4 March 1863
John Van Buren (Jack) Perry, the subject of this burlesque biography, was reelected city marshal of Virginia City on 2 March 1863.1 Since Clemens tells us in the piece that Perry was reelected “day before yesterday,” we conjecture that it appeared in the Territorial Enterprise on March 4. The Enterprise printing is not extant; our text is taken from Kate Milnor Rabb's The Wit and Humor of America.
In early May 1863, when Clemens temporarily relinquished his post as editor of the Enterprise local column in order to spend two months in San Francisco, an Enterprise writer—almost certainly Joseph T. Goodman—published a good-natured farewell in the form of a mock eulogy of Mark Twain, in which he dubbed him “Monarch of Mining Items, Detailer of Events, Prince of Platitudes, Chief of Biographers.”2 Although Goodman may have been thinking especially of “City Marshal Perry,” it seems likely that Clemens had in fact contributed his share of more serious work as well, since it was not unusual for the Enterprise staff to write brief biographies of candidates for public office.3
In mid-August 1863 the Enterprise published a straightforward biography of Perry (not now extant), perhaps on the occasion of his campaign for reelection as city constable.4 Clemens, who was then at Steamboat Springs, wrote the Enterprise in mock dismay on August 18:
[begin page 234]I notice in this morning's Enterprise, a lame, impotent abortion of a biography of Marshal Perry. . . . You either want to impose upon the public with an incorrect account of that monster's career . . . or else you wish to bring into disrepute my own biography of him, which is the only correct and impartial one ever published. Which is it? If you really desired that the people should know the man they were expected to vote for, why did you not republish that history?
The real Jack Perry, he insisted, “was born in New Jersey; . . . is by occupation a shoemaker,—by nature a poet, and by instinct a great moral humbug.”5
“City Marshal Perry,” by relentlessly piling up outlandish genealogies and “facts,” became an elaborate joke on a well-known town character. But this technique also ridiculed by implication the usual pompous tone and deferential rhetoric of real newspaper campaign biographies, some of which Clemens himself must certainly have written, and which used similar means to extol the candidates' accomplishments.
Far from being a shoemaker, as Clemens asserted, Perry was trained as a pressman. Politically he was known as a fierce Unionist. He figured prominently in anecdotes about Virginia City life in the 1860s, which characterized him as a large, aggressive, emotional man equally capable of weeping at East Lynne and of smashing the face of a “Secesh.” He was president of the Virginia Fire Department in 1862, foreman of Hook and Ladder Company No. 1, twice city marshal (1862 and 1863), and a habitual practical joker.6
John Van Buren Perry, recently re-elected City Marshal of Virginia City, was born a long time ago, in County Kerry, Ireland, of poor but honest parents, who were descendants, beyond question, of a house of high antiquity. The founder of it was distinguished for his eloquence; he was the property of one Baalam, and received honorable mention in the Bible.
John Van Buren Perry removed to the United States in 1792—after having achieved a high gastronomical reputation by creating the first famine in his native land—and established himself at Kinderhook, New JerseyⒺexplanatory note, as a teacher of vocal and instrumental music. His eldest son, Martin Van Buren, was educated there, and was afterwards elected President of the United States; his grandson, of the same nameⒺexplanatory note, is now a prominent New York politician, and is known in the East as “Prince John;”Ⓔexplanatory note he keeps up a constant and affectionate correspondence with his worthy grandfather, who sells him feet in some of his richest wildcat claims from time to time.
While residing at Kinderhook, Jack Perry was appointed Commodore of the United States Navy, and he forthwith proceeded to Lake Erie and fought the mighty marine conflict, which blazes upon the pages of history as “Perry's Victory.”Ⓔexplanatory note In consequence of this exploit, he narrowly escaped the Presidency.
Several years ago Commodore Perry was appointed Commissioner Extraordinary to the Imperial Court of JapanⒺexplanatory note, with unlimited power to treat. It is hardly worth while to mention that he never exercised [begin page 236] that power; he never treated anybody in that country, although he patiently submitted to a vast amount of that sort of thing when the opportunity was afforded him at the expense of the Japanese officials. He returned from his mission full of honors and foreign whisky, and was welcomed home again by the plaudits of a grateful nation.
After the war was ended, Mr. Perry removed to Providence, Rhode Island, where he produced a complete revolution in medical science by inventing the celebrated “Pain Killer” which bears his nameⒺexplanatory note. He manufactured this liniment by the ship-load, and spread it far and wide over the suffering world; not a bottle left his establishment without his beneficent portrait upon the label, whereby, in time, his features became as well known unto burned and mutilated children as Jack the Giant Killer'sⒺexplanatory note.
When pain had ceased throughout the universe Mr. Perry fell to writing for a livelihood, and for years and years he poured out his soul in pleasing and effeminate poetry. . . . HisⒶtextual note very first effort, commencing:
“How doth the little busy beeImprove each shining hour,”Ⓔexplanatory note etc.—
gained him a splendid literary reputation, and from that time forward no Sunday-school library was complete without a full edition of his plaintive and sentimental “Perry-Gorics.”Ⓔexplanatory note After great research and profound study of his subject, he produced that wonderful gem which is known in every land as “The Young Mother's Apostrophe to Her Infant,” beginning:
“Fie! fie! oo itty bitty pooty sing!To poke oo footsy-tootsys into momma's eye!”
This inspired poem had a tremendous run, and carried Perry's fame into every nursery in the civilized world. But he was not destined to wear his laurels undisturbed: England, with monstrous perfidy, at once claimed the “Apostrophe” for her favorite son, Martin Farquhar TupperⒺexplanatory note, and sent up a howl of vindictive abuse from her polluted press against our beloved Perry. With one accord, the American people rose up in his defense, and a devastating war was only averted by a public denial of the paternity of the poem by the great Proverbial over his own signature. This noble act of Mr. Tupper gained him a [begin page 237] high place in the affection of this people, and his sweet platitudes have been read here with an ever augmented spirit of tolerance since that day.
The conduct of England toward Mr. Perry told upon his constitution to such an extent that at one time it was feared the gentle bard would fade and flicker out altogether; wherefore, the solicitude of influential officials was aroused in his behalf, and through their generosity he was provided with an asylum in Sing Sing prison, a quiet retreat in the state of New York. Here he wrote his last great poem, beginning:
“Let dogs delight to bark and bite,For God hath made them so—
Your little hands were never made
To tear out each other's eyes with—”Ⓔexplanatory note
and then proceeded to learn the shoemaker's trade in his new home, under the distinguished masters employed by the commonwealth.
Ever since Mr. Perry arrived at man's estate his prodigious feetⒺexplanatory note have been a subject of complaint and annoyance to those communities which have known the honor of his presence. In 1835, during a great leather famine, many people were obliged to wear wooden shoes, and Mr. Perry, for the sake of economy, transferred his boot-making Ⓐemendation patronage from the tan-yard which had before enjoyed his custom, to an undertaker's establishment—that is to say, he wore coffins. At that time he was a member of Congress from New JerseyⒺexplanatory note, and occupied a seat in front of the Speaker's throne. He had the uncouth habit of propping his feet upon his desk during prayer by the chaplainⒺexplanatory note, and thus completely hiding that officer from every eye save that of Omnipotence alone. So long as the Hon. Mr. Perry wore orthodox leather boots the clergyman submitted to this infliction and prayed behind them in singular solitude, under mild protest; but when he arose one morning to offer up his regular petition, and beheld the cheerful apparition of Jack Perry's coffins confronting him, “The jolly old bum went under the table like a sick porpus” (as Mr. P. feelingly remarks), “and never shot off his mouth in that shanty again.”
Mr. Perry's first appearance on the Pacific Coast was upon the boards of the San Francisco theaters in the character of “Old Pete” in [begin page 238] Dion Boucicault's “Octoroon.”Ⓔexplanatory note So excellent was his delineation of that celebrated character that “Perry's Pete” was for a long time regarded as the climax of histrionic perfection.
Since John Van Buren Perry has resided in Nevada Territory, he has employed his talents in acting as City Marshal of Virginia, and in abusing me because I am an orphan and a long way from home, and can therefore be persecuted with impunity. He was re-elected day before yesterday, and his first official act was an attempt to get me drunk on champagne furnished to the Board of AldermenⒺexplanatory note by other successful candidates, so that he might achieve the honor and glory of getting me in the station-house Ⓐemendation for once in his life. Although he failed in his object, he followed me down C street and handcuffed meⒺexplanatory note in front of Tom Peasley'sⒺexplanatory note, but officers Birdsall and Larkin and BrokawⒺexplanatory note rebelled against this unwarranted assumption of authority, and released me—whereupon I was about to punish Jack Perry severely, when he offered me six bits to hand him down to posterity through the medium of this Biography, and I closed the contract. But after all, I never expect to get the money.
“How doth . . . shining hour,”] The first two lines of Song 20, “Against Idleness and Mischief,” in Isaac Watts, Divine and Moral Songs for the Use of Children (London: John Van Voorst, 1848), p. 49. About 4 October 1887 Clemens wrote in his notebook:
| How doth the little busy beeImprove each shining hour b'gosh,
Gathering honey all the day
From many a lovely flower b'gosh.
( N&J3 , p. 334)
Watts's popular hymn “Alas! and Did My Saviour Bleed!” may have been a source of Emmeline Grangerford's “Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd” in Huckleberry Finn (John R. Byers, Jr., “Miss Emmeline Grangerford's Hymn Book,” American Literature 43 [May 1971]: 259–263). Watts's hymns and moral songs were ideal targets for Clemens' satirical thrusts at the false conception of life promoted by the literature of church and Sunday school.
“Let dogs . . . eyes with—”] Isaac Watts's Song 16, “Against Quarrelling and Fighting,” verses one and two, reads:
| Let dogs delight to bark and bite,For God hath made them so:
Let bears and lions growl and fight,
For 'tis their nature, too.
But children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise:
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes.
(Divine and Moral Songs, p. 39)
his prodigious feet] According to C. A. V. Putnam, who also wrote for the Enterprise, “if there was any one thing that particularly distinguished Jack Perry at that time, it was the faultless style of his footwear. Boots that any dandy might envy were constantly worn by him, and were always well polished.” Putnam recalled that Clemens published the following local item as a way to needle Perry about this dandyism:
Found—Yesterday the local reporter of this paper found a gigantic horse or muleshoe. On showing it around at the different blacksmith shops the reporter was informed that it was of a size larger by a good deal than any of the shoes made by machinery in any of the Eastern factories and that to replace it on the animal's foot a new shoe will have to be made expressly to fill the bill. Therefore, if this should meet the eye of the teamster losing the shoe from one of his animals, he is hereby informed that he can have it by calling at this office.
P. S.—Since the foregoing was in type we have learned that it was no horse or muleshoe at all. It was simply a plate from Jack Perry's bootheel.
(“Dan De Quille and Mark Twain,” Salt Lake City Tribune, 25 April 1898, p. 3)
The first printing in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise for 4 March 1863 is not extant. The sketch survives in the only known reprinting of the Enterprise in Kate Milnor Rabb, ed., The Wit and Humor of America, 5 vols. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1907), 5:1809–1813, which is copy-text. Copy: PH from Library of Congress. The source of Rabb's text and the nature of her printer's copy are not known; see the textual commentary to “Ye Sentimental Law Student”(no. 44).