10 January 1863
This slight sketch appeared in the same Virginia City Territorial Enterprise column that contained the ambitious “Sanitary Ball” (no. 37). Clemens' allusion to Czar Nicholas' interest in the “minarets of Byzantium”—which had resulted in the 1853 Crimean War—contains a nearly harmless pun. The Enterprise offices, from which the “local” gazed upon “that old gobbler,” were at this time located on A Street. Almack's Oyster and Liquor Saloon at Taylor and C streets was a favorite meeting place for the city's journalists.1
Clemens would return to the subject of “raising poultry” on 4 June 1870, when he published “More Distinction” (no. 307) in the Buffalo Express.
Moralists and philosophers have adjudged those who throw temptation in the way of the erring, equally guilty with those who are thereby led into evil; and we therefore hold the man who suffers that turkey to run at large just back of our office as culpable as ourself, if some day that fowl is no longer perceptible to human vision. The Czar of Russia never cast his eye on the minarets of Byzantium half as longingly as we gaze on that old gobbler. Turkey stuffed with oysters is our weakness—our mouth watersⒶemendation at the recollection of sundry repasts ofⒶemendation that character—and this bird aforementionedⒶemendation appears to us to have an astonishingⒶemendation capacity for oyster-stuffing. Wonder if thoseⒶemendation fresh oysters at Almack'sⒶemendation are all gone? We grow ravenous—pangs of hunger gnaw ourⒶemendation vitals—if to-morrow's setting sun gleams onⒶemendation the living form of that turkey, we yield ourⒶemendation reputation for strategy.
The first printing appeared in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise for 10 January 1863 (p. 3). The only known copy of this printing, in a newspaper at the library of the Nevada Historical Society at Reno, is copy-text. Copy: PH from the Nevada Historical Society. See the textual commentary for “The Sanitary Ball” (no. 37). There are no textual notes.