26–27 December 1865
Like the previous sketch, “Another Enterprise” (no. 150), this one is taken from Clemens' “San Francisco Letter” written on 23 December 1865 and published in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise three or four days later.
Clemens' title deliberately echoes the standard heading used by the local papers for the column which recapitulated news from other cities, as in the Sacramento Bee's “Spirit of the San Francisco Press.”1 The satiric attack is based largely on the facts: Clemens' first five examples refer to items published in the local column of the San Francisco Alta California, which he had castigated somewhat more directly just the day before (see “San Francisco Letter,” no. 131). The Alta also published items about a soldier stealing a washboard and the “unknown Chinaman dead on Sacramento steamer” referred to in Clemens' penultimate paragraph.2 The other items listed by him did not appear in the San Francisco press for December 23, so far as can now be determined.
Although Clemens did not mention Fitz Smythe (Albert S. Evans), the sketch might be considered part of the sustained rivalry with him. But there is some sign that Clemens was criticizing the whole idea of reporting local news, not just Evans. He knew very well, from his experience on the Enterprise, on the Call, and most recently as a daily correspondent, that all city editors and newspaper reporters were obliged to report the trivial if true events of the day.3
San Francisco is a city of startling events. Happy is the man whose destiny it is to gather them up and record them in a daily newspaper! That sense of conferring benefit, profit and innocent pleasure upon one's fellow-creatures which is so cheering, so calmly blissful to the plodding pilgrim here below, is his, every day in the year. When he gets up in the morning he can do as old Franklin did, and say, “This day, and all days, shall be unselfishly devoted to the good of my fellow-creatures—to the amelioration of their conditionⒶemendation—to the conferring of happiness upon them— to the storing of their minds with wisdom which shall fit them for their struggle with the hard world, here, and for the enjoyment of a glad eternity hereafter. And thus striving, so shall I be blessed!” And when he goes home at night, he can exult and say: “Through the labors of these hands and this brain, which God hath given me, blessed and wise are my fellow-creatures this day!
“I have told them of the wonder of the swindling of the friend of Bain, the unknown Bain from Petaluma Creek, by the obscure Catharine McCarthy, out of $300—and told it with entertaining verbosity in half a column.
“I have told them that Christmas is coming, and people go strangely about, buying things—I have said it in forty lines.
“I related how a vile burglar entered a house to rob, and actually went away again when he found he was discovered. I told it briefly, in thirty-five lines.
[begin page 418]“In forty lines I told how a man swindled a Chinaman out of a couple of shirts, and for fear the matter might seem trivial, I made a pretense of only having mentioned it in order to base upon it a criticism upon a grave defect in our laws.
“I fulminated again, in a covert way, the singular conceit that Christmas is at hand, and said people were going about in the most unaccountable way buying stuff to eat, in the markets—52 lines.
“I glorified a fearful conflagration that came so near burning something, that I shudder even now to think of it. Three thousand dollars worth of goods destroyed by water—a man then went up and put out the fire with a bucket of water. I puffed our fine fire organization—64 lines.
“I printed some other extraordinary occurrences—runaway horse—28 lines; dog fight—30 lines; Chinaman captured by officer Rose for stealing chickens—90 lines; unknown Chinaman dead on Sacramento steamer—5 lines; several ‘Fourteener’Ⓐemendation itemsⒺexplanatory note, concerning people frightened and boots stolen—52 lines; case of soldier stealing a washboard worth fifty cents—three-quarters of a column. Much other wisdom I disseminated, and for these things let my reward come hereafter.”
And his reward will come hereafter—and I am sorry enough to think it. But such startling things do happen every day in this strange city!—andⒶemendation how dangerously exciting must be the employment of writing them up for the daily papers!
The first printing appeared in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, probably on 26 or 27 December 1865. The only known copy of this printing, in a clipping in the Yale Scrapbook (pp. 55–56), is copy-text. There are no textual notes.