 This is Section 14 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain, Section 14, Territorial Enterprise, February 1864. Territorial Enterprise, November 1863 to February 1864. Letter from Dayton. Extract. Travelling with Adolf Sutro. Eight left Virginia yesterday and came down to Dayton with Mr. Sutro. Time thirty minutes, distance eight or nine miles. There is nothing very slow about that kind of travel. We found Dayton the same old place, but taking up a good deal more room than it did the last time I saw it, and looking more brisk and lively with its increase of business, and more handsome on account of the beautiful dressed stone buildings with which it is being embellished of late. Just as we got fairly under way, and were approaching Ball Robert's Bridge, Sutro's dog Carlo got to skirmishing around in the extravagant exuberance of his breakfast, and shipped up a fight with six or seven other dogs whom he was entirely unacquainted with, had never met before, and probably was, no desire to meet again. He waltzed into them right gallantly, and right gallantly waltzed out again. We also left at about this time, and trotted briskly across Ball Robert's Bridge. I remarked that Ball Robert's Bridge was a good one, and a credit to that bald gentleman. I set it in a fine burst of humor, and more on account of the joke than anything else, but Sutro is insensible to the more delicate touches of American wit, and the effort was entirely lost on him. I don't think Sutro minds a joke of mild character any more than a dead man would. However, I repeated it once or twice without producing any visible effect, and finally derived what comfort I could by laughing at it myself. Mr. Sutro, being a confirmed businessman, replied in a practical and business-like way. He said the Bridge was a good one, and so were all public blessings of a similar nature when entrusted to the hands of private individuals. He said if the county had built the Bridge, it would have cost an extravagant sum of money, and would have been eternally out of repair. He also said the only way to get public work well and properly was to let it out by contract. For instance, says he, they have fooled away two or three years trying to capture Richmond, whereas if they had let the job by contract to some sensible businessman, the thing would have been accomplished and forgotten long ago. It was a novel and original idea, and I forgot my joke for the next half hour in speculating upon its feasibility. Territorial Enterprise, February 9, 1864. Letter from Carson City. Concerning Notaries. A strange, strange thing occurred here yesterday, to wit. A man applied for a Notary's commission. Think of it. Ponder over it. He wanted an Ontario commission, he said to himself. He was from Stony County. He brought his little petition along with him. He brought it on two stages. It is volumous. The county surveyor is chaining it off. Three shifts of clerks will be employed night and day on it, deciphering the signatures and testing their genuineness. They began unrolling the petition at noon, and people of strong mining proclivities at once commenced locating claims on it. We are too late, you know. But then they the extensions are just as good as the original. I believe you. Since writing the above, I have discovered that the foregoing does not amount to much as a sensation item, after all. The reason is, because there are seventeen hundred and forty-two applicants for Notary ships already on file in the Governor's office. I was not aware of it, you know. There are also as much as eleven cords of the petition stacked up in his backyard. A watchman stands guard over this combustible material. The backyard is not insured. Since writing the above, strange events have happened. I started downtown and had not gone far when I met a seedy, ornery, ratty, hangdog-looking stranger, who approached me in the most insinuating manner, and said he was glad to see me. He said he had often sighed for an opportunity of becoming acquainted with me, that he had read my effusions—he called them effusions—with solemn delight, and had yearned to meet the author face to face. He said he was Bilson, Bilson of Lander. I might have heard of him. I told him I had, many a time, which was an infamous falsehood. He said, damn it, old quill-driver, you must come and take a drink with me. And says I, damn it, old vermin ranch, I'll do it. I had him there. He took a drink, and he told the barkeeper to charge it, after which he opened a well-filled carpet sack and took out a shirt collar and a petition. He then threw the empty carpet sack aside, and unrolled several yards of the petition. Just for a starter, he said. Now, says he, Mark, have you got a good deal of influence with Governor? Unbounded, says I, with honest pride. When I go and use my influence with Governor Nye and tell him it will be a great personal favour to me if he will do so and so, he always says it will be a real pleasure to him, that if it were any other man, any other man in the world. But seeing it's me, he won't. Mr. Bilson then remarked that I was the very man. He wanted a little notarial appointment, and he would like me to mention it to the Governor. I said I would, and turned away, resolve to damn young Bilson's official aspirations with a mild dose of my influence. I walked about ten steps and met a cordial man, with the dust of travel upon his garments. He mashed my hands in his, and as I stood straightening the joints back into their places again, says he, why, darn it, Mark, how well you're looking! Thunder, it's been an age since I saw you. Turn around, let's look at you good. Dad, it's the same old Mark. Well, have you been, and what have you been doing with yourself lately? Why don't you never come down and see a fella? Every time I come to town, the old woman's sure to get after me for not bringing you out as soon as I get back. Why, she takes them articles of urine, and slathers them into her old scrapbook, along with deaths and marriages and receipts for the itch, and the smallpox, and hell knows what all, and if it weren't that you talk too slow to ever make love, dang my cats if I wouldn't be jealous of you. But what's the use of fooling away time here? Let's go and gobble a cocktail. This was old Boreus from Washoo. I went and gobbled a cocktail with him. He mentioned incidentally that he wanted a notary ship, and showed me a good deal of his petition. I said I would use my influence in his behalf, and requested him to call at the Governor's office in the morning, and get his commission. He thanked me most heartily, and said he would. I think I see him doing of it. I met another stranger before I got to the corner, a pompous little man with a crooked handlecane and sorrel mustache. Says he, How do you do, Mr. Twain? How do you do, sir? I am happy to see you, sir. Very happy indeed, sir. My name is Blank Blank. Pardon me, sir, but I perceive you do not entirely recollect me. I am J. Bill Decombe Duesenberry of Esmeralda, formerly of the city of New York, sir. Well, says I, I'm glad to meet you, dissentary. And, no, no, Duesenberry, sir, Duesenberry. You—oh, I beg your pardon, says I. Duesenberry? Yes, I understand now. But it's all the same, you know. Duesenberry, by any other name, would, however, I see you have a bale of dry goods for me, perhaps. He said it was only a little petition, and proceeded to show me a few acres of it, observing casually that he was the candidate in the notarial line, that he had read my Lucumbrations, he called it all that, with absorbing interest, and he would like me to use my influence with the Governor in his behalf. I assured him his commission would be ready for him as soon as it was signed. He ordered overcome with gratitude and insisted, and insisted, and insisted, until at last I went and took a drink with him. On the next corner I met Chief Justice Turner on his way to the Governor's office with a petition. He said, God bless you, my dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you. And hurried on, after receiving my solemn promise, that he should be a notary public if I could secure his appointment. Next I met William Stewart, grinning in his engaging way, and stroking his prodigious whiskers from his nose to his stomach. Sandy Baldwin was with him, and they both had measureless petitions on a dray, with the names all signed in their own handwriting. I knew those fellows pretty well, and I didn't promise them my influence. I knew, if the Governor refused to appoint them, they would have an injunction on him in less than twenty-four hours and stop the issuance of any more notary commissions. I met John B. Winters, next, and Judge North, and Mayor Eric, and Washoo Jim, and John O. Earl, and Ah-Foo, and John H. Atkinson, and Hong Woo, and Wells Fargo, and Charlie Strong, and Bob Morro, and General Williams, and seventy-two other prominent citizens of Story County, with a long pack-train laden with their several petitions. I examined their documents and promised to use my influence toward procuring notary ships for the whole tribe. I also drank with them. I wandered down the street, conversing with every man I met examining his petition. It became a sort of monomania with me, and I kept it up for two hours with unflagging interest. Finally I stumbled upon a pensive, travel-worn stranger leaning against an awning post. I went up and looked at him. He looked at me. I looked at him again. And again he looked at me. I bent my gaze upon him once more, and says I—well—he looked at me very hard, and says he— well—well what? Says I—well—I would like to examine your petition, if you please. He looked very much astonished. I may say amazed. When he had recovered his presence of mind he says— what the devil do you mean? I explained to him that I only wanted to glance over his petition for a notary ship. He said he believed I was a lunatic. He didn't like the unhealthy light in my eye, and he didn't want me to come any closer to him. I asked him if he had escaped the epidemic, and he shuddered said he didn't know of any epidemic. I pointed to the large placard on the wall. Coaches will leave the Ormsby house punctually every fifteen minutes for the governor's mansion, for the accommodation of notarial aspirants, etc., etc. Shimmerhorn agent. And I asked him if he didn't know enough to understand what that meant. I also pointed to the long procession of petition-laden citizens filing up the street toward the governor's house, and asked him if he was not aware that all those fellows were going after notarial commissions, that the balance of the people had already gone, and that he and I had the whole town to ourselves. He was astonished again. Then he placed his hand upon his heart, and swore a frightful oath that he had just arrived from over the mountains, and had no petition, and didn't want a notary ship. I gazed upon him a moment in silent rapture, and clasped him to my breast, after which I told him it was my turn to treat by thunder, whereupon we entered a deserted saloon, and drank up its contents. We lay upon a billiard-table in a torpid condition for many minutes, but at last my exile rose up, and muttered in a sepulchral voice. I feel it—oh, heavens! I feel it in me veins! What, says I, alarmed, says he? I feel—oh, me sainted mother! I feel—feel! A hankering to be a notary public! He tore down several yards of wallpaper, and fell to writing a petition on it. Poor devil! He had got it at last, and got it bad. I was seized with a fatal distemper a moment afterward. I wrote a petition with frantic haste, appended a copy of the directory of Nevada Territory to it, and we fled down the deserted streets to the Governor's office. But I must draw the curtain upon these harrowing scenes. The memory of them scorches my brain. Ah! This legislature has much to answer for in cutting down the number of notaries public in this territory with their infernal new law. February 12, 1864. Letter from Mark Twain. Carson City, February 5, 1864. Winter's New House. Editors, Enterprise. Theodore Winter's handsome dwelling in Washoo Valley is an eloquent witness in behalf of Mr. Steele's architectural skill. The basement story is built of brick, and the spacious court which surrounds it, and whose columns support the veranda above, is paved with large old-fashioned tiles. On this floor is the kitchen, dining-room, bathroom, bed-chamber for servants, and a commodious storeroom, with shelves laden with all manner of substantials and luxuries for the table. All these apartments are arranged in the most convenient manner, and are fitted and furnished handsomely and plainly, but expensively. Water pipes are numerous in this part of the house, and the fluid they carry is very pure and cold and clear. On the next floor above are two unusually large drawing-rooms, richly furnished, and gotten up in every respect with faultless taste, which is a remark one is seldom unable to apply to parlours and drawing-rooms on this coast. The colours in the carpets, curtains, etc., are of a warm and cheerful nature, but there is nothing gaudy about them. The ceilings are decorated with pure white mouldings of graceful pattern. Two large bed-chambers adjoin the parlours, and are supplied with elaborately carved black, walnut four hundred dollar bedsteads, similar to those used by Dan and myself in Virginia. The remainder of the furniture of these chambers is correspondingly sumptuous and expensive. On the floor above are half a dozen comfortable bedrooms for the accommodation of visitors. Also a spacious billiard room, which will shortly be graced by a table of superb workmanship. The windows of the house are of the Gothic style, and set with stained glass. The chandeliers are of bronze, the stair railings of polished black walnut, and the principal doors of some kind of dark-coloured wood, mahogany I suppose. There are two peculiarly pleasant features about this house, the ceilings are high, and the halls of unusual width. The building, above the basement-story, is of wood, and strongly and compactly put together. It stands upon tolerably high ground, and from its handsome veranda Mr. Winters can see every portion of his vast farm. From the stables to the parlours the house and its belongings is a model of comfort, convenience, and substantial elegance. Everything is of the best that could be had, and there is no circus flummery visible about the establishment. I went out there to a party a short time ago, in the night, behind a pair of Cormack's Fast Horses with John James. On account of losing the trail of the telegraph poles we wandered out among the shingled machines in the Sierras, and were delayed several hours. We arrived in time, however, to take a large share in the festivities which were being indulged in by the Governor and the Supreme Court and some twenty other guests. The party was given by Messers Joe Winters and Pete Hopkins, at Theodore Winters' expense, as a slight testimonial of their regard for the friends they invited to be present. There was nothing to detract from the pleasure of the occasion, except Lovejoy, who detracted most of the wines and liquors from it. An Excellent School I expect Mr. Lawler keeps the best private school in the territory, or the best school of any kind for that matter. I attended one of his monthly examinations a week ago, or such a matter, with Mr. Claggett, and we arrived at the conclusion that one might acquire a good college education there within the space of six months. Mr. Lawler's is a little crib of a school house, papered from door to ceiling with blackboards adorned with impossible mathematical propositions done in white chalk. The effect is bewildering to the stranger, but otherwise he will find the place comfortable enough. When we arrived, the teacher was talking in a rambling way upon a great many subjects, like a member of the house speaking to a point of order, and three boys were making verbatim reports of his remarks in Graham's phonographic shorthand on the walls of the school room. These pupils had devoted half an hour to the study and practice of this accomplishment every day for the past four or five months, and the result was a proficiency usually attained only after 18 months of application. It was amazing! Mr. Lawler has so simplified the art of teaching in every department of instruction that I am confident he could impart a thorough education in a short time to any individual who has as much as a spoonful of brains to work upon. It is in no spirit of extravagance that I set it down here as my serious conviction that Mr. Lawler could even take one of our Miss Nancy Meridan prosecuting attorneys and post him up so in a month or two that he could tell his own witnesses from those of the defense in nine cases out of ten. Mind, I do not give this as an absolute certainty, but merely as an opinion of mine, and one which is open to grave doubts to—I am willing to confess, now, when I come to think calmly and dispassionately about it. No, the truth is, the more I think of it, the more I weaken. I expect I spoke too soon. Went off before I was primed, as it were. With your permission, I will take it all back. I know two or three prosecuting attorneys, and I am satisfied the foul density of their intellects would put out any intellectual candle that Mr. Lawler could lower into them. I do not say that a higher power could not miraculously illuminate them. No, I only say I would rather see it first. A man always has more confidence in a thing after he has seen it, you know. At least that is the way with me. But to proceed with that school. Mr. Claggett invited one of those phonographic boys, Master Barry Asham, to come and practice his shorthand in the House of Representatives. He accepted the invitation, and in accordance with resolutions offered by Mr. Claggett and Steward he was tendered the compliment of a seat on the floor of the house during the session, and the sergeant of arms instructed to furnish him with a desk and such stationery as he might require. He has already become a reporter of no small pretensions. There is a class in Mr. Lawler's school, composed of children, three months old and upwards, who know the spelling book by heart. If you ask them what the first word is in any given lesson, they will tell you in a moment, and then go on and spell every word, thirty-five, in the lesson, without once referring to the book or making a mistake. Again, you may mention a word, and they will tell you which particular lesson it is in, and what words preceded and follow it. Then again you may propound an abstruse grammatical enigma, and the school will solve it in chorus, will tell you what language is correct and what isn't, and why and wherefor, and quote rules and illustrations until you wish you hadn't said anything. Two or three doses of this kind will convince a man that there are youngsters in this school who know everything about grammar that can be learned and what is just as important can explain what they know so that other people can understand it. But when those fellows get to figuring, let second-rate mathematicians stand from under. For behold, it is their strong suit. They work miracles on a blackboard with a piece of chalk, witchcraft and sleight of hand, and all that sort of thing is foolishness to the facility with which they can figure a moral impossibility down to an infallible result. They only require about a dozen figures to do a sum which by all ordinary methods would consume a hundred and fifty. These fellows could cipher a week on a sheet of fool-scap. They can find out anything they want to with figures, and they are very quick about it too. You tell them, for instance, that you were born in such and such a place, on such and such a day of the month, in such and such a year, and they will tell you in an instant how old your grandmother is. I have never seen any banker's clerks who could begin to cipher with those boys. It has been Virginia's un-Christian policy to grab everything that was of any account that ever came into the territory. Virginia could do many a worse thing than to grab this school and move it into the shadow of Mount Davidson, teacher and all. CONCERNING UNDERTAKERS There is a system of extortion going on here which is absolutely terrific, and I wonder the Carson Independent has never ventilated the subject. There seems to be only one undertaker in the town, and he owns the only graveyard in which it is at all high-toned or aristocratic to be buried. Consequently, when a man loses his wife or his child or his mother, this undertaker makes him sweat for it. I appeal to those whose fireside's death has made desolate during the few fatal weeks just past, if I am not speaking the truth. Does not this undertaker take advantage of that unfortunate delicacy which prevents a man from disputing an unjust bill for services rendered in burying the dead, to tenfold more than his labors are worth? I have conversed with a good many citizens on this subject, and they all say the same thing, that they know it is wrong that a man should be unmercifully fleeced under such circumstances, but, according to the solemn etiquette above referred to, he cannot help himself. All that sounds very absurd to me. I have a human distaste for death, as applied to myself, but I see nothing very solemn about it as applied to anybody. It is more to be dreaded than a birth or a marriage, perhaps, but it is really not as solemn a matter as either of these when you come to take a rational, practical view of the case. Therefore I would prefer to know that an undertaker's bill was a just one before I paid it, and I would rather see it go clear to the Supreme Court of the United States, if I could afford the luxury, than pay it if it were distinguished for its unjustness. A great many people in the world do not think as I do about these things, but I care nothing for that, the knowledge that I am right is sufficient for me. This undertaker charges a hundred and fifty dollars for a pine coffin that cost him twenty or thirty, and fifty dollars for a grave that did not cost him ten, and this at a time when his ghastly services are required at least seven times a week. I gather these facts from some of the best citizens of Carson, and I can publish their names at any moment if you want them. What Carson needs is a few more undertakers. There is vacant land enough here for a thousand cemeteries." Mark Twain. End of Section 14. This is Section 15 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. Territorial Enterprise. February 1864 Part 2. Legislative Proceedings. House. 28th Day. Carson. February 8th, 1864. This bill appears, to a man up a tree, to be a bill of sale of Nevada Territory to the California State Telegraph Company. They never print this kind of bills, wherefore I shall have to copy it myself for you. It flashed through the house under a suspension of the rules before you could wink, they tell me. It provides that Mr. Watson, his other name is the California State Telegraph Company, shall have the exclusive right to connect Car, Unionville, Austin, Virginia, Gold Hill, Carson, etc., etc., with Sacramento and San Francisco, and nobody else shall be permitted to do likewise, for five years after this line is completed, and with a liberal length of time allowed Mr. Watson in which to get ready to begin to commence completing it. To have all the Telegraph lines in the hands of one company makes it a little binding on newspapers and other people. Mark. Territory Enterprise, February 1864. Legislative Proceedings. House. 29th Day. Carson, February 9. I see you want the A's and No's on all important measures. Long ago I got a batch of roll calls and prepared to post the people concerning the final action of this body upon the various bills presented, but I got tired of it. I found the house too unanimous. They always voted I, and I discovered that the list of No's was a useless encumbrance to the roll call. Now, when an important measure passes this house, and I neglect the roll call, that need be no excuse for your doing the same thing. Just publish the list of members and say they voted I. You'll be about right. The thing is done thus. When a bill is on its final passage, and a member hears his name called, he rouses up and asks, what's going on? The speaker says, by way of information. Third reading of a bill, sir. The member says, oh, well, I vote I, and becomes torped again at once. Now, concerning that infamous Telegraph monstrosity, it passed to its third reading in this house on the 4th of February. Messers Babcock, Dixon, Gray, and Stewart were absent and had no opportunity of voting I, but all the balance voted affirmatively, of course, as follows. Eyes. Messers Barkley, Brumfield, Calder, Claggett, Curler, Dean, Elliott, Fisher, Gillespie, Gove, Heaton, Hess, Hunter, Jones, McDonald, Nelson, Phillips, Rekwa, Tennant, Trask, Unger, and Mr. Baker. Knows none. Territorial Enterprise, February 1864, Legislative Proceedings, House, Tuesday afternoon, Carson, February 10. The House then went into Committee of the Whole on the special order, Mr. Fisher in the Chair, and took up the first bill on the list. Some seventy-five ladies have swarmed into the House, and the process of swarming still continues. I have a presentiment that I am to have an exhaustless stream of weak platitudes inflicted upon me by young Gillespie and other unmarried members. Mark. Territorial Enterprise, February 1864, Legislative Proceedings, House, thirty-first day, Carson, February 11. The House met at ten a.m. present, eighteen, absent, Messers Claggett, Dixon, Gillespie, Phillips, Stewart, and Unger. Questions of Privilege. Mr. Heaton rose to a question of privilege, and said he was reported in the Enterprise as having moved at the Committee of the Whole recommend the rejection of Miss Clapp's Seminary Bill. That was a mistake. He said his motion was to refer the bill back to the Standing Committee on Colleges and Common Schools. I suppose that is true. I do not consider myself responsible for mistakes made when the House is full of beautiful women who are writing tender notes to me all the time and expecting me to answer them. In cases of this kind I would just as soon misrepresent a member as any other way. Mark. Mr. Heaton was easy on the reporters, but he was very severe on Mr. Gillespie. He said it would appear from the report that Mr. Gillespie included him among those members who had dodged the issue on the telegraph bill, whereas he was absent from the House by permission of the Speaker with the Prison Committee. The Speaker said there was nothing incorrect about the report that Mr. Heaton was shielded from Mr. Gillespie's insinuation by a preceding paragraph which stated the fact that he had been excused from attendance, whereupon Jefferson's manual arose the same being known on the credit accounts of the several saloons as Young Gillespie and proceeded to waste the time of the House as usual in dilating upon some trivial distinction without a difference. He was after the reporter of the Enterprise in the first place, but before I could catch his drift he fell a victim to his old regular parliamentary usage dysentery, passed his brains, and became a smiling, sociable, driveling lunatic. Consequently I failed to find out what I had been doing to Young Gillespie after all. Mark Twain. House, Afternoon Session. Message. A message was received from the Council transmitting the following bills. Council Bill incorporating the Austin Christian Association. The Speaker was at a loss to know what committee to refer a bill of such an unusual nature to wherein his head was level. He finally referred it to the Lander Delegation, two of the most faithful and consistent supporters of the Devil there are in the House. Mark. Council Bill for the Relief of Certain Parties, referred to the Committee on Claims. At 5 p.m. the House adjourned until 6.30 p.m. While I was absent a moment yesterday on important business, taking a drink, the House, with its accustomed engaging unanimity, knocked one of my pet bills higher than a kite, without a dissenting voice. I convened the members in extra session last night and deluged them with blasphemy, after which I entered into a solemn compact with them, whereby, in consideration of their reinstating my bill, I was to make an ample apology for all the mean things I had said about them for passing that infamous, un-Christian, infirmal telegraph bill the other day. I also promised to apologize for all the mean things that other people had published against them for their depraved action said. They reinstated my pet to-day, unanimously, thus fulfilling their contract to the letter, and in conformity with my promise above referred to. I hereby solemnly apologize for their rascally conduct in passing the infamous telegraph bill above mentioned. Under ordinary circumstances they never would have done such a thing, but upon that occasion I think they have been fraternizing with Claggett and Simmons at the White House, and were under the vicious influence of Humboldt Whiskey. Consequently they were not responsible, sir. They were not responsible either to anybody on earth or in heaven. Mark Twain. Territorial Enterprise. February 1864. Legislative Proceedings. House. Friday afternoon. Carson. February 12. An act to amend an act relating to game and fish. The passage of this bill was also recommended. It provides that trout shall neither be caught in this territory nor exposed for sale between the first of January and the first of April, under a penalty of twenty-five dollars for each fish caught, killed, or destroyed, or bought, sold, or exposed for sale. The act goes into effect on the first of the coming March, and therefore it would be well to publish it for the information of the people. It is a good law, and calls our lake by its right name, Lake Bigler, and rejects the spoony appellation of Tahoe, which signifies Grasshopper in the digger-tongue, and Breach Clout in the Washoo lingo. Bigler is the legitimate name of the lake, and it will be retained until some name less flat, insipid, and spoony than Tahoe is invented for it. I am sorry myself that it was not called in the first place by some cognomen that could be persuaded to rhyme with something, because you see every sentimental cuss who goes up there and becomes pregnant with a poem invariably miscarries because of the unfortunate difficulty I have just mentioned. I speak of the matter lightly, but it is not a frivolous one for all that. A very beautiful thing was once written by a distinguished English poet about our Royal River at home, but the loveliness was all mashed out of it by the stress of weather to which he was obliged to succumb in order to gouge a rhyme out of its name. He had to call it Mississip. Territorial Enterprise, February 1864, Legislative Proceedings, House, Saturday afternoon, Carson, February 13. An act to incorporate the Virginia, Gold Hill, Washoo, and Carson Railroad. More railroads, you observe. The Council killed the Virginia and Dayton Railroad bill the other day. That franchise was well guarded, and the road would have been built. Will this, or any of the others, rep? Mr. Barkley moved to lay the bill on the table. Lost. Bill then passed by the following vote. Eyes, 11. Nose, 9. Territorial Enterprise, February 1864. Letter from Mark Twain. Carson City, February 13, 1864. The Carson Undertaker continued. Editor's Enterprise. The Independent takes hold of a wretched public evil and shakes it and bully-rags it in the following determined and spirited manner this morning. Our friend Mark Twain is such a joker that we cannot tell when he is really an earnest. He says in his last letter to the Enterprise that our Undertaker charges exorbitantly for his services as much as $150 for a pine coffin, and $50 for a grave, and is astonished that the Independent has not ere this, said something about this extortion. As yet we have had no occasion for a coffin or a bit of ground for grave purposes, and therefore know nothing about the price of such things. If any of our citizens think they have been imposed upon in this particular, it is their duty to ventilate the matter. We have heard no complaints. That first sentence is false, and that clause in the second, which refers to the Independent, is false also. I knew better than to be astonished when I wrote it. Unfortunately for the public of Carson, both propositions in the third sentence are true. Having had no use for a coffin himself, the editor, therefore, knows nothing about the price of such things. It is my unsolicited opinion that he knows very little about anything. And anybody who will read his paper calmly and dispassionately for a week will endorse that opinion. And, more especially, his knowing nothing about Carson is not surprising. He seldom mentions that town in his paper. If the second advent were to occur here, you would hear of it first in some other newspaper. He says, if any of our citizens think they have been imposed upon in this particular, it is their duty to ventilate the matter. It is their duty, the duty of the citizens, to ferret out abuses and correct them, is it? Correct them through your advertising columns and pay for it, is that it? And then turn to your second page and find one of your insipid chalk-milk editorials defending the abuse and apologizing for the perpetrator of it, or when public sentiment is too well established on the subject, pretending, as in the above case, that you are the only man in the community who don't know anything about it. Where did you get your notion of the duties of a journalist from? Any editor in the world will say it is your duty to ferret out these abuses and your duty to correct them. What have you paid for? What use are you to the community? What are you fit for as conductor of a newspaper if you cannot do these things? Are you paid to know nothing and keep on writing about it every day? How long do you suppose such a jack-legged newspaper as yours would be supported or tolerated in Carson if you had a rival no larger than a full-scap sheet, but with something in it, and whose editor would know, or at least have energy enough to find out, whether a neighbouring paper abused one of the citizens justly or unjustly? That paragraph, which I have copied, seems to mean one thing, while in reality it means another. Its true translation is, for instance, our name is independent, that is, in different phrase, opinionless. We have no opinions on any subject. We reside permanently on the fence. In order to have no opinions, it is necessary that we should know nothing. Therefore, if this undertaker is fleecing the people, we will not know it, and then we shall not offend him. We have heard no complaints, and we shall make no inquiries, lest we do hear some. Now, when I published a sarcasm upon the San Francisco Water Company, and the iniquity of cooking dividends some time ago, in the attractive form of a massacre at Dutch Knicks, by an irresponsible crazy man, this lively independent, came after me, with the spirit of old Hopkins strong upon him, and launched at me the red bolts of its virtuous wrath for bringing the high mission of journalism into disrepute for leading the citizens of California to believe that the murderous proclivities of this people were more extensive than they really were, or, in other words, creating the impression abroad that we were all lunatics and liable to slay and destroy one another upon the slightest provocation. I did not reply to that, because I took it to be the fellow's honest opinion, and being his honest opinion, it was his duty to express it, whether it galled me or not. But he has permitted so many greater wrongs to pass unnoticed since then, that I have arrived at the conclusion that he only did it to modify the circulation of the enterprise hereabouts. I should be sorry to think he did it to procure my discharge. He would not, if he knew I was an orphan. Yet the same eyes that saw a great public wrong in that article on the massacre willfully see no wrong in this undertaker's impoverishing charges for burying people, charges which are made simply because, from the nature of the service rendered, a man dare not demure to their payment lest the fact be talked of around town, and he be disgraced. Oh, your independent is a consistent, harmless, non-committal sheet. I never saw a paper of that non-committal name that wasn't. Even the religious papers bearing it give a decided, whole soul support to neither the Almighty nor the Devil. The editor of the Independent says he don't know anything about this undertaker business. If he would go and report a while for some responsible newspaper he would learn the knack of finding out things. Now, if he wants to know that the undertaker charged three or four prices for a coffin, the late Mr. Nash's, upon one occasion, and then refused to let it go out of his hands when the funeral was waiting until it was paid for, although the estate was good for it, being worth twenty thousand dollars, let him go and ask Jack Harris. If he wants any amount of information, let him inquire of Currie, or Pete Hopkins, or Judge Wright. Stuff. Let him ask any man he meets in the street. The matter is as universal a topic of conversation here as is the subject of feet in Virginia. But I don't suppose you want to know anything about it. I want to shed one more unsolicited opinion, which is that your independent is the deadest, flattest, most worthless thing I know, and I imagine my cold, unsmiling undertaker has his hungry eye upon it. Mr. Currie says if the people will come forward and take hold of the matter, a city cemetery can be prepared and fenced in a week, and at a trivial cost, a cemetery from which a man can set out for paradise or perdition, just as respectably as he can from the undertaker's private grounds at present. Another undertaker can then be invited to come and take charge of the business. Mr. Currie is right, and no man can move in the matter with greater effect than himself. Let the reform be instituted. Mark Twain. Territorial Enterprise, February 1864 Legislative Proceedings, House, 35th Day, Carson, February 15. At one o'clock this morning, as Mr. Gray, barkeeper at Bingham's, was leaving the saloon with his cash-box in his hand, two men jumped out from the shadow of a door, enveloped him in a blanket, and seized the box. Gray held on to the property until the handle came off, and then, having no pistol, shouted with good enough effect to attract the attention of two foot-passengers who had. These gentlemen opened a brisk fire on the retreating highwaymen, sent eight or ten navy-balls after them, caused them to observe, plaintively, oh, God, and drop the box. All the dogs in town woke up and barked, they always do on such occasions, but they never bite, and they are opposed to chasing highwaymen, so the same escaped. Mr. Gray recovered the box, of course, which contained about one thousand dollars. Mark. You have got a mighty responsible delegation here from Story County, as Mr. Curler remarked the other day. When you put your finger on that delegation as a general thing, they ain't there. I believe you. In the face of a notice given last Saturday by Mr. Claggett, of the introduction of a little bill to remove the capital to Virginia, in the face of it I say only one member from Story, out of eight, was present when the proper time arrived this morning for the introduction of the bill. Mr. Elliott was present. He always is, for that matter, and always awake. It has been a good thing for the whole territory, on more than one occasion, that he was at his post in the house. One member was present. Seven were absent. Mrs. Gillespie, Hayton, Nelson, Phillips, Riqua, Unger, and Barkley. Several of these gentlemen arrived an hour after the order for the introduction of bills had been passed. Now, if the people of Story do not want the capital, it was the duty of these members, since they knew the question was before the house, to be on hand to use their best efforts to kill the bill. And if the people do want the capital, then it was the duty of those members to be here and do what they could towards securing it. Above all things, they had no business to be absent at such a time. They knew what was going on, and they knew, moreover, that the fact that they have been pretty regular in their attendance when toll roads were to be voted on, will indifferently palliate the offence of being absent upon this occasion. Last session Story offered an immense price for the capital, and nothing in the world could have kept her from getting it, but her own delegation. They kept her from it, though. Mr. Burke was absent. His vote at the proper time would have moved the capital, and in the meantime Mr. Tuttle of Douglas was brought from a sick-bed to vote no. I suppose this bill will be introduced tomorrow, Tuesday morning, at ten o'clock, and I suppose some of the Story delegation will be absent again. But if you want the roll call tomorrow, you can have it. I have made a mistake. Mr. Gillespie came in this morning before the introduction of bills, though he was absent at an earlier hour when the roll was called. Mark. I have just returned from the capital, where I have been a legislative spectator for a while. The strongest conviction which the experience of my visit forced upon me was that the capital ought to be removed from Carson City. I think you would be of my opinion if you could see with your own eyes, and hear with your own ears, the doings of the legislature for a few days. I have just returned from the capital where I have been a legislature for a few days. My first and best reason for thinking the capital ought to be removed is that while it remains in Carson, the legislative assembly is beyond the pale of newspaper criticism, beyond its restraining influence, and consequently beyond the jurisdiction of the people, in a manner, since the people are left in ignorance of what their servants are doing, and cannot protest against their acts until it is too long. Your reports of proceedings take up as much room in the city papers as can well be spared, I suppose, and they are ample enough for all intents and purposes, or rather they would be if the Virginia newspapers could stay in Carson and criticize these proceedings, and also the members, editorially occasionally. Amir's skeleton report carries but an indifferent conception of the transactions of a legislative body to the minds of the people. In the instance, in the style and after the manner of one of these synopses, Mr. Stewart gave notice of a bill entitled an Act to Audit the Claim of D. J. Gashary. A day or so afterward, we learned that according to former notice Mr. Stewart introduced his bill. You hear of it again in some committee report, and again as having been reported favorably by a committee of the whole. Next your report says Stewart's bill passed by so many eyes and so many nos. The work is done. None of your readers have the slightest idea what Mr. Gashary's claim was for and neither does one of them imagine himself even remotely interested in knowing anything about it. Yet the chief portion of your readers, I take it, were very particularly interested in that bill because they will have to contribute money from their own pockets to pay Mr. Gashary's money. They were further interested on general principles because the passage of that bill inflicted a great wrong upon the territory. Now, if the legislature had been in session in Virginia, under the eyes of the press, instead of those of six or seven idle lobby members, I doubt if Mr. Stewart would have introduced the bill. I doubt if the committee of the whole would have presumed to consider it. I know the House and the Council would not have passed it. But I believe it rose in his place and objected that this was a bill to provide payment of a sum out of the territorial treasury amounting to between $1,800 and $1,900 for the maintenance, by Sheriff Gashary, of several Ormsby County paupers. The newspapers would have promptly seconded him in the suggestion that Ormsby County maintain her own paupers and pay the bill out of her own pocket. Stewart acknowledged the justness of the suggestion, but said Ormsby had bankrupted herself by purchasing a set of fine county buildings, and must therefore beg this favor at the hands of the people of the whole territory. The newspapers would have known all about it, would have demurred, and the members with a sense of responsibility thus forced upon them would have intentionally voted no upon the bill, instead of that particular measure was before the house. Moreover, several other outrageous laws already passed could never have been passed in Virginia. Twenty thousand dollars of the people's money have been asked for to build a seminary in Carson City and presented to two of her citizens. A private affair and no more public in its character than Mr. Chauvel's fencing school here and no more deserving of a member's were not wanting to vote for the measure and to advocate it strongly. The bill would even have passed probably if Messrs. Claggett and Elliott had withheld their earnest opposition to it. Yet a bill to provide for the establishment and maintenance of a public mining college, a polytechnic school, has excited small interest among the members. They forget that a mining education can be best acquired here in the territory. They forget also that the seminary could offer no inducements of a similar nature since our citizens, for many years to come, will prefer to educate their daughters at the inexpensive and efficient seminaries of Benicia, San Jose, and Santa Clara. The seminary bill was resurrected on Saturday, consolidated with the polytechnic bill, thirty thousand dollars of public money added, and again brought before the so, twenty thousand dollars for a building and a tax of one percent on thirty million dollars of property for sundries. A crowd of young gentlemen and ladies in one building might affect the matter of public morals more than that of public education, I think. The school is not located in the bill, but the Ormsby delegation proposed to have it established in Carson. The governor is to appoint the trustees, and they are to fix in a location, I believe. A mining school in a town fifteen miles from a mine would be a beneficial thing in the abstract. Yet this fifty thousand dollar bill may pass, after all. So may the act to purchase Mr. Curry's prison for eighty thousand dollars more. A hundred and thirty thousand dollars to Carson, by way of compensation for the stream of iniquitous private franchises which has been flowing from one or two members of the delegation during the entire session. Could these bills unmodified pass if the people could be thoroughly posted as to their merits by the press? I suppose not. Claggett, Brumfield, Elliott, and two or three other intelligent, industrious, and upright members have saved the credit of the lower house and protected the interests of the people in nearly every case where it has been done at all, but they have received commendation for it. Neither have idle members and members of easy integrity been censured. It is because the people have been left in the dark as to who they ought to praise and who they ought to blame. It was urged last session that Story County was disposed to stow away in her ravenous maw everything that came in her way. That argument lost her the capital by one vote. That argument and one other, which was a written pledge on the part of Ormsby County that if the capital were permitted to remain in Carson, halls should be furnished for the use of the legislature free of charge. Story County offered to erect capital buildings at her own expense and move the officers and other governmental appurtenances within her lines also at her own expense. Let Story County make that proposition today and it will be accepted. It is Ormsby County, now that is, striving with extraordinary energy to swallow all public benefits, not Story, and Ormsby has failed to redeem her pledge for she has charged the legislature five hundred dollars for the use of her courthouse and after making the contract is now dissatisfied because the granting of a greater sum is refused to her. Four members of one branch of the legislature support the specific contract bill because it will result to their personal advantage in sums varying from one thousand dollars to four thousand dollars. More than that number have supported private franchises on personal pecuniary grounds. One member would vote twenty thousand dollars to the seminary because he would reap an advantage in dollars and cents from the passage of the bill. In as much as these statements come from the gentlemen referred to themselves, they are entitled credence. If there could be a merit attached to a wrong motive I think that merit might be considered to be the small amount of intelligence required to keep from telling about it. But all legislators are not diplomats. Would it not be well to place the assembly where the press and through the press the people could look after it? Mr. Claggett gave notice on Saturday of an act to remove the capital and the bill will probably be formally introduced today, Monday. If the people of Story County want the seat of government in their midst, let them signify it promptly and cordially. A looker on. End of Section 15 This is Section 16 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain, Section 16 Territorial Enterprise February 1864, Part 3 Territorial Enterprise February 1864 Legislative Proceedings Carson February 16, 1864 Mayor Eric Joe Goodman, George Birdsell, Young Harris and other solid citizens of Virginia arrived at three this morning having left home at midnight. They came down to see how the capital question was going. Send a lot more down the more the merrier and the greater degree of interest is exhibited. Virginia Seldom does things by halves. She generally comes out strong when she takes hold of a question. Mark. Mr. MacDonald moved a recess. Mr. Claggett hoped the motion would not prevail. He wished to go on with the regular business, introduction of bills, etc. Sensation among opponents to the removal of the capital. The motion was lost. Mr. Claggett moved a call of the house. Numerous objections. The motion was carried. Eyes 7, nose 5. After a moment's delay Mr. Dixon moved that further proceedings under the call be dispensed with. Lost. The absentees, Messers Unger and Curler were brought forward and excused and further proceedings under the call were then dispensed with. Mr. Phillips moved a recess. Lost. Eyes 9, nose 11. Mr. Claggett then, pursuant to previous notice, introduced an act to locate permanently the capital of the territory. At Virginia. That city to provide suitable buildings for five years at her own cost before October 1st, 1864. Otherwise the act to be null and void. The bill was read in answer to numerous calls. Mr. Elliot moved that the rules be suspended and the bill engrossed reading. Mr. Dixon strenuously objected and said he couldn't see the object of rushing this bill through with such indecent haste. Behold the virtuous member from Landar. The heart of the same being in Carson. Mark. Mr. Unger moved to refer the bill to the story delegation with instructions to report forthwith. Mr. Phillips moved to amend by substituting the gold hill portion of the story delegation. Mr. Claggett hoped the amendments would be rejected and Mr. Elliot's motion agreed to, and in his remarks called attention to the fact that Ormsby County made a written pledge last year that she would furnish free halls to the legislature from and after that session, but had violated her pledge in as much as those same county commissioners have charged and received five hundred dollars for the halls now being used by the assembly. Mr. Dixon did not want things rushed so. He wanted things printed. He didn't know anything about things and he wanted time to gain information. He couldn't see what members meant by springing things in this way. Emotion indicative of the distress which a Landar member with his heart in Ormsby must naturally feel when he sees an attempt made to ravish Carson against her will. Mr. Dixon sat down weeping and snuffling and wiping his nose on his coat sleeve. That's a joke of mine. He had a handkerchief with him. Mark. Mr. Tennant called for the reading of Ormsby's pledge and Mr. Claggett got it from Mr. Calder and read it. Mr. Stewart made an eloquent appeal in behalf of Ormsby County and moved as a substitute to the three or four motions already before the house that the bill be referred to a special committee to consist of one member from each county and four motions to report tomorrow morning. Carried on a division, Ayes 13, Knows 4. The speaker appointed the committee as follows. Mrs. Claggett, Stewart, Curler, Dean, Elliott, Gove, MacDonald, Tennant, and Partridge. Territorial Enterprise February 1864 Legislative Proceedings House 37th Day Carson February 17th The column of the Carson Independent makes a full and unqualified apology to me this morning, an entire column of it. He says he was not in his right mind at the time and hardly ever is. Now, when a man comes out like that and owns up with such pleasant candor, I think I ought to accept his apology. Consequently, we will call it square. It is flattering to me to observe that Dallam's editorials display great ability this morning and that the paper shows an extraordinary degree of improvement in every respect. A becoming modesty should characterize us all. It is not for me to say who the credit is due to for the improvements mentioned. I only say I am glad to see the Independent looking healthy and vigorous again. Mark. Petition Mr. Stewart presented a petition signed by most of the responsible citizens of Ornsby, he said, that it had just come to a knowledge of the fact that Ornsby commissioners had pledged free legislative halls and violated that pledge. The petitioners promise that the rent money shall be at once refunded. Mr. Stewart also presented a communication from the Secretary of the Territory, acknowledging the receipt of the full amount of the rent money, five hundred dollars, as paid over to him by the petitioners yesterday. Mr. Stewart moved the reference of the two documents to the special committee on removal of the capital. Mr. McDonald objected that the committee spoken of were ready now to report according to instructions. He moved to lay the papers on the table to be taken up at pleasure. Carried. Question of Privilege. Mr. Stewart rose to a question of privilege and spoke at considerable length upon two editorials in the enterprise in relation to the removal of the capital and a communication upon the same subject in the same paper written by one looker on, but whom Mr. Stewart, with ghastly humor and with relentless and malignant irony, persisted in calling looker on or hanger on, I don't know which. He said the gashary bill for supporting Ormsby County paupers, and which expense the Territory was asked to pay, only amounted to eight hundred and seventy-seven dollars, instead of the large amount stated by the writer of the article. The amount being less, don't you see, the principle is not the same. Of course, certainly. Wherefore why not? The gentleman's question of privilege was well taken. As long as the paupers did not cost or proposed to cost the Territory much it was impertinent in a newspaper to mention it. That is the way Mr. Stewart and I look at it. Mark. Mr. Stewart said the balance of the money was cash paid out of Mr. Cashery's own pocket in the catching of territorial criminals and, of course, as anybody would willingly acknowledge it was the Territory's place to pay it. Mr. Claggett from the Special Committee on the Removal of the Capital presented a majority report favoring the removal. Mr. Stewart from the same committee presented a minority report recommending the indefinite postponement of the bill. Mr. Dixon moved the reference of both reports in the Committee of the Whole. Mr. McDonnell moved to amend by accepting the majority report. On a division Mr. Dixon's motion prevailed, 13 to 11. Mr. Claggett called for the reading of the amendments recommended by the majority report, which was done, stipulates that Virginia shall also furnish supreme courtrooms and clerk's offices for five years. Rep. Mr. Stewart moved that the Ormsby Petition and the Commission from the Secretary of the Territory be referred to Committee of the Whole, carried. Mr. Barclay moved a reconsideration of the vote by which the bill and the above documents were referred to the Committee of the Whole, lost by the following vote. Eyes Mr. Barclay, Claggett, Curler, Elliott, Gillespie, Heaton, McDonnell, Nelson, Riqua, Tennant, Unger, 11. Nose Mr. Brumfield, Calder, Dixon, Fisher, Gove, Hess, Hunter, Jones, Phillips, Stewart, Trask, Mr. Speaker, 13. Mr. Elliott moved that the Capitol Bill be made the special order for tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., lost by the following vote, requires a two-thirds vote to carry. Eyes Mr. Barclay, Calder, Claggett, Elliott, Fisher, Gillespie, Heaton, McDonnell, Nelson, Phillips, Riqua, Nose, Mr. Brumfield, Curler, Dean, Dixon, Gove, Hess, Hunter, Jones, Stewart, and Trask, 10. Mr. Brumfield moved to change the time to 12 o'clock Saturday night, the moment when the legislature adjourns finally. Mr. Claggett opposed the motion, lost by the following vote. Eyes, Mr. Brumfield, Dean, Dixon, Gove, Hess, Hunter, Jones, Stewart, 9. Nose, Mr. Barclay, Calder, Claggett, Curler, Elliott, Fisher, Gillespie, Heaton, McDonnell, Nelson, Phillips, Riqua, Tennant, Trask, Unger, Mr. Speaker, 16. Mr. Claggett said that in order to stop this frittering away of valuable time, and in order to get a test vote, he would move that the bill be considered engrossed and ordered to a third reading, carried by the following vote. Eyes, Mr. Barclay, Brumfield, Gove, Heaton, Hunter, Jones, McDonnell, Nelson, Phillips, Riqua, Stewart, Tennant, Trask, Unger, 20. Nose, Mr. Dean, Dixon, Hess, Mr. Speaker, 4. Mr. McDonnell moved that the bill be read by title only, carried. Final passage of the capital bill. The bill was accordingly read a third time by title, and finally passed by the following vote. Eyes, Mr. Claggett, Curler, Elliott, Gillespie, Heaton, McDonnell, Nelson, Riqua, Tennant, Unger, and Mr. Speaker, 13. Nose, Mr. Brumfield, Dean, Dixon, Fisher, Gove, Hess, Hunter, Jones, Phillips, Stewart, and Trask, 11. Territorial Enterprise, February 1864. Legislative Proceedings, House, 38th Day, Carson, February 18, 1864. The Capital Question Mr. Calder, according to previous notice, moved a reconsideration of the vote of yesterday by which the capital bill passed. He said his objections had been removed by the bond submitted by Mr. Stewart. Mr. Claggett spoke at some length in the subject, in demonstration of the fact that a bond could not be drawn under such circumstances that would be valid in binding. He also argued about newspaper criticism which could be brought to bear on the legislature if the capital were in Virginia. He was especially bitter on the bulletin. Said he supposed it would be the favorite. That paper, which was to have been teeming with mining taxation articles today but was silent, had been purchased again doubtless. As for the advantage a community might derive from the presence of the capital, he couldn't appreciate the capital at Virginia. He was going there to live and he didn't want to be bothered with it. As to buying the capital with the bond now before the house, neither Ormsby County nor the legislature had a right to buy and sell the capital. After some further debate Mr. Gillespie moved to the previous question which motion prevailed and discussion was blockaded. The motion to reconsider was then put and lost. Following Ty vote, clinching the thing as far as the house is concerned. Eyes, Mrs. Brumfield, Dean, Dixon, Fisher, Gove, Hess, Hunter, Jones, Phillips, Stuart, and Trask, eleven. Nose, Mrs. Calder, Claggett, Curler, Elliott, Gillespie, Heaton, McDonald, Nelson, Tennant, Unger, and Mr. Speaker, eleven. Absent, Mr. Riqua, don't know whether he dodged or not. The issue. Mr. Barclay. After the above bully proceedings and on motion of Mr. McDonald, the house took a recess until two-thirty p.m. Thursday afternoon. The sergeant at Arms brought in Messers Dean, Phillips, Tennant, Jones, Gillespie, and Unger. Mr. Dean had been talking over family matters. Mr. Phillips had been engineering a lawsuit. Mr. Tennant had been on committee business. Messers Jones and Gillespie were playing billiards. And Mr. Unger's child was sick, and he had been playing marbles with her. Mr. Brumfield moved that Mr. Unger be granted leave of absence to continue playing marbles with her. Laughter. A motion to find Mr. Gillespie a box of cigars for engaging in unholy practice of playing billiards was lost by a tie vote, ten to ten. Notwithstanding, that youth has a remittance at Wells Fargo from his creditors in Virginia, and which he denied the same. Mark. The absentees were all excused. Territorial Enterprise, February 1864 Legislative Proceedings, Friday afternoon. Carson, February 19th. Mr. Gillespie moved to reduce the Sergeant-at-Arms salary to nine dollars per day, and strike out that portion which gives the reporter seven dollars per day. Mr. Barclay said Mr. Gillespie was not so economical when he presented his own bill. Mr. Fisher said he ought to remember the verse, the mercy I show, that mercy show to me. Considering the mercy shown him by the house his opposition comes with a bad grace from him. I feel called upon to observe that Mr. Gillespie got huffy. I would prefer to call it by a milder term, but I cannot conscientiously do so. Mr. Gillespie got huffy. Rep. After some further debate Mr. Gillespie explained that there was no vindictiveness in him. All his motives were dictated from on high, from on high, sir. Tremendous applause. He went on and made further and even more aggravatedly absurd remarks. Mr. Barclay said it was customary to pay the reporters. Mr. Gillespie's motion in relation to the reporters was lost by the following vote. Eyes, Mr. Claggett, Gillespie, Hess, Hunter, Nelson, Phillips, Nose, Mrs. Barclay, Brumfield, Calder, Curler, Dean, Dixon, Fisher, Gove, Heaton, Jones, McDonald's, Stewart, Unger, and Mr. Speaker, 15. Counsel, afternoon session, 39th day, Carson, February 19th, removal of the Capitol. Mr. Daggett moved that the Capitol bill be taken from the table. Mr. Cottington moved that the bill be indefinitely postponed. Upon the latter's motion a lengthy discussion ensued. Mr. Daggett opposing, and Mrs. Currie, Cottington, Sturdovant, Negus, and Hall supporting it. Mr. Currie presented a communication from certain citizens of Carson City, binding themselves in the sum of twenty thousand dollars to furnish suitable halls and rooms for the legislature and territorial offices free of cost, provided that the Capitol be allowed to remain at Carson City while Nevada remained a territory. At the close of the debate the motion to indefinitely postpone was carried by the following vote. Eyes, Mr. Cottington, Currie, Negus, Sturdovant, Waldron, Mr. President. Nose, Mr. Daggett, Flag, Shelton, Thompson. Territorial Enterprise, February 1864. Legislative proceedings. House, last day, 40th. Carson, February 20. The Chaplain not being present Mr. Gillespie suggested that the Virginia reporter be requested to officiate in his place. By courtesy of the house the Virginia reporter was allowed to explain that he was not on it. Excuse Mr. Phillips moved a call of the house. Carried. Mr. Gillespie was produced before the bar of the house. Mr. Brumfield moved as the heaviest punishment that could be inflicted upon him that he be denied the comfort of making a single motion after. Mr. Barclay moved that he be fined five dollars and the same be paid to the sergeant at arms. Mr. Phillips moved to amend by contributing the money to the sanitary fund. The motions were lost. Mr. Dixon and Hunter were brought in and fined a box of cigars each. The sergeant at arms said Mr. Daggett was sick in bed. The speaker said he must come anyhow. Mr. Fisher wanted the editor of the independence sent for. After. The speaker said he did not think Mr. Daggett needed purging. After. Mr. Heaton came forward and was excused. Notice. Mr. Stewart gave notice of an act to permanently locate the capital on the south side of Captain Prey's sawmill on Lake Tahoe in Douglas County. Sensation. But nothing further appears in the record concerning this proposed bill. H.N.S. A message was received from the council asking the return of the bill for the removal of the capital. Another of those grave council jokes. Rep. In view of these pretentious symptoms, a call of the house was ordered. After calling the roll Mr. Stewart moved that further proceedings under the call be dispensed with. The chair decided the motion carried. A motion to indefinitely postpone the council message was lost. I.S. 9. The motion to comply with the council's request carried. I.S. 11. 8. Confusion and contention, so to speak. The vote was even taken over again with the following result. I.S. Mr. Barclay Calder, Claggett, Elliott, Gillespie, Heaton, McDonald, Nelson, Tennant, Uncker, and Mr. Speaker, 11. N.S. Mr. Brumfield, Kerler, Dean, Dixon, Nask, 11. Mr. Speaker Pro Tem, Mr. Fisher, decided the motion lost. Mr. Barclay wished to remind our worthy reporter that he didn't dodge the question this time. His head is right. I cannot even swear that he dodged it before with malice aforethought. Good authority says his absence before was unavoidable. I believe it. A man who votes as firmly as Mr. Barclay does for reporters against log-rolling parties would be apt to stick to his points upon all occasions when the same was possible. How's that? Rep. Saturday afternoon. Council billed to amend the act to prohibit gambling. The bill was read. The clerk pronounces the names of all games glibly and without any perceptible foreign accent. Rep. Saturday night. Mr. Stewart drew his everlasting toll-road on the house again. This has been the old regular result of every five minutes idleness today. Rep. Third House. The institution resolved itself into a respectable body, as expressed in the above heading. Mr. Thomas Hanna was elected assistant clerk and came forward and took the oath. Mr. Claggett introduced a voluminous bill for the relief of certain citizens of Ormsby County. It appropriates Currie's Warm Springs, gives it to these parties as a prize for a swimming school, and never mind, I will cease reporting and listen to the fun. Rep. The independent of this morning touched upon Mr. Claggett's seeming repugnance to the use of the comb. On this hint Mr. Barkley and other members of the house had procured a prodigious wooden comb and conferred upon your servant the honour of presenting it. Rep. Mr. Mark Twain inquired if testimonials were still in order and received affirmative reply from the speaker. He arose in his place and addressed Mr. Claggett as follows. Never mind publishing it again, I had no speech prepared and therefore I was obliged to infringe upon etiquette to some extent, that is to say, I had to take Mr. Fisher's speech apologizing to that gentleman, of course, and read it to Mr. Claggett merely saying comb where the word cane occurred and legislator in the place of parliamentarian and slinging in a few as it were and so to speaks, etc., to add grace and vigor to the composition. I think I must be a pretty good reader. The audience appeared to admire Fisher's speech more when I delivered it than they did when he delivered it himself. Mr. Claggett received the testimonial and replied felicitously, as he is want to do. He concluded by saying it was a college practice to give the ugliest student a pen knife instructions to give it to a man uglier than himself, if he should ever find one. He liked the idea. He thought it his duty to confer the comb upon some person whose hair needed its offices more than his own. He passed it over to Mr. Hunter of Washu, applause and laughter. Baskets of wine were now brought in, with the compliments of Theodore Winters, president of the Washu Agricultural, Mining and Mechanical Society, and the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Hunter, by request, came forward and read a long, solemn, magnificent, highfalutin memorial about the mind's religion, chemistry, social etiquette, agriculture, and other matter proper to a document of this kind. The house, a plethora of things, a plethora of things, a plethora of things, a plethora of this kind. The house applauded tempestuously and laughed. They laughed immoderately. Why they did it I cannot imagine, for I never heard an essay like this one before in my life. Now that is honest. Mr. Hunter finally got angry and refused to finish reading the discourse, but when it was explained to him that only lobby members had been laughing all the time, he was satisfied, of course. Mr. Stewart, from the special committee, reported that the Governor had no further communications to make. Mr. Elliott offered a resolution that the House adjourned, signed a die at 11.30 p.m. Mr. MacDonald, true to his old regular motion, to adjourn, moved to amend by making the hour at 12 p.m., the motion prevailed, and from this time until midnight fun ran high. At 12 p.m. Mr. Speaker declared the House adjourned, signed a die. The members went up to the Governors and had a good time for an hour. The old man is as competent as any that walks to make an evening pass pleasantly. Wine, music, anecdotes, and sentiments composed the program. At 2 a.m. the exhilarated members closed the frolic by serenading the speaker at the White House. This is section 17 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain, section 17, Territorial Enterprise, April 1864. Territorial Enterprise, April 20, 1864, frightful accident to Dan Dequill. Our time-honored confere, Dan, met with a disastrous accident yesterday while returning from American City on a vicious Spanish horse, the result of which accident is that at the present writing he is confined to his bed and suffering great bodily pain. He was coming down the road at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, as stated in his will which he made shortly after the accident, and on turning a sharp corner he suddenly hoeved in sight of a horse standing square across the channel. He went for the starboard and put his helm down instantly, but too late after all. He was swinging to port and before he could straighten down he swept like an avalanche against the transom of the strange craft. His larbored knee coming in contact with the rudder post of the adversary, Dan was wrenched from his saddle and thrown some three hundred yards, according to his own statement, made in his will above mentioned. He was all ad-ground and bursting himself open from the chin to the pit of the stomach. His head was also caved in out of sight and his hat was afterward extracted in a bloody and damaged condition from between his lungs. He must have bounced end for end after he struck first, because it is evident he received a concussion from the rear that broke his heart. One of his legs was jammed up in his body nearly to his throat and the mutilated that it pulled out when they attempted to lift him into the hearse which we had sent to the scene of the disaster under the general impression that he might need it. Both arms were indiscriminately broken up until they were jointed like a bamboo. The back was considerably fractured and bent into the shape of a rail fence. Aside from these injuries, however, he sustained no other damage. They brought some of him home in the hearse and the fence on a dray. His first remark showed that the powers of his great mind had not been impaired by the accident, nor his profound judgment destroyed. He said he wouldn't have cared if it had been anybody but himself. He then made his will, after which he set to work with that earnestness and singleness of purpose, which have always distinguished him, to abuse the assemblage of anxious hash-house proprietors who had called with his customary promptness and impartiality. Dan may have exaggerated the above details in some respects, but he charged us to report them thus, and it is a source of genuine pleasure to us to have the opportunity of doing it. Our noble old friend is recovering fast, and what is left of him will be around the brewery again today, just as usual. Territorial Enterprise April 1864 An Infamous Proceeding by Dan Dequille Some three days since, in returning to this city from American flat, we had the misfortune to be thrown from a fiery untamed steed of Spanish extraction, a very strong extract, too. Our knee was sprained by our fall and we were a day or two confined to our room, of course, knowing little of what was going on in the great world outside. Mark Twain, our confrere and a man in whom we trusted, was our only visitor during our seclusion. We saw some actions of his that almost caused us to suspect him of contemplating treachery towards us, but it was not until we regained in some degree the use of our main limb that we discovered the full extent, the infamousness of this wretched treasonable and inhuman plottings. He wrote such an account of our accident as would lead the public to believe that we were injured by the scope of recovery. The next day he tied a small piece of second-hand crepe about his hat and, putting on a legubrious look, went to the probate court and, getting down on his knees, commenced praying—it was the first time he ever prayed for anything or to anybody—for letters of administration on our estate. Before going to the court to pray, he had stuffed the principal part of our estate, the pewtering-tom, into his vest pocket. Also had secured our toothbrush and had been using it a whole day. He had on our only clean shirt and best socks, also was sporting our cane and smoking our mershawm. But what most showed his heartlessness and utter depravity was the disposition he made of our boots and coat. When we missed these we applied to Marshall Cook. The Marshall said he thought he went on to say that, for some time past he had noticed the existence of a suspicious intimacy between Twain and a nigger saloon-keeper who had a deadfall on North B. Street. Proceeding to this place he found that he was correct in his conjecture. Twain had taken our boots and coat to the darky and traded them off for a bottle of vile whiskey, with which he got drunk. And when the police were about to snatch everything that he was overcome for the untimely death of poor Dan, by this dodge he escaped the lock-up, but if he does not shortly give up our pewter tinctum stock, which is a fabulous veil, shell out our toothbrush and take off our socks and best shirt, he will not so easily escape the territorial prison. P.S. we have just learned that he stole the crepe he tied about his hat from the city's engine-house South B. Street. Territorial Enterprise, April 1864. Mark Twain takes a lesson in the manly art, by Dan Dequill. We may have said some harsh things of Mark Twain, but now we take them all back. We feel like weeping for him. Yes, we would fall on his breast and mingle our tears with his but that manly shirt front of his, air, now a bloody swole into such an extent that to fall on his breast would be an utter impossibility. Yesterday he brought back all our things and promised us that he intended hereafter to lead a virtuous life. This was in the forenoon. In the afternoon he commenced the career of virtue he had marked out for himself and took a first lesson in boxing. Once he had the big gloves on, he imagined that he weighed a ton and could whip his weight here. He waded into a professor of the manly art like one of Howlin's rotary batteries, and the professor, in a playful way he was, when he wants to take the conceit out of forward pupils, let one fly straight out from the shoulder and busted Mr. Twain in the snoot, sending him reeling not exactly to grass, but across a bench, with two bountiful streams of clarrits spouting from his nostrils. At first his nose was smashed out and covered nearly the whole of his face and then looked like a large piece of tripe, but it was finally scraped into some resemblance of a nose when he rushed away for surgical advice. Pools of gore covered the floor of the club room where he fought and he left a bloody trail for half a mile through the city. It is estimated that he lost several hugs-heads of blood in all. He procured a lot of sugar of lead and other cooling lotions of balance of the day in applying them with towels and sponges. After dark he ventured forth with his nose swollen to the size of several junk-bottles, a vast, inflamed and pulpy old snoot, to get advice about having it amputated. None of his friends recognize him now and he spends his time in solitude contemplating his ponderous vermilion smeller in a two-bit mirror which he bought for that purpose. We cannot comfort him, for we know his nose will never be a nose again. It always was somewhat lopsided. Now it is a perfect lump of blubber. Since the above was in type the doctors have decided to amputate poor Mark Twain's smeller. A new one is to be made for him of a quarter of veal. Territorial Enterprise, April 28, 1864. Letter from Mark Twain, Carson City, April 25. Territorial Enterprise. The road from Virginia to Carson, as travelled by Wilson's coaches, is in excellent condition, the saying being, neither muddy nor very dusty. The stages do not even stop to rest on the chalk hill. We came by the penitentiary, but I did not consider it worthwhile to stop at the institution more than a few minutes in as much as I had been in it before. Bob Howlin, the warden, had sufficient confidence in him to leave him there. He is probably there yet. Noti Bene, when you journey in this direction, stop at the penitentiary and examine the native silverfish on exhibition there in the aquarium. They are caught in the warm springs. They are very like goldfish, only they are longer and not so wide, and are white instead of yellow, and also differ from goldfish to some extent in the respect that they do not resemble them. This description may sound little incoherent, but then I have set it down just as I got it from Bob Howlin in whom I have every confidence. Mr. Currie is erecting a handsome stone edifice at warm springs to be used as a hotel. I heard in the stage, and also since I arrived here, that an organized effort will shortly be made to rescue Jane's, the murderer, from the Story County Jail. Whether it be true or not, it may be true. The Supreme Court began its session here today and adjourned over until tomorrow after hearing arguments for a new trial of Johnson for killing Horace Smith. The ground upon which a new trial is sought is that some testimony was admitted upon the first trial in the District Court which should have been ruled out. I have spoken with District Attorney Corson on the subject, and he will not succeed. From present appearances I think Alderman Earl will hold his seat for some time yet, if the sacred ambition to sit in a high place in spite of law and gospel to the contrary shall continue to animate him. As it has already been decided to submit his case through the District and City Attorneys to the District Court and the long session now anticipated for the Supreme Court will doubtless delay his trial it would have been better wouldn't it for the Council to have declared his seat vacant and allowed him to take legal steps for its restitution himself. Governor Nye has not yet returned. It is said he will start back to Carson tomorrow. Acting Governor Clemens made a requisition upon H. F. Rice Esquire, a day or two since for offices for the Secretary of the Territory, rent free in accordance with the contract issued by certain citizens during the late session of the Legislature when the subject of removing the capital to Virginia was agitated. The requisition was duly honored and in the course of the week handsome offices will be fitted up in the second story of the North End of the County Buildings for the use of the Secretary and his clerks. Mr. Colburn or Coleman or whatever his name is the young man with a penchant for trying unique experiments and accused of committing a rape on an infant here three years ago is in trouble again. A young girl who alleges that he seduced her in California some time ago is over here suing him for damages in the probate court. Your carrier here neglects some of his subscribers as often as two or three times a week sometimes or else his papers are stolen after he leaves them. Let the matter be attended to. The people hunger after Dan's the ladies gave a festival here last Friday for the benefit of my chronic brick church. The net proceeds amounted to upwards of five hundred dollars and will be applied to furnishing the edifice which is still in a high state of preservation and is gradually but surely becoming really ornamental. That is the church for the benefit of which I delivered a governor's message once and consequently I still take a religious interest in its welfare. I could sling a strong prayer for its prosperity occasionally if I thought it would do any good. However perhaps it wouldn't. It would certainly be taking chances anyhow. The ladies are making extraordinary preparations for a grand fancy-dress ball to come off in the county buildings here on the fifth of May for the benefit of the great St. Louis sanitary fair. The most pecuniary results are anticipated from it and I imagine that is being taken in the matter. The ladies of Gold Hill had better be looking to their laurels lest the fame of their recent brilliant effort in the sanitary line be dimmed somewhat by the beneficial achievements of this forthcoming ball. The Infernal Telegraph Monopoly saddled upon this territory by the last legislature in the passage of that infamous special Humboldt Telegraph Bill and afterwards clinched by a still more rascally enactment on the same occasion is bearing its fruits and the people here as well as at Virginia are beginning to wince under illegal and exorbitant telegraphic charges. They double the tariff allowed by law and a man has to submit to the imposition because he cannot afford the time in trouble of going to law for a trifle of five or ten dollars notwithstanding the comfort and satisfaction he would derive from worrying the monopolists. If you have received the Governor's signature last winter you will recollect the Telegraph company doubled their prices for dispatches to and from San Francisco and that is not the worst they have done if common report be true. This common report says the Telegraph is used by its owners to aid them in stock gambling schemes. I recollect that on the night the jury went out in the Savage and North Potosi case the San Francisco dispatch failed to come to hand and the reason assigned was that a dispatch of three thousand words was being sent from Virginia to San Francisco and the line could not be used for other messages. Now that Telegraph company may have made money by trading in North Potosi on that occasion but who is young enough to believe they ever got two dollars and a half for that volumous imagery dispatch? That Telegraph is a humbug. The company are allowed to charge three dollars and fifty cents for the first ten words across the continent and must submit to a considerable deduction on longer dispatches but they take the liberty of increasing that rate some thirty-five percent and people have to put up with it. Colonel Cradlebow tells me that last year when he was a delegate at Washington from this territory they always charged him more for dispatches sent here than if they went through to California. The government pays the Overland Telegraph company forty thousand dollars a year with the understanding that government messages are to pass over the lines free of charge but I know of several dispatches of this character that were not permitted to leave the Telegraph offices until they were paid for. It is properly the district attorney's business to look after these Telegraph expectulators and that officer ought to be reminded of the fact. The grand jury here will endeavor to make it interesting to the Telegraph company. Gillespie's monument, the ratty old agricultural fair Shanti, still rears its ghastly form in the plaza and serves to remind me of that statement's extraordinary career in the House of Representatives. It consisted in saving to his country the usual but extravagant sum of eight or ten dollars a day extra pay to legislative reporters making a speech in favor of the Sierra Seminary Bill which had the effect of killing that really worthy measure. All through the session Gillespie was mighty handy about smashing the life out of any little incipient law that he chose to befriend with one of his calamitous speeches. His vote was patent, too. His nay invariably passed the bill and his I was the deadest thing. My language may be unrefined but it has the virtue of being uncommonly strong. But that monument in the plaza looks as hungry as Gillespie does himself and much more unsightly and I look for one of them to eat the other some day if they ever get close enough together. I depart for Silver Mountain in the Esmeralda stage at seven o'clock tomorrow morning. It is the early bird that catches the worm but I would not get up at that time a thousand worms if I were not obliged to. Mark Twain. Territorial Enterprise April 28th or 30th, 1864. Fragment of original. Dan reassembled. The idea of a plebeian like Dan supposing he could ever ride a horse. He! Why, even the cats and the chickens laughed when they saw him go by. Of course he would be thrown off. Of course any well-bred horse wouldn't let a common underbred person like Dan stay on his back. When they gathered him up he was just a bag of scraps but they put him together and you'll find him at his old place in the Enterprise office next week still laboring under the delusion that he's a newspaper man. End of Section 17