27–30 June 1865
This sketch is one of the earliest extant items from a series of letters Clemens wrote, eventually on a daily basis, for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise in 1865 and 1866. The Enterprise printing, which probably appeared in late June 1865, does not survive. The sketch is preserved in the Downieville (Calif.) Mountain Messenger for July 1, which attributed it to “Mark Twain, a correspondent of the Virginia Enterprise.”
Clemens' title alludes to a popular poem by Thomas Hood, “The Bridge of Sighs,” the first line of which (“One more Unfortunate”) had become a cliché for a “wronged innocent”—often a young woman who commits suicide to escape disappointment or dishonor. For example, on July 13 the San Francisco Morning Call published “One More Unfortunate,” a story of a girl in New Jersey who is rescued while trying to drown herself because her parents have thwarted her love affair.1 Clemens' treatment of the subject is, of course, ironic, although it is difficult to be sure whether he is more interested in ridiculing the gullibility of the “stern policemen” who have tears in their eyes for “just ‘one more unfortunate,’ ” or in excoriating the “scallawag whom it would be base flattery to call a prostitute!” Certainly his usual sympathy with the vernacular community seems in the background here, perhaps because the subject—a young white girl “living with a strapping young nigger”—touched his Victorian and southern sensibilities rather more closely than did the harmless maunderings of Ben Coon. But Clemens' harshness toward the “victim” is partly a pose adopted for directing ridicule at the sentimentalists, and it is partly mitigated by his almost involuntary de- [begin page 237] light with the young woman's verbal dexterity—her catalog of “quaint and suggestive names,” and her talent for “ornamental swearing, and fancy embroidered filagree slang” which he acknowledges, somewhat begrudgingly, make her “a shade superior to any artist I ever listened to.”
Immorality Ⓐemendation is not decreasing in San Francisco. I saw a girl in the city prisonⒺexplanatory note last night who looked as much out of place there as I did myself—Ⓐemendationpossibly more so. She was petite and diffident, and only sixteen years and one month old. To judge by her looks, one would say she was as sinless as a child. But such was not the case. She had been living with a strapping young nigger for six months! She told her story as artlessly as a school-girl,Ⓐemendation and it did not occur to her for a moment that she had been doing anything unbecoming; and I never listened to a narrative which seemed more simple and straightforwardⒶemendation, or more free from ostentation and vain-glory. She told her name, and her age, to a day; she said she was born in HolbornⒶemendation, City of London; father living,Ⓐemendation but gone back to England; was not married to the negro, but she was left without any one to take care of her, and he had taken charge of that department and had conducted it since she was fifteen and a half years old very satisfactorily. All listeners pitied her, and said feelingly: “Poor heiferⒶemendation! poor devil!” and said she was an ignorant, erring child,Ⓐemendation and had not done wrong wilfully and knowingly, and they hoped she would pass her examination for the Industrial SchoolⒺexplanatory note and be removed from the temptation and the opportunity to sin. Tears—and it was a credit to their manliness and their good feeling—tears stood in the eyes of some of those stern policemen.
O, woman, thy name is humbug!Ⓔexplanatory note Afterwards, while I sat taking some notes, and not in sight from the women's cell, some of the [begin page 239] old blistersⒺexplanatory note fell to gossiping, and lo! young Simplicity chipped in andⒶemendation clattered away as lively as the vilest of them! It came out in the conversation thatⒶemendation she was hail fellow well met with all the old female rapscallions in the city, and had had business relations with their several establishments for a long time past. She spoke affectionately of some ofⒶemendation them, and the reverse of others; and dwelt with a toothsome relish upon numberless reminiscences of her social and commercial intercourse with them. She knew all manner of men, too—men with quaint and suggestive names, for the most part—and liked “Oyster-eyed Bill,”Ⓐemendation and “Bloody Mike,Ⓐemendation” and “The Screamer,” but cherished a spirit of animosity toward “Foxy McDonald” for cutting her with a bowie-knife at a strumpet ball one night. She a poor innocent kitten! Oh! She was a scallawag whom it would be base flattery to call a prostitute! She a candidate for the Industrial School! Bless you, she has graduated long ago. She is competent to take charge of a University of Vice. In the ordinary branches she is equal to the best; and in the higher ones, such as ornamental swearing, and fancy embroidered filagree slang, she is a shade superior to any artist I ever listened to.
The first printing in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, probably sometime between 27 and 30 June 1865, is not extant. The sketch survives in the only known contemporary reprinting of the Enterprise, the Downieville (Calif.) Mountain Messenger for 1 July 1865 (p. 1), which is copy-text. Copy: PH from Bancroft. There are no textual notes.