.”

“Yes, doubtless that is true. But it being night, how is it that we could see
him?”

“It is a great mystery. I grant that. But I am persuaded that the humidity of
the atmosphere in these remote regions is such that particles of daylight adhere to
the disk and it was by aid of these that we were enabled to see the sun in the dark.”

This was deemed satisfactory, and due entry was made of the decision.

But about this moment those dreadful shriekings were heard again; again the
rumbling and thundering came speeding up out of the night; and once more a
flaming great eye flashed by and lost itself in gloom and distance.

The camp laborers gave themselves up for lost. The savants were sorely perplexed.
Here was a marvel hard to account for. They thought and they talked,
they talked and they thought.—Finally the learned and aged Lord Grand-Daddy-Longlegs,
who had been sitting, in deep study, with his slender limbs crossed and
his stemmy arms folded, said:

“Deliver your opinions, brethren, and then I will tell my thought—for I think
I have solved this problem.”

“So be it, good your lordship,” piped the weak treble of the wrinkled and
withered Professor Woodlouse, “for we shall hear from your lordship's lips naught
but wisdom.”—[Here the speaker threw in a mess of trite, threadbare, exasperating
quotations from the ancient poets and philosophers, delivering them with unction
in the sounding grandeurs of the original tongues, they being from the Mastodon,
the Dodo, and other dead languages]. “Perhaps I ought not to presume to meddle

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

with matters pertaining to astronomy at all, in such a presence as this, I who have
made it the business of my life to delve only among the riches of the extinct
languages and unearth the opulence of their ancient lore; but still, as unacquainted
as I am with the noble science of astronomy, I beg with deference and humility
to suggest that inasmuch as the last of these wonderful apparitions proceeded in
exactly the opposite direction from that pursued by the first, which you decide to
be the Vernal Equinox, and greatly resembled it in all particulars, is it not possible,
nay certain, that this last is the Autumnal Equi—”

“O-o-o!” “O-o-o! go to bed! go to bed!” with annoyed derision from everybody.
So the poor old Woodlouse retreated out of sight, consumed with shame.

Further discussion followed, and then the united voice of the commission begged
Lord Longlegs to speak. He said:

“Fellow-scientists, it is my belief that we have witnessed a thing which has
occurred in perfection but once before in the knowledge of created beings. It is a
phenomenon of inconceivable importance and interest, view it as one may, but its
interest to us is vastly heightened by an added knowledge of its nature which no
scholar has heretofore possessed or even suspected. This great marvel which we
have just witnessed, fellow-savants, (it almost takes my breath away!) is nothing
less than the transit of Venus!”

Every scholar sprang to his feet pale with astonishment. Then ensued tears,
hand-shakings, frenzied embraces, and the most extravagant jubilations of every
sort. But by and by, as emotion began to retire within bounds, and reflection to
return to the front, the accomplished Chief Inspector Lizard observed:

“But how is this?— Venus should traverse the sun's surface, not the earth's.”

The arrow went home. It carried sorrow to the breast of every apostle of
learning there, for none could deny that this was a formidable criticism. But
tranquilly the venerable Duke crossed him limbs behind his ears and said:

“My friend has touched the marrow of our mighty discovery. Yes—all that
have lived before us thought a transit of Venus consisted of a flight across the sun's
face; they thought it, they maintained it, they honestly believed it, simple hearts,
and were justified in it by the limitations of their knowledge; but to us has been
granted the inestimable boon of proving that the transit occurs across the earth's
face, for we have SEEN it!”

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

The assembled wisdom sat in speechless adoration of this imperial intellect. All
doubts had instantly departed, like night before the lightning.

The Tumble-Bug had just intruded, unnoticed. He now came reeling forward
among the scholars, familiarly slapping first one and then another on the shoulder,
saying “Nice ('ic!) nice old boy!” and smiling a smile of elaborate content.
Arrived at a good position for speaking, he put his left arm akimbo with his knuckles
planted in his hip just under the edge of his cut-away coat, bent his right leg,
placing his toe on the ground and resting his heel with easy grace against his left
shin, puffed out his aldermanic stomach, opened his lips, leaned his right elbow
on Inspector Lizard's shoulder, and—

But the shoulder was indignantly withdrawn and the hard-handed son of toil
went to earth. He floundered a bit but came up smiling, arranged his attitude
with the same careful detail as before, only choosing Professor Dogtick's shoulder
for a support, opened his lips and—

Went to earth again. He presently scrambled up once more, still smiling, made
a loose effort to brush the dust off his coat and legs, but a smart pass of his hand
missed entirely and the force of the unchecked impulse slewed him suddenly
around, twisted his legs together, and projected him, limber and sprawling, into the
lap of the Lord Longlegs. Two or three scholars sprang forward, flung the
low creature head over heels into a corner and reinstated the patrician, smoothing
his ruffled dignity with many soothing and regretful speeches. Professor Bull Frog
roared out:

“No more of this, sirrah Tumble-Bug! Say your say and then get you about
your business with speed!—Quick—what is your errand? Come—move off a
trifle; you smell like a stable; what have you been at?”

“Please ('ic!) please your worship I chanced to light upon a find. But no
m (e-uck!) matter 'bout that. There's b ('ic!) been another find which— —beg
pardon, your honors, what was that th ('ic!) thing that ripped by here first?”

“It was the Vernal Equinox.”

“Inf ('ic!) fernal equinox. 'At's all right.—D ('ic!) Dunno him. What's other
one?”

“The transit of Venus.”

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 133. Image of the forest animals dancing and frolicking after drinking the contents of a jug of alcohol, which the rat is dancing on in the center of the image.[end figure description]

“G ('ic!) Got me again. No matter. Las' one dropped something.”

“Ah, indeed! Good luck! Good news! Quick—what is it?”

“M ('ic!) Mosey out `n' see. It'll pay.”

No more votes were taken for four and twenty hours. Then the following entry
was made: “The commission
went in a body to view the
find. It was found to consist
of a hard, smooth, huge object with
a rounded summit surmounted
by a short upright projection resembling
a section of a cabbage
stalk divided transversely—
This projection was not
solid, but was a hollow cylinder
plugged with a soft woody substance
unknown to our region—
that is, it had been so plugged,
but unfortunately this obstruction
had been heedlessly removed by
Norway Rat, Chief of the Sappers
and Miners, before our arrival.
The vast object before us, so
mysteriously conveyed from the glittering domains of space, was found to be hollow
and nearly filled with a pungent liquid of a brownish hue, like rain-water that has
stood for some time. And such a spectacle as met our view! Norway Rat was
perched upon the summit engaged in thrusting his tail into the cylindrical projection,
drawing it out dripping, permitting the struggling multitude of laborers to
suck the end of it, then straightway reinserting it and delivering the fluid to the
mob as before. Evidently this liquor had strangely potent qualities; for all that
partook of it were immediately exalted with great and pleasurable emotions, and
went staggering about singing ribald songs, embracing, fighting, dancing, discharging
irruptions of profanity, and defying all authority. Around us struggled a massed

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

and uncontrolled mob—uncontrolled and likewise uncontrollable, for the whole
army, down to the very sentinels, were mad like the rest, by reason of the drink.
We were seized upon by these reckless creatures, and within the hour we, even we,
were undistinguishable from the rest—the demoralization was complete and
universal. In time the camp wore itself out with its orgies and sank into a stolid
and pitiable stupor, in whose mysterious bonds rank was forgotten and strange
bed-fellows made, our eyes, at the resurrection, being blasted and our souls petrified
with the incredible spectacle of that intolerable stinking scavenger, the Tumble-Bug,
and the illustrious patrician my lord Grand Daddy, Duke of Longlegs, lying
soundly steeped in sleep, and clasped lovingly in each other's arms, the like
whereof hath not been seen in all the ages that tradition compasseth, and doubtless
none shall ever in this world find faith to master the belief of it save only we that
have beheld the damnable and unholy vision. Thus inscrutable be the ways of
God, whose will be done!

“This day, by order, did the Engineer-in-Chief, Herr Spider, rig the necessary
tackle for the overturning of the vast reservoir, and so its calamitous contents were
discharged in a torrent upon the thirsty earth, which drank it up and now there is
no more danger, we reserving but a few drops for experiment and scrutiny, and to
exhibit to the king and subsequently preserve among the wonders of the museum.
What this liquid is, has been determined. It is without question that fierce and
most destructive fluid called lightning. It was wrested, in its container, from its
store-house in the clouds, by the resistless might of the flying planet, and hurled at
our feet as she sped by. An interesting discovery here results. Which is, that
lightning, kept to itself, is quiescent; it is the assaulting contact of the thunderbolt
that releases it from captivity, ignites its awful fires and so produces an instantaneous
combustion and explosion which spread disaster and desolation far and wide in
the earth.”

After another day devoted to rest and recovery, the expedition proceeded upon
its way. Some days later it went into camp in a pleasant part of the plain, and the
savants sallied forth to see what they might find. Their reward was at hand.
Professor Bull Frog discovered a strange tree, and called his comrades. They
inspected it with profound interest.—It was very tall and straight, and wholly

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 135. Image of a row of communication poles with a kite trapped in the wires and Herr Spider stringing web throughout.[end figure description]

devoid of bark, limbs or foliage. By triangulation Lord Longlegs determined its
altitude; Herr Spider measured its circumference at the base and computed the
circumference at its top by a mathematical demonstration based upon the warrant
furnished by the uniform degree of its taper upward. It was considered a very
extraordinary find; and since it was a tree of a hitherto unknown species, Professor
Woodlouse gave it a name of a learned sound, being none other than that of Professor
Bull Frog translated into the ancient Mastodon language, for it had always
been the custom with discoverers
to perpetuate their names
and honor themselves by this
sort of connection with their
discoveries. Now, Professor
Field-Mouse having placed
his sensitive ear to the tree, detected
a rich, harmonious
sound issuing from it. This
surprising thing was tested and
enjoyed by each scholar in turn
and great was the gladness
and astonishment of all. Professor
Woodlouse was requested
to add to and extend
the tree's name so as to make
it suggest the musical quality
it possessed— which he did,
furnishing the addition Anthem Singer, done into the Mastodon tongue.

By this time Professor Snail was making some telescopic inspections. He discovered
a great number of these trees, extending in a single rank, with wide intervals
between, as far as his instrument would carry, both southward and northward.
He also presently discovered that all these trees were bound together, near their
tops, by fourteen great ropes, one above another, which ropes were continuous,
from tree to tree, as far as his vision could reach. This was surprising. Chief

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

Engineer Spider ran aloft and soon reported that these ropes were simply a web
hung there by some colossal member of his own species, for he could see its prey
dangling here and there from the strands, in the shape of mighty shreds and rags
that had a woven look about their texture and were no doubt the discarded skins
of prodigious insects which had been caught and eaten. And then he ran along
one of the ropes to make a closer inspection, but felt a smart sudden burn on the
soles of his feet, accompanied by a paralyzing shock, wherefore he let go and swung
himself to the earth by a thread of his own spinning, and advised all to hurry at
once to camp, lest the monster should appear and get as much interested in the
savants as they were in him and his works. So they departed with speed, making
notes about the gigantic web as they went. And that evening the naturalist of the
expedition built a beautiful model of the colossal spider, having no need to see it
in order to do this, because he had picked up a fragment of its vertebræ by the
tree, and so knew exactly what the creature looked like and what its habits and its
preferences were, by this simple evidence alone. He built it with a tail, teeth,
fourteen legs and a snout, and said it ate grass, cattle, pebbles and dirt with equal
enthusiasm. This animal was regarded as a very precious addition to science. It
was hoped a dead one might be found, to stuff. Professor Woodlouse thought that
he and his brother scholars, by lying hid and being quiet, might maybe catch a live
one. He was advised to try it. Which was all the attention that was paid to his
suggestion. The conference ended with the naming the monster after the naturalist,
since he, after God, had created it.

“And improved it, mayhap,” muttered the Tumble-Bug, who was intruding
again, according to his idle custom and his unappeasable curiosity.

p503-136

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

HOW THE ANIMALS OF THE WOOD COMPLETED THEIR SCIENTIFIC LABORS.

A week later the expedition camped in the midst of a collection of wonderful
curiosities. These were a sort of vast caverns of stone that rose singly and in
bunches out of the plain by the side of the river which they had first seen when
they emerged from the forest. These caverns stood in long straight rows on
opposite sides of broad aisles that were bordered with single ranks of trees. The
summit of each cavern sloped sharply both ways. Several horizontal rows of great
square holes, obstructed by a thin, shiny, transparent substance, pierced the frontage
of each cavern. Inside were caverns within caverns; and one might ascend and
visit these minor compartments by means of curious winding ways consisting of
continuous regular terraces raised one above another. There were many huge
shapeless objects in each compartment which were considered to have been living
creatures at one time, though now the thin brown skin was shrunken and loose,
and rattled when disturbed. Spiders were here in great number, and their cobwebs,
stretched in all directions and wreathing the great skinny dead together,
were a pleasant spectacle, since they inspired with life and wholesome cheer a
scene which would otherwise have brought to the mind only a sense of forsakenness
and desolation. Information was sought of these spiders, but in vain. They were
of a different nationality from those with the expedition and their language seemed
but a musical, meaningless jargon. They were a timid, gentle race, but ignorant,
and heathenish worshipers of unknown gods. The expedition detailed a great
detachment of missionaries to teach them the true religion, and in a week's time a
precious work had been wrought among those darkened creatures, not three families
being by that time at peace with each other or having a settled belief in any system
of religion whatever. This encouraged the expedition to establish a colony of
missionaries there permanently, that the work of grace might go on.

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

But let us not outrun our narrative. After close examination of the fronts of
the caverns, and much thinking and exchanging of theories, the scientists determined
the nature of these singular formations. They said that each belonged
mainly to the Old Red Sandstone period; that the cavern fronts rose in innumerable
and wonderfully regular strata high in the air, each stratum about five frog-spans
thick, and that in the present discovery lay an overpowering refutation of all
received geology: for between every two layers of Old Red Sandstone reposed a
thin layer of decomposed limestone; so instead of there having been but one Old
Red Sandstone period there had certainly been not less than a hundred and seventy-five!
And by the same token it was plain that there had also been a hundred
and seventy-five floodings of the earth and depositings of limestone strata! The
unavoidable deduction from which pair of facts, was, the overwhelming truth that
the world, instead of being only two hundred thousand years old, was older by
millions upon millions of years! And there was another curious thing: every
stratum of Old Red Sandstone was pierced and divided at mathematically regular
intervals by vertical strata of limestone. Up-shootings of igneous rock through
fractures in water formations were common; but here was the first instance where
water-formed rock had been so projected. It was a great and noble discovery and
its value to science was considered to be inestimable.

A critical examination of some of the lower strata demonstrated the presence of
fossil ants and tumble-bugs (the latter accompanied by their peculiar goods), and
with high gratification the fact was enrolled upon the scientific record; for this
was proof that these vulgar laborers belonged to the first and lowest orders of
created beings, though at the same time there was something repulsive in the
reflection that the perfect and exquisite creature of the modern uppermost order
owed its origin to such ignominious beings through the mysterious law of Development
of Species.

The Tumble-Bug, overhearing this discussion, said he was willing that the parvenus
of these new times should find what comfort they might in their wise-drawn
theories, since as far as he was concerned he was content to be of the old first
families and proud to point back to his place among the old original aristocracy of
the land.

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 139. Image of the main street of a town, with the forest insects poised outside of the American hotel with easels and paints, sketching the facade.[end figure description]

“Enjoy your mushroom dignity, stinking of the varnish of yesterday's veneering,
since you like it,” said he; “suffice it for the Tumble-Bugs that they come of a
race that rolled their fragrant spheres down the solemn aisles of antiquity, and left
their imperishable works embalmed in the Old Red Sandstone to proclaim it to the
wasting centuries as they file
along the highway of Time!”

“O, take a walk!” said the
chief of the expedition, with
derision.

The summer
passed, and winter approached.
In and about many of the caverns
were what seemed to be
inscriptions. Most of the
scientists said they were ininscriptions,
a few said they
were not. The chief philologist,
Professor Woodlouse, maintained
that they were writings,
done in a character utterly unknown
to scholars, and in a
language equally unknown.
He had early ordered his
artists and draughtsmen to make fac-similes of all that were discovered; and had set
himself about finding the key to the hidden tongue. In this work he had followed
the method which had always been used by decipherers previously. That is to say,
he placed a number of copies of inscriptions before him and studied them both collectively
and in detail. To begin with, he placed the following copies together:

The American Hotel.

The Shades.

Boats for Hire Cheap.

Billiards.

The A 1 Barber Shop.

Meals at all Hours.

No Smoking.

Union Prayer Meeting, 4 P. M.

The Waterside Journal.

Telegraph Office.

[figure description] Page 140. Image of a collage of street signs.[end figure description]

Keep off the Grass.

Try Brandreth's Pills.

Cottages for Rent during the Watering Season.

For Sale Cheap.

For Sale Cheap.

For Sale Cheap.

For Sale Cheap.

At first it seemed to the Professor that this was a sign-language, and that each
word was represented by a distinct sign; further examination convinced him that it
was a written language, and that every letter of its alphabet was represented by a
character of its own; and finally, he decided that it was a language which conveyed
itself partly by letters, and partly by signs or hieroglyphics. This conclusion was
forced upon him by the discovery of several specimens of the following nature:

He observed that certain inscriptions were met with in greater frequency than
others. Such as “For Sale Cheap;” “Billiards;” “S. T.—1860—X;” “Keno;”
“Ale on Draught.” Naturally, then, these must be religious maxims. But this
idea was cast aside, by and by, as the mystery of the strange alphabet began to
clear itself. In time, the Professor was enabled to translate several of the inscriptions
with considerable plausibility, though not to the perfect satisfaction of all the
scholars. Still, he made constant and encouraging progress.

Finally a cavern was discovered with these inscriptions upon it:

WATERSIDE MUSEUM.

Open at all Hours. Admission 50 cents.

Wonderful Collection of Wax-Works, Ancient Fossils, etc.

Professor Woodlouse affirmed that the word “Museum” was equivalent to the

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

phrase “lumgath molo,” or “Burial-Place.” Upon entering, the scientists were
well astonished. But what they saw may be best conveyed in the language of their
own official report:

“Erect, and in a row, were a sort of rigid great figures which struck us instantly
as belonging to the long extinct species of reptile called Man, described in our
ancient records. This was a peculiarly gratifying discovery, because of late times
it has become fashionable to regard this creature as a myth and a superstition, a
work of the inventive imaginations of our remote ancestors. But here, indeed, was
Man, perfectly preserved, in a fossil state. And this was his burial place, as
already ascertained by the inscription. And now it began to be suspected that the
caverns we had been inspecting had been his ancient haunts in that old time that
he roamed the earth—for upon the breast of each of these tall fossils was an
inscription in the character heretofore noticed. One read, `Captain Kidd, the
Pirate;' another `Queen Victoria;' another, `Abe Lincoln;' another, `George
Washington,' etc.

“With feverish interest we called for our ancient scientific records to discover if
perchance the description of Man there set down would tally with the fossils before
us. Professor Woodlouse read it aloud in its quaint and musty phraseology, to
wit:

“`In ye time of our fathers Man still walked ye earth, as by tradition we know.
It was a creature of exceeding great size, being compassed about with a loose skin,
sometimes of one color, sometimes of many, the which it was able to cast at will;
which being done, the hind legs were discovered to be armed with short claws like
to a mole's but broader, and ye fore-legs with fingers of a curious slimness and a
length much more prodigious than a frog's, armed also with broad talons for
scratching in ye earth for its food. It had a sort of feathers upon its head such as
hath a rat, but longer, and a beak suitable for seeking its food by ye smell thereof.
When it was stirred with happiness, it leaked water from its eyes; and when it suffered
or was sad, it manifested it with a horrible hellish cackling clamor that was
exceeding dreadful to hear and made one long that it might rend itself and perish,
and so end its troubles. Two Mans being together, they uttered noises at each
other like to this: `Haw-haw-haw—dam good, dam good,' together with other

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 142. Image of the forest animals examining notable humans in a wax museum. They are gathered around Captain Kidd and George Washington.[end figure description]

sounds of more or less likeness to these, wherefore ye poets conceived that they
talked, but poets be always ready to catch at any frantic folly, God he knows.
Sometimes this creature goeth about with a long stick ye which it putteth to its
face and bloweth fire and smoke through ye same with a sudden and most damnable
bruit and noise that doth fright its prey to death, and so seizeth it in its talons
and walketh away to its habitat, consumed with a most fierce and devilish joy.'

“Now was the description set forth by our ancestors wonderfully endorsed
and confirmed by the fossils
before us, as shall be seen.
The specimen marked `Captain
Kidd' was examined in detail.
Upon its head and part
of its face was a sort of fur like
that upon the tail of a horse.
With great labor its loose skin
was removed, whereupon its
body was discovered to be of
a polished white texture, thoroughly
petrified. The straw it had
eaten, so many ages gone by,
was still in its body, undigested—
and even in its legs.

“Surrounding these fossils
were objects that would
mean nothing to the ignorant,
but to the eye of science they
were a revelation. They laid bare the secrets of dead ages. These musty Memorials
told us when Man lived, and what were his habits. For here, side by side
with Man, were the evidences that he had lived in the earliest ages of creation,
the companion of the other low orders of life that belonged to that forgotten
time.—Here was the fossil nautilus that sailed the primeval seas; here was the
skeleton of the mustodon, the ichthyosaurus, the cave bear, the prodigious elk.

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

Here, also, were the charred bones of some of these extinct animals and of the
young of Man's own species, split lengthwise, showing that to his taste the marrow
was a toothsome luxury. It was plain that Man had robbed those bones of their
contents, since no tooth-mark of any beast was upon them—albeit the Tumble-Bug
intruded the remark that “no beast could mark a bone with its teeth, anyway.”
Here were proofs that Man had vague, groveling notions of art; for this fact
was conveyed by certain things marked with the untranslatable words, `Flint
Hatchets, Knives, Arrow-Heads, and Bone-Ornaments of Primeval Man.'
Some of these seemed to be rude weapons chipped out of flint, and in a secret
place was found some more in process of construction, with this untranslatable
legend, on a thin, flimsy material, lying by:

“Jones, if you don't want to be discharged from the Musseum, make the next primeaveal
weppons more careful—you couldn't even fool one of these sleapy old syentiffic
grannys from the Coledge with the last ones. And mind you the animles you carved on
some of the Bone Ornaments is a blame sight too good for any primeaveal man that
was ever fooled.—Varnum, Manager.”

“Back of the burial place was a mass of ashes, showing that Man always had a
feast at a funeral—else why the ashes in such a place? and showing, also, that he
believed in God and the immortality of the soul—else why these solemn ceremonies?

To sum up.—We believe that man had a written language. We know that he
indeed existed at one time, and is not a myth; also, that he was the companion of
the cave bear, the mastodon, and other extinct species; that he cooked and ate
them and likewise the young of his own kind; also, that he bore rude weapons, and
knew something of art; that he imagined he had a soul, and pleased himself with
the fancy that it was immortal. But let us not laugh; there may be creatures in
existence to whom we and our vanities and profundities may seem as ludicrous.”

p503-143

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 144. Image of the forest animals gathered at the base of a stone monument erected in honor of homes and cattle lost in a flood.[end figure description]

Near the margin of the great river the scientists presently found a huge, shapely
stone, with this inscription:

“In 1847, in the spring, the river overflowed its banks and covered the whole township.
The depth was from two to six feet. More than 900 head of cattle were lost,
and many homes destroyed. The Mayor ordered this memorial to be erected to perpetuate
the event. God spare us the repetition of it!”

With infinite trouble, Professor Woodlouse succeeded in making a translation of
this inscription, which was sent home and straightway an enormous excitement was
created about it. It confirmed, in a remarkable way, certain treasured traditions
of the ancients. The translation was slightly marred by one or two untranslatable

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

words, but these did not impair the general clearness of the meaning. It is here
presented:

“One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven years ago, the (fires?) descended and
consumed the whole city. Only some nine hundred souls were saved, all others destroyed.
The (king?) commanded this stone to be set up to..... (untranslable)..... prevent
the repetition of it.”

This was the first successful and satisfactory translation that had been made of
the mysterious character left behind him by extinct man, and it gave Professor
Woodlouse such reputation that at once every seat of learning in his native land
conferred a degree of the most illustrious grade upon him, and it was believed that
if he had been a soldier and had turned his splendid talents to the extermination
of a remote tribe of reptiles, the king would have ennobled him and made him rich.
And this, too, was the origin of that school of scientists called Manologists, whose
specialty is the deciphering of the ancient records of the extinct bird termed Man.
[For it is now decided that Man was a bird and not a reptile]. But Professor
Woodlouse began and remained chief of these, for it was granted that no translations
were ever so free from error as his. Others made mistakes—he seemed incapable
of it. Many a memorial of the lost race was afterward found, but none ever
attained to the renown and veneration achieved by the “Mayoritish Stone”—it
being so called from the word “Mayor” in it, which, being translated “King,”
“Mayoritish Stone” was but another way of saying “King Stone.”

Another time the expedition made a great “find.” It was a vast round flattish
mass, ten frog-spans in diameter and five or six high. Professor Snail put on his
spectacles and examined it all around, and then climbed up and inspected the top.
He said:

“The result of my perlustration and perscontation of this isoperimetrical protuberance
is a belief that it is one of those rare and wonderful creations left by the
Mound Builders. The fact that this one is lamellibranchiate in its formation,
simply adds to its interest as being possibly of a different kind from any we read
of in the records of science, but yet in no manner marring its authenticity. Let
the megalophonous grasshopper sound a blast and summon hither the perfunctory
and circumforaneous Tumble-Bug, to the end that excavations may be made and
learning gather new treasures.”

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

Not a Tumble-Bug could be found on duty, so the Mound was excavated by a
working party of Ants. Nothing was discovered. This would have been a great
disappointment, had not the venerable Longlegs explained the matter.—He said:

“It is now plain to me that the mysterious and forgotten race of Mound Builders
did not always erect these edifices as mausoleums, else in this case as in all previous
cases, their skeletons would be found here, along with the rude implements which
the creatures used in life. Is not this manifest?”

“True! true!” from everybody.

“Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here; a discovery which
greatly extends our knowledge of this creature in place of diminishing it; a discovery
which will add lustre to the achievements of this expedition and win for us the
commendations of scholars everywhere. For the absence of the customary relics
here means nothing less than this: The Mound Builder, instead of being the ignorant,
savage reptile we have been taught to consider him, was a creature of cultivation
and high intelligence, capable of not only appreciating worthy achievements
of the great and noble of his species, but of commemorating them! Fellowscholars,
this stately Mound is not a sepulchre, it is a monument!”

A profound impression was produced by this.

But it was interrupted by rude and derisive laughter—and the Tumble-Bug
appeared.

“A monument!” quoth he. “A monument set up by a Mound Builder! Aye,
so it is! So it is, indeed, to the shrewd keen eye of science; but to an ignorant
poor devil who has never seen a college, it is not a Monument, strictly speaking,
but is yet a most rich and noble property; and with your worships' good permission
I will proceed to manufacture it into spheres of exceeding grace and—”

The Tumble-Bug was driven away with stripes, and the draughtsmen of the
expedition were set to making views of the Monument from different standpoints,
while Professor Woodlouse, in a frenzy of scientific zeal, traveled all over it and all
around it hoping to find an inscription. But if there had ever been one it had
decayed or been removed by some vandal as a relic.

The views having been completed, it was now considered safe to load the
precious Monument itself upon the backs of four of the largest Tortoises and send

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 147. Image of the forest animals traveling down a road with mountains in the background.[end figure description]

it home to the King's museum, which was done; and when it arrived it was received
with enormous éclat and escorted to its future abiding-place by thousands of enthusiastic
citizens, King Bullfrog XVI. himself attending and condescending to sit
enthroned upon it throughout the progress.

The growing rigor of the weather was now admonishing the scientists to close
their labors for the present, so they made preparations to journey homeward. But
even their last day among the Caverns bore fruit; for one of the scholars found in
an out-of-the-way corner of
the Museum or “Burial-Place”
a most strange and extraordinary
thing. It was nothing less than
a double Man-Bird lashed together
breast to breast by a natural
ligament, and labelled
with the untranslatable words,
“Siamese Twins” The official report
concerning this thing closed
thus:

“Wherefore it
appears that there were in old
times two distinct species of
this majestic fowl, the one being
single and the other double.
Nature has a reason for all
things.—It is plain to the eye
of science that the Double-Man
originally inhabited a region where dangers abounded; hence he was paired
together to the end that while one part slept the other might watch; and likewise
that, danger being discovered, there might always be a double instead of a single
power to oppose it. All honor to the mystery-dispelling eye of godlike Science!”

And near the Double Man-Bird was found what was plainly an ancient record of
his, marked upon numberless sheets of a thin white substance and bound together.
Almost the first glance that Professor Woodlouse threw into it revealed this

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

following sentence, which he instantly translated and laid before the scientists, in
a tremble, and it uplifted every soul there with exultation and astonishment:

“In truth it is believed by many that the lower animals reason and talk together.”

When the great official report of the expedition appeared, the above sentence
bore this comment:

“Then there are lower animals than Man! This remarkable passage can mean
nothing else. Man himself is extinct, but they may still exist. What can they be?
Where do they inhabit? One's enthusiasm bursts all bounds in the contemplation
of the brilliant field of discovery and investigation here thrown open to science.
We close our labors with the humble prayer that your Majesty will immediately
appoint a commission and command it to rest not nor spare expense until the search
for this hitherto unsuspected race of the creatures of God shall be crowned with
success.”

The expedition then journeyed homeward after its long absence and its faithful
endeavors, and was received with a mighty ovation by the whole grateful country.

There were vulgar, ignorant carpers, of course, as there always are and always
will be; and naturally one of these was the obscene Tumble-Bug. He said that all
he had learned by his travels was that science only needed a spoonful of supposition
to build a mountain of demonstrated fact out of; and that for the future he
meant to be content with the knowledge that nature had made free to all creatures
and not go prying into the august secrets of the Deity.

p503-148 MY LATE SENATORIAL SECRETARYSHIP.

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

I AM not a private secretary to a senator any more, now. I held the berth
two months in security and in great cheerfulness of spirit, but my bread
began to return from over the waters, then—that is to say, my works came
back and revealed themselves. I judged it best to resign. The way of it was
this. My employer sent for me one morning tolerably early, and, as soon as I
had finished inserting some conundrums clandestinely into his last great speech
upon finance, I entered the presence. There was something portentous in his
appearance. His cravat was untied, his hair was in a state of disorder, and his
countenance bore about it the signs of a suppressed storm. He held a package
of letters in his tense grasp, and I knew that the dreaded Pacific mail was in.
He said—

“I thought you were worthy of confidence.”

I said, “Yes, sir.”

He said, “I gave you a letter from certain of my constituents in the State of
Nevada, asking the establishment of a post-office at Baldwin's Ranch, and told
you to answer it, as ingeniously as you could, with arguments which should
persuade them that there was no real necessity for an office at that place.”

I felt easier. “Oh, if that is all, sir, I did do that.”

“Yes, you did. I will read your answer, for your own humiliation:

“Washington, Nov. 24.
“`Messrs. Smith, Jones, and others.

“`Gentlemen: What the mischief do you suppose you want with a post-office at Baldwin's
Ranche? It would not do you any good. If any letters came there, you couldn't read them, you
know; and, besides, such letters as ought to pass through, with money in them, for other localities,
would not be likely to get through, you must perceive at once; and that would make trouble for us
all. No, don't bother about a post-office in your camp. I have your best interests at heart, and
feel that it would only be an ornamental folly. What you want is a nice jail, you know—a nice, substantial
jail and a free school. These will be a lasting benefit to you. These will make you really
contented and happy. I will move in the matter at once.

“That is the way you answered that letter. Those people say they will hang me,

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

if I ever enter that district again; and I am perfectly satisfied they will, too.”

“Well, sir, I did not know I was doing any harm. I only wanted to
convince them.”

“Ah. Well you did convince them, I make no manner of doubt. Now, here
is another specimen. I gave you a petition from certain gentlemen of Nevada,
praying that I would get a bill through Congress incorporating the Methodist
Episcopal Church of the State of Nevada. I told you to say, in reply, that the
creation of such a law came more properly within the province of the State
Legislature; and to endeavor to show them that, in the present feebleness of the
religious element in that new commonwealth, the expediency of incorporating
the church was questionable. What did you write?

“`Washington, Nov. 24.
“`Rev. John Halifax and others.

“`Gentlemen: You will have to go to the State Legislature about that speculation of yours—
Congress don't know anything about religion. But don't you hurry to go there, either; because this
thing you propose to do out in that new country isn't expedient—in fact, it is ridiculous. Your
religious people there are too feeble, in intellect, in morality, in piety—in everything, pretty much.
You had better drop this—you can't make it work. You can't issue stock on an incorporation like
that—or if you could, it would only keep you in trouble all the time. The other denominations
would abuse it, and “bear” it, and “sell it short,” and break it down. They would do with it just
as they would with one of your silver mines out there—they would try to make all the world believe
it was “wildcat.” You ought not to do anything that is calculated to bring a sacred thing into
disrepute. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves—that is what I think about it. You close your
petition with the words: “And we will ever pray.” I think you had better—you need to do it.

“That luminous epistle finishes me with the religious element among my
constituents. But that my political murder might be made sure, some evil
instinct prompted me to hand you this memorial from the grave company of
elders composing the Board of Aldermen of the city of San Francisco, to try
your hand upon—a memorial praying that the city's right to the water-lots upon
the city front might be established by law of Congress. I told you this was a
dangerous matter to move in. I told you to write a non-committal letter to the
Aldermen—an ambiguous letter—a letter that should avoid, as far as possible,
all real consideration and discussion of the water-lot question. If there is any
feeling left in you—any shame—surely this letter you wrote, in obedience to
that order, ought to evoke it, when its words fall upon your ears:

“`Washington, Nov. 27.
“`The Hon. Board of Aldermen, etc.

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

“`Gentlemen: George Washington, the revered Father of his Country is dead. His long and
brilliant career is closed, alas! forever. He was greatly respected in this section of the country,
and his untimely decease cast a gloom over the whole community. He died on the 14th day of
December, 1799. He passed peacefully away from the scene of his honors and his great achievements,
the most lamented hero and the best beloved that ever earth hath yielded unto Death. At
such a time as this, you speak of water-lots!—what a lot was his!

“`What is fame! Fame is an accident. Sir Isaac Newton discovered an apple falling to the
ground—a trivial discovery, truly, and one which a million men had made before him—but his
parents were influential, and so they tortured that small circumstance into something wonderful,
and, lo! the simple world took up the shout and, in almost the twinkling of an eye, that man was
famous. Treasure these thoughts.

“`Poesy, sweet poesy, who shall estimate what the world owes to thee!

For simplicity, elegance of diction, and freedom from immoral tendencies, I regard those two
poems in the light of gems. They are suited to all grades of intelligence, to every sphere of life—
to the field, to the nursery, to the guild. Especially should no Board of Aldermen be without them.

“`Venerable fossils! write again. Nothing improves one so much as friendly correspondence.
Write again—and if there is anything in this memorial of yours that refers to anything in particular,
do not be backward about explaining it. We shall always be happy to hear you chirp.

“That is an atrocious, a ruinous epistle! Distraction!”

“Well, sir, I am really sorry if there is anything wrong about it—but—but it
appears to me to dodge the water-lot question.”

“Dodge the mischief! Oh!—but never mind. As long as destruction must
come now, let it be complete. Let it be complete—let this last of your performances,
which I am about to read, make a finality of it. I am a ruined man.
I had my misgivings when I gave you the the letter from Humboldt, asking
that the post route from Indian Gulch to Shakespeare Gap and intermediate
points, be changed partly to the old Mormon trail. But I told you it was a
delicate question, and warned you to deal with it deftly—to answer it dubiously,
and leave them a little in the dark. And your fatal imbecility impelled you to

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

make this disastrous reply. I should think you would stop your ears, if you are
not dead to all shame:

“`Washington, Nov. 30.
“`Messrs. Perkins, Wagner, et al.

“`Gentlemen: It is a delicate question about this Indian trail, but, handled with proper deftness
and dubiousness, I doubt not we shall succeed in some measure or otherwise, because the
place where the route leaves the Lassen Meadows, over beyond where those two Shawnee chiefs,
Dilapidated-Vengeance and Biter-of-the-Clouds, were scalped last winter, this being the favorite
direction to some, but others preferring something else in consequence of things, the Mormon
trail leaving Mosby's at three in the morning, and passing through Jawbone Flat to Blucher, and
then down by Jug-Handle, the road passing to the right of it, and naturally leaving it on the right,
too, and Dawson's on the left of the trail where it passes to the left of said Dawson's and onward
thence to Tomahawk, thus making the route cheaper, easier of access to all who can get at it, and
compassing all the desirable objects so considered by others, and, therefore, conferring the most
good upon the greatest number, and, consequently, I am encouraged to hope we shall. However,
I shall be ready, and happy, to afford you still further information upon the subject, from time to
time, as you may desire it and the Post-office Department be enabled to furnish it to me.

“There—now what do you think of that?”

“Well, I don't know, sir. It—well, it appears to me—to be dubious enough.”

“Du—leave the house! I am a ruined man. Those Humboldt savages never
will forgive me for tangling their brains up with this inhuman letter. I have
lost the respect of the Methodist Church, the Board of Aldermen—”

“Well, I haven't anything to say about that, because I may have missed it a
little in their cases, but I was too many for the Baldwin's Ranch people,
General!”

“Leave the house! Leave it for ever and for ever, too!”

I regarded that as a sort of covert intimation that my service could be dispensed
with, and so I resigned. I never will be a private secretary to a senator
again. You can't please that kind of people. They don't know anything.
They can't appreciate a party's efforts.

p503-152 A Fashion Item.

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 153. In-line image opening image for the story "A Fashion Item." The image stretches vertically down the left side of the page and depicts Twain in the background examining the outfit of a well-dressed woman. The woman is wearing a ruffled satin dress with a long train.[end figure description]

AT General G—'s reception the other
night, the most fashionably dressed lady
was Mrs. G. C. She wore a pink satin
dress, plain in front but with a good deal of rake to
it—to the train, I mean; it was said to be two
or three yards long. One could see it creeping
along the floor some little time after the woman
was gone. Mrs. C. wore also a white bodice, cut
bias, with Pompadour sleeves, flounced with
ruches; low neck, with the inside handkerchief
not visible, with white kid gloves. She had on
a pearl necklace, which glinted lonely, high up
the midst of that barren waste of neck and
shoulders. Her hair was frizzled into a tangled
chapparel, forward of her ears, aft it was drawn
together, and compactly bound and plaited into
a stump like a pony's tail, and furthermore was
canted upward at a sharp angle, and ingeniously
supported by a red velvet crupper, whose forward
extremity was made fast with a half-hitch around
a hairpin on the top of her head. Her whole
top hamper was neat and becoming. She had a
beautiful complexion when she first came, but it
faded out by degrees in an unaccountable way.
However, it is not lost for good. I found the
most of it on my shoulder afterwards. (I stood
near the door when she squeezed out with the
throng.) There were other ladies present, but I only took notes of one as a specimen.
I would gladly enlarge upon the subject were I able to do it justice.

p503-153 RILEY—NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT.

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 154. Two opening images for the story "Riley--Newspaper Correspondent." The top image depicts a giant ice-floe with assorted people, including women and children, milling around on top. A few of the men are putting a flagpole, flying the jolly roger, into the ice, while another man sits on the edge and fishes. The lower image is of a graveyard with a headstone.[end figure description]

ONE of the best men in Washington—
or elsewhere — is
Riley, correspondent of one
of the great San Francisco dailies.

Riley is full of humor, and has
an unfailing vein of irony, which
makes his conversation to the last
degree entertaining (as long as the
remarks are about somebody else).
But, notwithstanding the possession
of these qualities, which should enable
a man to write a happy and an
appetizing letter, Riley's newspaper
letters often display a more than earthly solemnity, and likewise an unimaginative
devotion to petrified facts, which surprise and distress all men who

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

know him in his unofficial character. He explains this curious thing by saying that
his employers sent him to Washington to write facts, not fancy, and that several
times he has come near losing his situation by inserting humorous remarks which,
not being looked for at headquarters, and consequently not understood, were
thought to be dark and bloody speeches intended to convey signals and warnings
to murderous secret societies, or something of that kind, and so were scratched out
with a shiver and a prayer and cast into the stove. Riley says that sometimes he is
so afflicted with a yearning to write a sparkling and absorbingly readable letter
that he simply cannot resist it, and so he goes to his den and revels in the delight
of untramelled scribbling; and then, with suffering such as only a mother can know,
he destroys the pretty children of his fancy and reduces his letter to the required
dismal accuracy. Having seen Riley do this very thing more than once, I know
whereof I speak. Often I have laughed with him over a happy passage, and grieved
to see him plough his pen through it. He would say, “I had to write that or die;
and I've got to scratch it out or starve. They wouldn't stand it, you know.”

I think Riley is about the most entertaining company I ever saw. We lodged
together in many places in Washington during the winter of '67-8, moving comfortably
from place to place, and attracting attention by paying our board—a course
which cannot fail to make a person conspicuous in Washington. Riley would tell
all about his trip to California in the early days, by way of the Isthmus and the
San Juan river; and about his baking bread in San Francisco to gain a living, and
setting up ten-pins, and practising law, and opening oysters, and delivering lectures,
and teaching French, and tending bar, and reporting for the newspapers, and
keeping dancing-schools, and interpreting Chinese in the courts—which latter was
lucrative, and Riley was doing handsomely and laying up a little money when
people began to find fault because his translations were too “free,” a thing for
which Riley considered he ought not to be held responsible, since he did not know
a word of the Chinese tongue, and only adopted interpreting as means of gaining
an honest livelihood. Through the machinations of enemies he was removed
from the position of official interpreter, and a man put in his place who was familiar
with the Chinese language, but did not know any English. And Riley used to tell
about publishing a newspaper up in what is Alaska now, but was only an iceberg

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

then, with a population composed of bears, walruses, Indians, and other animals;
and how the iceberg got adrift at last, and left all his paying subscribers behind,
and as soon as the commonwealth floated out of the jurisdiction of Russia the
people rose and threw off their allegiance and ran up the English flag, calculating
to hook on and become an English colony as they drifted along down the British
Possessions; but a land breeze and a crooked current carried them by, and they
ran up the Stars and Stripes and steered for California, missed the connection
again and swore allegiance to Mexico, but it wasn't any use; the anchors came
home every time, and away they went with the north-east trades drifting off
side-ways toward the Sandwich Islands, whereupon they ran up the Cannibal flag
and had a grand human barbecue in honor of it, in which it was noticed that the
better a man liked a friend the better he enjoyed him; and as soon as they got fairly
within the tropics the weather got so fearfully hot that the iceberg began to melt,
and it got so sloppy under foot that it was almost impossible for ladies to get about
at all; and at last, just as they came in sight of the islands, the melancholy remnant
of the once majestic iceberg canted first to one side and then to the other, and
then plunged under for ever, carrying the national archives along with it—and not
only the archives and the populace, but some eligible town lots which had increased
in value as fast as they diminished in size in the tropics, and which Riley could
have sold at thirty cents a pound and made himself rich if he could have kept the
province afloat ten hours longer and got her into port.

Riley is very methodical, untiringly accommodating, never forgets anything that
is to be attended to, is a good son, a staunch friend, and a permanent reliable
enemy. He will put himself to any amount of trouble to oblige a body, and therefore
always has his hands full of things to be done for the helpless and the shiftless.
And he knows how to do nearly everything, too. He is a man whose native benevolence
is a well-spring that never goes dry. He stands always ready to help
whoever needs help, as far as he is able—and not simply with his money, for that
is a cheap and common charity, but with hand and brain, and fatigue of limb and
sacrifice of time. This sort of men is rare.

Riley has a ready wit, a quickness and aptness at selecting and applying quotations,
and a countenance that is as solemn and as blank as the back side of a

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

tombstone when he is delivering a particularly exasperating joke. One night a
negro woman was burned to death in a house next door to us, and Riley said that
our landlady would be oppressively emotional at breakfast, because she generally
made use of such opportunities as offered, being of a morbidly sentimental turn,
and so we should find it best to let her talk along and say nothing back—it was the
only way to keep her tears out of the gravy. Riley said there never was a funeral
in the neighborhood but that the gravy was watery for a week.

And, sure enough, at breakfast the landlady was down in the very sloughs of woe—
entirely broken-hearted. Everything she looked at reminded her of that poor
old negro woman, and so the buckwheat cakes made her sob, the coffee forced a
groan, and when the beefsteak came on she fetched a wail that made our hair rise.
Then she got to talking about deceased, and kept up a steady drizzle till both of
us were soaked through and through. Presently she took a fresh breath and said,
with a world of sobs—

“Ah, to think of it, only to think of it!—the poor old faithful creature. For she
was so faithful. Would you believe it, she had been a servant in that self-same
house and that self-same family for twenty-seven years come Christmas, and never
a cross word and never a lick! And, oh, to think she should meet such a death at
last!—a-sitting over the red-hot stove at three o'clock in the morning and went to
sleep and fell on it and was actually roasted! Not just frizzled up a bit, but
literally roasted to a crisp! Poor faithful creature, how she was cooked! I am but
a poor woman, but even if I have to scrimp to do it, I will put up a tombstone over
that lone sufferer's grave—and Mr. Riley if you would have the goodness to think
up a little epitaph to put on it which would sort of describe the awful way in which
she met her”—

“Put it, `Well done, good and faithful servant,”' said Riley, and never smiled.

p503-157 A FINE OLD MAN.

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 158. In-line image; opening image for the story "A Fine Old Man." The image depicts John Wagner, the oldest man in Buffalo, standing tall in a dark suit and stove-pipe hat, smiling towards the front of the image. He is leaning on the head of a cane with both hands.[end figure description]

JOHN WAGNER, the oldest man
in Buffalo—one hundred and four
years old—recently walked a mile
and a half in two weeks.

He is as cheerful and bright as any of
these other old men that charge around
so persistently and tiresomely in the
newspapers, and in every way as remarkable.

Last November he walked five blocks
in a rain-storm, without any shelter but
an umbrella, and cast his vote for Grant,
remarking that he had voted for forty-seven
presidents—which was a lie.

His “second crop” of rich brown hair
arrived from New York yesterday, and
he has a new set of teeth coming—from
Philadelphia.

He is to be married next week to a
girl one hundred and two years old, who
still takes in washing.

They have been engaged eighty years,
but their parents persistently refused
their consent until three days ago.

John Wagner is two years older than
the Rhode Island veteran, and yet has
never tasted a drop of liquor in his life—
unless—unless you count whisky.

p503-158 Science vs. Luck.

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 159. In-line image; opening image for the story "Science vs. Luck." The image depicts a hand holding five cards with a deck of cards on the right.[end figure description]

AT that time, in Kentucky (said the Hon. Mr. K—), the law was
very strict against what is termed “games of chance.” About a
dozen of the boys were detected playing “seven-up” or “old sledge”
for money, and the grand jury found a true bill against them. Jim
Sturgis was retained to defend them when the case came up, of course. The more
he studied over the matter, and looked into the evidence, the plainer it was that he
must lose a case at last—there was no getting around that painful fact. Those
boys had certainly been betting money on a game of chance. Even public sympathy
was roused in behalf of Sturgis. People said it was a pity to see him mar his
successful career with a big prominent case like this, which must go against him.

But after several restless nights an inspired idea flashed upon Sturgis, and he
sprang out of bed delighted. He thought he saw his way through. The next day
he whispered around a little among his clients and a few friends, and then when
the case came up in court he acknowledged the seven-up and the betting, and, as
his sole defence, had the astounding effrontery to put in the plea that old sledge
was not a game of chance! There was the broadest sort of a smile all over the
faces of that sophisticated audience. The judge smiled with the rest. But Sturgis
maintained a countenance whose earnestness was even severe. The opposite
counsel tried to ridicule him out of his position, and did not succeed. The judge
jested in a ponderous judicial way about the thing, but did not move him. The
matter was becoming grave. The judge lost a little of his patience, and said the
joke had gone far enough. Jim Sturgis said he knew of no joke in the matter—his

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

clients could not be punished for indulging in what some people chose to consider.
a game of chance until it was proven that it was a game of chance. Judge and
counsel said that would be an easy matter, and forthwith called Deacons Job,
Peters, Burke, and Johnson, and Dominies Wirt and Miggles, to testify; and they
unanimously and with strong feeling put down the legal quibble of Sturgis by pronouncing
that old sledge was a game of chance.

“What do you call it now?” said the judge.

“I call it a game of science!” retorted Sturgis; “and I'll prove it, too!”

They saw his little game.

He brought in a cloud of witnesses, and produced an overwhelming mass of
testimony, to show that old sledge was not a game of chance but a game of
science.

Instead of being the simplest case in the world, it had somehow turned out to be
an excessively knotty one. The judge scratched his head over it a while, and said
there was no way of coming to a determination, because just as many men could
be brought into court who would testify on one side as could be found to testify on
the other. But he said he was willing to do the fair thing by all parties, and
would act upon any suggestion Mr. Sturgis would make for the solution of the
difficulty.

Mr. Sturgis was on his feet in a second.

“Impanel a jury of six of each, Luck versus Science. Give them candles and a
couple of decks of cards. Send them into the jury room, and just abide by the
result!”

There was no disputing the fairness of the proposition. The four deacons and
the two dominies were sworn in as the “chance” jurymen, and six inveterate old
seven-up professors were chosen to represent the “science” side of the issue
They retired to the jury room.

In about two hours Deacon Peters sent into court to borrow three dollars from a
friend. [Sensation.] In about two hours more Dominie Miggles sent into court
to borrow a “stake” from a friend. [Sensation.] During the next three or four
hours the other dominie and the other deacons sent into court for small loans.
And still the packed audience waited, for it was a prodigious occasion in

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

Bull's Corners, and one in which every father of a family was necessarily
interested.

The rest of the story can be told briefly. About daylight the jury came in, and
Deacon Job, the foreman, read the following

VERDICT.

We, the jury in the case of the Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. John Wheeler et
al., have carefully considered the points of the case, and tested the merits of the
several theories advanced, and do hereby unanimously decide that the game commonly
known as old sledge or seven-up is eminently a game of science and not of
chance. In demonstration whereof it is hereby and herein stated, iterated,
reiterated, set forth, and made manifest that, during the entire night, the “chance”
men never won a game or turned a jack, although both feats were common and
frequent to the opposition; and furthermore, in support of this our verdict, we call
attention to the significant fact that the “chance” men are all busted, and the
“science” men have got the money. It is the deliberate opinion of this jury, that
the “chance” theory concerning seven-up is a pernicious doctrine, and calculated
to inflict untold suffering and pecuniary loss upon any community that takes stock
in it.

“That is the way that seven-up came to be set apart and particularized in the
statute-books of Kentucky as being a game not of chance but of science, and
therefore not punishable under the law,” said Mr. K—. “That verdict is of
record, and holds good to this day.”

p503-161 THE KILLING OF JULIUS CæSAR “LOCALIZED. ”

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 162. In-line image; opening image for the story "The Killing of Julius CÆsar 'Localized'." Image depicts Cæsar standing in front of a column, with various Romans grouped on either side, looking towards a man in the foreground. This man, and another kneeling and bowing, is facing Cæsar with their backs to the reader. The man standing has his hands crossed behind his back, out of Cæsar's view, with one hand clasped around a knife.[end figure description]

Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from the Roman “Daily
Evening Fasces,” of the date of that tremendous occurrence.

Nothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much satisfaction
as gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious murder, and
writing them up with aggravating 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 reporting in Rome when Cæsar was killed—reporting on an

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

evening paper, and the only one in the city, and getting at least twelve hours
ahead of the morning paper boys with this most magnificent “item” that ever
fell to the lot of the craft. Other events have happened as startling as this, but
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.

However, as I was not permitted to report Cæsar's assassination in the regular
way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to translate 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 thinking men with forebodings for the future of a city where human life is held so
cheaply, and the gravest laws are so openly set at defiance. As the result 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 name is known wherever this paper circulates, and whose fame it has been our pleasure and
our privilege to extend, and also to protect from the tongue of slander and falsehood, to the best of
our poor ability. We refer to Mr. J. Cæsar, the Emperor-elect.

“The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could determine them from the conflicting statements
of eye-witnesses, were about as follows.—The affair was an election row, of course. Ninetenths
of the ghastly butcheries that disgrace the city now-a-days 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 experience 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 Cæsar 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 whispered insults of such men as Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and
other hirelings of the disappointed candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth
and other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically and contemptuously of Mr.
Cæsar'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 Cæsar was a put-up thing—a cut-and-dried arrangement,
hatched by Marcus Brutus and a lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only too faithfully 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 judgment.

“The Senate was already in session, and Cæsar was coming down the street towards 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 Demosthenes and Thucydides' drug-store, he was observing casually
to a gentleman, who, our informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides of March were come.
The reply was, `Yes, they are come, but not gone yet.' At this moment Artemidorus stepped up
and passed the time of day, and asked Cæsar to read a schedule 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 begged that attention might be paid to his first, because
it was of personal consequence to Cæsar. The latter replied that what concerned himself should
be read last, or words to that effect. Artemidorus begged and beseeched him to read the paper

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 164. Image of Cæsar preparing to fight Brutus. Cæsar is standing in a fighting position, arms raised in defense of his body. Brutus is approaching with a knife. There is a man approaching Cæsar from behind and two men are kneeling in the foreground of the picture appearing to clean the stone floor.[end figure description]

instantly.* However, Cæsar 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, it bears an appalling significance: Mr. Papilius Lena
remarked to George W. Cassius (commonly known as the `Nobby Boy of the Third Ward'), a
bruiser in the pay of the Opposition, that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive; and when
Cassius asked `What enterprise?' he only closed his left eye temporarily and said with simulated
indifference, `Fare you well,' and sauntered towards Cæsar. Marcus Brutus who is suspected of
being the ringleader of the band that killed Cæsar, asked what it was that Lena had said. Cassius told
him, and added in a low tone, `I fear our purpose is discovered.'

“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
he feared prevention. He then turned to Brutus, apparently much excited, and asked what should
be done, and swore that either he or Cæsar should never turn back—he would kill himself first. At
this time Cæsar was talking to some of the back-country members about the approaching fall
elections, and paying little attention to what was going on around him. Billy Trebonius got into

[figure description] 503EAF. Page 165. Image of the Romans, including Brutus, carrying off the lifeless body of Cæsar.[end figure description]

conversation with the people's friend and Cæsar's—Mark Antony—and under some pretence or
other got him 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 Cæsar. Then Metellus
Cimber knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from banishment, but Cæsar
rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's
request, first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the banished Publius; but Cæsar
still refused. He said he could not be moved; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and proceeded
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 that was;
therefore, since he was `constant' that Cimber should be banished, he was also `constant' that he
should stay banished, and he'd be hanged if he didn't keep him so!

“Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight, Casca sprang at Cæsar and struck
him with a dirk, Cæsar grabbing him by the arm with 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
up against Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants. Cassius and Cimber and
Cinna rushed upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former succeeded in inflicting a wound
upon his body; but before he could strike again, and before either of the others could strike at all,
Cæsar 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 lobbies had blockaded
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 encumbering robes, and
were leaping over benches and flying down the aisles in wild confusion towards 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,
great Cæsar stood with his back against the statue, like a lion at bay, and fought his assailants
weaponless and hand to hand, with the defiant bearing and the unwavering courage which he had
shown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and Caius Legarius struck him with their
daggers and fell, as their brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last, when Cæsar
saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a murderous knife, it is said he seemed utterly
overpowered with grief and amazement, and dropping his invincible left arm by his side, he hid his
face in the folds of his mantle and received the treacherous blow without an effort to stay the hand
that gave it. He only said, `Et tu, Brute?' 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 Nervii, 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 nothing in the

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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 be relied on, as we get them from Mark Antony, whose position
enables him to learn every item of news connected with the one subject of absorbing interest of
to-day.

“Later.—While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and other friends of the
late Cæsar 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 be a riot, and is taking measures accordingly.”