 Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain Section 1. Territorial Enterprise, October 1862. Territorial Enterprise, Nevada Territory. Territorial Enterprise, October 1, 1862. Local Column. A gale. About seven o'clock Tuesday evening, September 30th, a sudden blast of wind picked up a shooting gallery, two lodging houses, and a drugstore from their tall wooden stilts, and set them down again some ten or twelve feet back of their original location, with such a degree of roughness as to jostle their insides into a sort of chaos. There were many guests in the lodging houses at the time of the accident, but it is pleasant to reflect that they seized their carpet sacks and vacated the premises with an alacrity suited to the occasion. No one hurt. The Indian Troubles on the Overland Route. Twelve or fifteen emigrant wagons arrived here on Monday evening, and all but five have moved on towards California yesterday. One of the five wagons, which will remain in the city, is in charge of a man from Story County, Iowa, who started across the plains, on the fifth of May last, in company with a large train composed principally of emigrants from his own section. From him we learn the following particulars. Even in the vicinity of Raft River, this side of Fort Hall, the train was attacked, in broad daylight, by a large body of snake Indians. The emigrants, taken entirely by surprise, for they had apprehended no trouble, made but a feeble resistance, and retreated, with a loss of six men and one woman of their party. The Indians also captured the teams belonging to thirteen wagons, together with a large number of loose cattle and horses. The names of those killed in the affray are as follows. Charles Bullwinkle from New York, William Motz, George Adams, and Elizabeth Adams, and three others whose names our informant had forgotten. The survivors were overtaken on the afternoon by a train numbering a hundred and eleven wagons which brought them through to Humboldt. They occasionally discovered the dead bodies of emigrants by the roadside. At one time twelve corpses were found, at another four, and at another two, all minus their scalps. They also saw the wrecks of many wagons destroyed by the Indians. Shortly after the sufferers by the fight recorded above had joined the large train, it was also fired into, in the night, by a party of snake Indians, but the latter, finding themselves pretty warmly received, drew off without taking a scalp. About a week before these events transpired, a party of emigrants numbering forty persons was attacked near city rocks by the same tribe of uncivilized pirates. Five young ladies were carried off, and it is thought women and children in all to the number of fifteen. All the men were killed except one who made his escape and arrived at Humboldt about the twentieth of September. This train was called the Methodist train, which was not altogether inappropriate, since the whole party note down and began to pray as soon as the attack was commenced. Every train which has passed over that portion of the route in the vicinity of city rocks since the first of August has had trouble with the Indians. In our informant left Humboldt several wagons had just arrived whose sides and covers had been transformed into magnified nutmeg-graters by Indian bullets. The snakes corralled the train, when a fight ensued, which lasted forty-eight hours. The whites cut their way out, finally, and escaped. We could not learn the number of killed and wounded at this battle. More Indian Troubles. After L. F. Yates, who arrived in this city a few days since from Pike's Peak, has given us the following particulars of a fight his train had on the eighth of last August, about one-and-a-half miles this side of the junction of the lander's cut-off and Fort Bridge roads. Their train consisted of fifteen wagons and forty men, with a number of women and children. The train was attacked while passing along a ravine by a party of Indians being concealed in among a thick grove of poplar-bushes. When the attack commenced, most of the front wagons were some eighty rods in advance. They formed in Corral, and entrenched behind their wagons, refused the slightest aid to those who were struggling with the savages in the rear. The party thus left to fight their way through the ambushed Indians numbered but nine men, and there were but four guns with which to maintain the battle. Five of the nine were killed, and one wounded. The names of the killed are as follows, Parmalie James Steele, James A. Hart, Rufus C. Mitchell from Central City, Colorado Territory, and McMahon, Residence Unknown. The name of the man wounded is Frank Lyman. He was shot through the lungs, recovered. The thirty-one men who were hidden snugly behind their wagons, with a single honorable exception, refused to render the slightest assistance to those who were fighting for their lives and the lives of their families so near them. Although they had twenty-seven guns, they refused to lend a single gun, when at one time four men went to ask assistance. The cowards all clung to their arms and lay trembling behind their wagons. A man named Perry, or Barry, was the only one who had sufficient courage to attempt to render his struggling friends any assistance. He was shot in the face before reaching the rear wagons and was carried back to the corral. The fight lasted nearly two hours, and some seven or eight Indians were killed as at various times they charged out of the bushes on their ponies. Several Indian horses were killed, and at length the few left alive fought through to where their thirty heroic friends were corralled, leaving the killed and two wagons in possession of the Indians. Thirty bigger cowards and meaner men than those above mentioned never crossed the plains. We are certain that every man of them left the States for fear of being drafted into the army. Federal Enterprise, October 4, 1862. Petrified Man A petrified man was found some time ago in the mountains south of gravelly Ford. Every limb and feature of the stony mummy was perfect, not even accepting the left leg, which has evidently been a wooden one during the lifetime of the owner, which, lifetime, by the way, came to a close about a century ago, in the opinion of a savant who has examinedly defunct. The body was in a sitting posture and leaning against a huge mass of croppings. The attitude was pensive, the right thumb resting against the side of the nose. The left thumb partially supported the chin, the forefinger pressing the inner corner of the left eye and drawing it partly open. The right eye was closed, and the fingers of the right hand spread apart. This strange freak of nature created a profound sensation in the vicinity, and our informant states that by request, Justice Sewell, or soul, of Humboldt City, had once proceeded to the spot and held an inquest on the body. The verdict of the jury was that deceased came to his death from protracted exposure, etc. The people of the neighborhood volunteered to bury the poor unfortunate and were even anxious to do so. But it was discovered, when they attempted to remove him, that the water which had dripped upon him for ages from the crag above had coursed down his back and deposited a limestone sediment under him which had glued him to the bedrock upon which he sat, as with a cement of adamant, and Judge S. refused to allow the charitable citizens to blast him from his position. The opinion expressed by his honour that such a course would be little less than sacrilege was eminently just and proper. Everybody goes to see the stoned man, as many as three hundred having visited the hardened creature during the past five or six weeks. Territorial Enterprise late October 1862. The Spanish Mine. This comprises one hundred feet of the great Comstock lead and is situated in the midst of the Oferclaims. We visited it yesterday in company with Mr. Kingman, Assistant Superintendent, and our impression is that stout-legged people with an affinity to darkness may spend an hour or so there very comfortably. A confused sense of being buried alive and a vague consciousness of stony dampness and huge timbers and tortuous caverns and bottomless holes with endless ropes hanging down into them and narrow ladders climbing in a short twilight through the colossal lattice work and suddenly perishing in midnight, and workmen poking about in the gloom with twinkling candles is all or nearly all that remains to us of our experience in the Spanish Mine. Yet for the information of those who may wish to go down and see how things are conducted in the realms beyond the jurisdiction of daylight, we are willing to tell a portion of what we know about it. Entering the Spanish Tunnel in A Street you grope along by candlelight for two hundred and fifty feet, but you need not count your steps. Keep on going until you come to a horse. This horse works a whim used for hoisting ore from the infernal regions below, and from long service in the dark his coat has turned to a beautiful black color. You are now upon the confines of the ledge, and from this point several drifts branch out to different portions of the mine. Without stopping to admire these gloomy grottoes you descend a ladder and halt upon a landing where you are fenced in with an openwork labyrinth of timbers some eighteen inches square, extending in front of you and behind you, and far away above you and below you, until they are lost in darkness. These timbers are framed in squares or stations five feet each way, one above another, and so neatly put together that there is not room for the insertion of a knife-blade where they intersect. You are apt to wonder where the forest around you came from, and how they managed to get it into that hole, and what sums of money it must have cost, and so forth and so on, and you wind up with a confused notion that the man who designed it all had a shining talent for sawmills on a large scale. He could build the framework beautifully at any rate, whereupon you desist from further speculation and waltz down a very narrow winding staircase, and the further you squirm down it, the dizzier you get, and the more those open timber-squares seem to whizz by you until you feel as if you are falling through a well-ventilated shot-tower with the windows all open. Finally after you have gone down ninety-four feet you touch bottom again and find yourself in the midst of the sawmill yet, with the regular accomplishments of workmen and windlesses and glimmering candles and et cetera as usual. Now you can stoop and dodge about under the stations and get your clothes dirty, and drip hot candle-grease all over your hands, and find out how they take those timbers and commence at the top of the mine, and build them together like mighty window sashes all the way down to the bottom of it. And if, after coming down that tipsy staircase, you can by any possibility make out to understand it, then you can render the information useful above ground by building the third story of your house to suit you first, and continuing its erection wrong and foremost until you wind up with the cellar. You will also find out that at this depth the lead is forty-six feet wide, with its sides walled and weather-boarded as compactly and substantially as those of a jail. And here and there in little recesses the walls of the lead are laid bare, showing the blue silver lines traced upon the white quartz after the fashion of variegated marble. This in places you know, while others, where the ore is richer, the blue predominates and the white is scarcely perceptible. In these various recesses a swarm of workmen are constantly conveying wheel-barrow loads of quartz to the windlesses of all shades of value, from that worth seventy-five dollars to that worth three thousand dollars per ton. And if you should chance to be in better luck than we were, you may happen to stumble on a small specimen worth a dollar and a half a pound. Such things have occurred in the Spanish mine before now. However, as we were saying, you are now one hundred and seventy feet under the ground, and you can move about and see how the ore is quarried and moved from one place to another and how systematically the great mine is arranged and worked altogether, and how unsystematically the Mexicans used to carry on business down there, and you may get into a bucket, if you please, and extend your visit to the confines of purgatory, so to speak, if you feel anxious to do so. But, as this would afford you nothing more than a glance at the bottom of a drain shaft, you could better employ your time and talents in climbing that corkscrew and seeking daylight again. And before leaving the mouth of the tunnel, you would do well to visit the office of Mr. Beckwith, the superintendent, where you can see a small cabinet of specimens from the mine which has been pronounced by scientific travellers to be one of the richest collections of the kind in the world. We shall have occasion to speak of the steam hoisting apparatus, now in process of erection by the Spanish company, at an early day. End of Section 1. This is Section 2 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain, Section 2, Territorial Enterprise, November, December, 1862. Territorial Enterprise, November 1st through 10th, 1862, Local Column. The Petrified Man. Mr. Herr Weißnicht has just arrived in Virginia City from the humble mines and regions beyond. He brings with him the head and one foot of the Petrified Man, lately found in the mountains near Gravely Ford. A skillful assayer has analysed a small portion of dirt found under the nail of the great toe and pronounces the man to have been a native of the kingdom of New Jersey. As a trace of speculation is still discernible in the left eye, it is thought the man was on his way to what is now the Washoe Mining Region for the purpose of locating the Comstock. The remains brought in are to be seen in a neat glass case in the third story of the library building, where they have been temporarily placed by Mr. Weißnicht for the inspection of the curious, and where they may be examined by anyone who will take the trouble to visit them. Territorial Enterprise, December 1862. Letter from Carson City. December 5, 1862. Editor, Enterprise. If your readers are not aware of the fact, I take pleasure in informing them that the Nevada Supreme Court will meet in Carson City on the thirteenth of the present month, and in connection with this intelligence I present the following item, giving it in the language in which I received it for fear of mistakes. For its terms are darkly, mysteriously legal, and I have not the most distant conception of what they mean, or what they are intended to have reference to. Thus, quote, William Alfred versus Nathaniel doing et al's, ordered, filed, denying, re-hearing, unquote. And I wash my hands of the matter. I don't know, Alfred, and I don't know doing, and I don't know et al's. And I never heard of either or any of these gentlemen until this very day, when the clerk of the Supreme Court brought me this written nightmare, which has been distressing me up to the present moment. If it is a charge, I do not make it. If it is an insinuation, I do not endorse it. If its expression less exterior conceals a slur, I do not father it. I simply publish the document as I received it, and take no responsibility upon myself for the consequences. I do not wish these gentlemen any harm. I would not willingly and knowingly do them the slightest possible wrong. Yet, if they ought to be filed, mind, I say, if they ought to be filed, if it is entirely right and proper that they should be filed, if, in the opinion of the people of this common wealth, it is deemed necessary to file them, then I say, let them be filed and be d—. Here the manuscript was illegible, editor. Now you have the document and the facts in the case, and if there be a fault in the matter it is the clerks, and I know what that Chinaman did it for. If you have forgotten the circumstance, I said in a letter that he had been cast for a Chinaman in the recent Tableau here. The Roads and Highways bill was considered in committee of the whole in the house yesterday. A clause in it provides for a tax of four dollars on each voter or a day's work on the roads in lieu thereof. Story was relieved from the payment of this tax, which was entirely proper, since there is not a free road in that whole county. These grave and reverent legislators relax a little occasionally, and indulge in chaste and refined jollity to a small extent. Colonel Williams is engineering a certain toll road franchise through the house, and the other night he was laying before the committee on internal improvements some facts in the case, pending which he had occasion to illustrate his theme with pencil and paper, and the result was a map which, in view of its grandeur of conception, elegance of design and masterly execution, I feel justified in styling miraculous. Mr. Lovejoy, chairman of the committee, captured it, incorporated it into his report, and presented it before the house yesterday, thus. Report of the committee on internal improvements. Map of Colonel Williams' road, quote, from a certain point to another place, unquote, as drawn by himself, and which was conclusive evidence to your committee. Your committee would ask that it be referred to Colonel Howard of the Story County delegation, signed Lovejoy, chairman, Ackley, secretary. It was so well referred by the speaker. Colonel Howard will report today. I have procured a copy of the forthcoming document and transmit it herewith. Report on Williams' map. Your committee, consisting of a solitary but very competent individual to whom was referred Colonel Williams' road from a certain point to another place, would beg most respectfully to report. Your committee has had under consideration, said map. The word map is derived from the Spanish word mapa, or the Portuguese word mappa. Says the learned lexicographer Webster, quote, in geography a map is a representation of the surface of the earth, or any part of it, drawn on paper or other material, exhibiting the lines of latitude and longitude, and the positions of countries, kingdoms, states, mountains, rivers, etc., unquote. Your committee, with due respect to the projector of the road in question, would designate what is styled in the report a map, an unnatural and diabolical scroll, devoid of form, regularity, or meaning. Your committee has in times past witnessed the wild irregularity of the footprints of birds of prey upon a moist seashore. Your committee was struck with a strong resemblance of the map under discussion to some one of said footprints. Your committee, during his juvenile days, has watched a frantic and indiscreet fly emerge from a pot or vase containing molasses. Your committee has seen said fly a light upon a scrap of virgin paper, and leave thereon a wild medley of wretched and discordant tracks. Your committee was struck with the wonderful resemblance of said fly-tracks to the map now before your committee. Yet your committee believes that the map in question has some merit as an abstract hieroglyphic. Your committee therefore recommends, the council concurring, that the aforesaid map be photographed, and that one copy thereof, framed in sagebrush, be hung over the speaker's chair, and that another copy be donated to the council, to be suspended over the chair of the president of that body, as a memento of the artistic skill and graphic genius of one of our most distinguished members, a guide to all future payutes, all of which is respectfully submitted. Howard, Chairman, and Soul Committee. A resolution passed the House yesterday, authorizing the Secretary of the Territory to purchase and preserve files of the various papers published in the Territory. Territorial Enterprise, December 1862. Letter from Carson City, December 12, 1862. Ormsby heads the world on the turnip question. The vegetable upon which I base this boast was grown in the turnip garden of Mr. S. D. Fairchild back here towards King's Canyon in the suburbs, say about eight squares from the plaza. Mr. Fairchild left it at the branch of the enterprise office in Carson a day or two since. The monster was accurately surveyed with the following result. Circumference, forty inches, weight, a fraction over eighteen pounds. Colonel Williams of the House, who says I mutilate his eloquence, addressed a note to me this morning to the effect that I had given his constituents wrong impressions concerning him, and nothing but blood would satisfy him. I sent him that turnip on a hand-barrow, requesting him to extract from it a sufficient quantity of blood to restore his equilibrium, which I regarded as a very excellent joke. Colonel Williams ate it raw during the usual prayer by the chaplain. To sum up, eighteen pounds of raw turnip is sufficient for an ordinary lunch. Colonel Williams had his feet on his desk at the time. He beamed. Therefore I think his satisfaction was complete. Carson also boasts the only pork-packing establishment in Nevada Territory. Mr. George T. Davis is the proprietor thereof, and he has already killed and packed two hundred and fifty fine hogs this winter. This will be cheering news to the young lady who told me the other evening that she loved pork. The pleasantest affair of the season, perhaps, although not the most gorgeous, was the candy-pool at the White House a few nights ago. The candy had not finished cooking at nine o'clock, so they concluded to dance awhile. They always dance here when they have time. I have noticed it frequently. I think it is a way they have. They got a couple of able-bodied fiddlers and went at it. They opened with a dance called the Plain Quadril, which is very simple and easy and is performed in this wise. All you have to do is to stand up in the middle of the floor, being careful to get your lady on your right-hand side and yourself on the left-hand side of your lady. Then you are all right, you know. When you hear a blast of music like unto the rush of many waters, you lay your hand on your stomach and bow to the lady of your choice, then you turn around and bow to the fiddlers. The first order is first, couple, four, and aft, or words to that effect. This is very easy. You have only to march straight across the house, keeping out of the way of the advancing couple who very seldom know where they are going to, and when you get over, if you find your partner there, swing her. If you don't, hunt her up. For it is very handy to have a partner in these plain quadrils. The next order is ladies change. This is an exceedingly difficult figure and requires great presence of mind, because on account of shaking hands with the lobby members so much and from the force of human nature also, you are morally certain to offer your right when the chances are that your left hand is wanted. This has a tendency to mix things. At this point, order and regularity cease, the dancers get excited, the musicians become insane, turmoil and confusion ensue, chaos comes again. Put your trust in Providence and stick to your partner. Several of these engaging and beautiful plain quadrils were danced during the evening, and we might have enjoyed several more, but the rostrum broke down and spilt the musicians. I was exceedingly delighted with the waltz and also with the polka. These differ in name, but there the difference ceases. The dances are precisely the same. You have only to spin around with frightful velocity and steer clear of the furniture. This has a charming and bewildering effect. You catch glimpses of a confused and whirling multitude of people, and above them a row of distracted fiddlers extending entirely around the room. The waltz and the polka are very exhilarating, to use a mild term, amazingly exhilarating. Nothing occurred to mar the joyousness of the occasion. The party was very select, except myself and Colonel Williams. The candy was not burned. The Governor sat down on a hot stove and got up again with great presence of mind. The dancing was roomy and hilarious, and fun went to waste. Henceforward my principles are fixed. I am a stern and unwavering advocate of candy poles. There was a slight conflagration in Mr. Helm's office yesterday morning. At least I was told so by my friend, the reporter for the Virginia Union, who is not very reliable. He also stated that no damage was done, but I don't put much confidence in what he says. The ladies have not smiled much on this legislature so far. Thirty-two of our loveliest visited the halls night before last, though, which is an encouraging symptom. I cannot conscientiously say they smiled, however, for the revenue bill was before the house. This cheerful subject is calculated to produce inward jollity, but the same is not apt to blossom into smiles on the surface. The ladies were well pleased with the night session, though. They enjoyed it exceedingly. In many respects it was much superior to a funeral. The revenue bill was finished up last night, and in the name, and at the request of the members, I invite all the ladies in town to call again at any time either day or night session. That revenue bill was one of those nonsensical general public concerns that we are not used to, but the fun will be resumed right away, now that we are back on our regular toll-roads again. I went down to Empire City yesterday to see the Eagle Fire Company try their new engine. By the way, you have so far neglected to mention either the machine or the company in your paper. They first threw an inch and a quarter stream over Dutch Knicks Hotel, and then a three-quarter inch stream over the Liberty Pole. This brought cheers from the multitude. There were many ladies there from neighboring cities. The boys grew excited and ambitious. Several ladies passed by, wearing the new-fashioned lighthouse bonnets. The Eagles, in their madness, attempted to throw a half-inch stream over those bonnets. They puffed their cheeks and strained their nerve. There was a moment of painful suspense as the pearly column went towering toward the clouds, then a long, loud, reverberating shout as it bent gracefully and went over without touching a feather. But the engine broke. If McCluskey of the Delta Saloon could send me a reporter's cobbler, an unusually long one, I think it would relieve my cold. Territorial Enterprise, December 13th through 19th, 1862. The Paiutes. Ah, well, it is touching to see these knotty and rugged old pioneers who have beheld Nevada in her infancy and toiled through her virgin sands unmolested by toll-keepers and prospected her unsmiling hills and knocked at the doors of her sealed treasure vaults, and camped with her horned toads and tarantulas and lizards under her inhospitable sage-brush, and smoked the same pipe and imbibed lightning out of the same bottle, and eaten their regular bacon and beans from the same pot, and lain down to their rest under the same blanket, happy and lousy and contented, yea, happier and lousier and more contented than they are this day or maybe in the days that are to come. It is touching, I say, to see these weather-beaten and blasted old patriarchs banding together like a decaying tribe for the sake of the privations they have undergone and the dangers they have met, to rehearse the deeds of the hoary past and rescue its traditions from oblivion. The Paiute Association will become a high and honourable order in the land its certificate of membership, a patent of nobility. I extend unto the fraternity the right hand of a poor but honest half-breed, and say, Godspeed, your sacred enterprise! Territorial Enterprise December 1862 Extracts From The Original A Big Thing In Washoo City or The Grand Bull Driver's Convention, Carson, Midnight, December 23rd Editors' Enterprise On the last night of the session, Hon. Thomas Hanna announced that a Grand Bull Driver's Convention would assemble in Washoo City on the 22nd to receive Hon. Jim Sturdovent and the other members of the Washoo delegation. I journeyed to the place yesterday to see that the ovation was properly conducted. I travelled per stage. The unreliable of the union went also, for the purpose of distorting the facts. The weather was delightful. It snowed the entire day. The wind blew such a hurricane that the coach drifted sideways from one toll road to another and sometimes utterly refused to mind her helm. It is a fearful thing to be at sea in a stage-coach. We were anxious to get to Washoo by four o'clock, but luck was against us. We were delayed by stress of weather. We were hindered by the bad condition of the various toll roads. We finally broke the after-spring of the wagon and had to lay up for repairs. Therefore we only reached Washoo at dusk. Mrs. Lovejoy, Howard, Winters, Sturdovent and Speaker Mills had left Carson ahead of us, and we found them in the city. They had not beaten us much, however, as I could perceive by their upright walk and untangled conversation. At 6 p.m. the Carson City brass band followed by the Committee of Arrangements and the Chairman of the Convention and the Delegation and the Invited Guests and the Citizens Generally and the Hurricane marched up one of the most principal streets and filed in imposing procession into Folk's Hall. The delegation and the guests and the band were provided with comfortable seats near the Chairman's Desk, and the constituency occupied the body pews. The delegation and the guests stood up and formed a semi-circle, and Mr. Gregory introduced them one at a time to the constituency. Mr. Gregory did this with much grace and dignity, albeit he affected to stammer and gasp and hesitate and look colloquy and miscall the names, and miscall them again by way of correcting himself and grabbed desperately at invisible things in the air, all with a charming pretense of being scared. The Honourable John K. Lovejoy arose in his place and blew his horn. He made honourable mention of the Legislature and the Committee on Internal Improvements. He told how the fountains of their great deep were broken up, and they rained forty days and forty nights, and brought on a flood of toll-roads over the whole land. He explained to them that the more toll-roads there were, the more competition there would be, and the roads would be good, and tolls moderate in consequence. Mr. Speaker Mills responded to the numerous calls for him and spoke so well in praise of the Washoe delegation that I was constrained to believe that there really was some merit in the deceased. Honourable Theodore Winters next addressed the people. He said he went to the Legislature with but one solitary object in view, the securing to this territory of an incorporation law, how he had succeeded the people themselves could tell. The Chairman, Mr. Gaston, introduced Colonel Howard, and that gentleman addressed the people in his peculiarly grave and dignified manner. The constituency gave way to successive cataracts of laughter, which was singularly out of keeping with the stern seriousness of the speaker's bearing. He spoke about ten minutes, and then took his seat, in spite of the express wish of the audience that he should go on. Honourable Jim Sturdovent next addressed the citizens extemporaneously. He made use of the very thunder which I meant to launch at the populace. Owing to this unfortunate circumstance I was forced to keep up an intelligent silence during the session of the Convention. After this the assemblage broke up and adjourned to take something to drink. At nine o'clock the band again summoned the public to Folk's Hall, and I proceeded to that place. I found the unreliable there, and George Hepperly. I had requested Mr. Hepperly, as a personal favour, to treat the unreliable with distinguished consideration, and I am proud and happy to acknowledge he had done so. He had him in charge of two constables. The hall had been cleared of the greater part of its benches, and the ball was ready to commence. The citizens had assembled in force, and the sexes were pretty equally represented in the proportion of one lady to several gentlemen. The night was so infernally inclement, so to speak, that it was impossible for ladies who lived at any considerable distance to attend. However those that were there appeared in every quadril and with exemplary industry. I did not observe any wall-flowers. The climate of Washu appears to be unsuited to that kind of vegetation. In accordance with the customs of the country they indulged in the plain quadril at this ball, and notwithstanding the vicissitudes which I have seen that wonderful national dance pass through, I solemnly affirm that they sprung some more new figures on me last night. However the ball was a very pleasant affair. We could muster four sets and still have a vast surplusage of gentlemen, but the strictest economy had to be observed in order to make the ladies hold out. The supper and the champagne were excellent and abundant, and I offer no word of blame against anybody for eating and drinking pretty freely. If I were to blame anybody I would commence with the unreliable, for he drank until he lost all sense of etiquette. I actually found myself in bed with him with my boots on. However, as I said before, I cannot blame the cuss. It was a convivial occasion, and his little shortcomings ought to be overlooked. When I went to bed this morning, Mr. Lovejoy, a raid in fiery red night-clothes, was dancing the war-dance of his tribe. He is president of the Payu Association, around a spittoon, and Colonel Howard, dressed in a similar manner, was trying to convince him that he was a humbug. A suspicion crossed my mind that they were partially intoxicated. But I could not be sure about it, on account of everything appearing to turn around so. I left Washu City this morning at nine o'clock, fully persuaded that I would like to go back there again when the next convention meets. Territorial Enterprise, December 28, 1862. The illustrious departed. Old Dan is gone, that good old soul, when air shall see him more, for some time. He left for Carson yesterday, to be duly stamped and shipped to America by way of the United States Overland mail. As the stage was on the point of weighing anchor, the senior editor dashed wildly into Wasserman's, and captured a national flag, which he cast about Dan's person to the tune of three rousing cheers from the bystanders. So, with the gorgeous drapery floating behind him, our kind and genial hero passed from our sight, and if fervent prayers from us who seldom pray can avail, his journey will be as safe and happy as though ministering angels watched over him. Dan has gone to the States for his health, and his family. He worked himself down in creating big strikes in the mines and keeping all the mills in this district going whether their owners were willing or not. These Herculian labors gradually undermined his health, but he went bravely on, and we are proud to say that as far as these things were concerned, he never gave up. The miners never did, and never could have conquered him. He fell under a scarcity of pack-trains and hay-wagons. These had been the bulwark of the local column. His confidence in them was like unto that which men have in four aces. Murders, robberies, fires, distinguished arrivals were creatures of chance, which might or might not occur at any moment, but the pack-trains and the hay-wagons were certain, predestined and mutable. When these failed last week he said, It too brute, and gave us his pen. His constitution suddenly warped, split, and went under, and Daniel succumbed. We have a saving hope, though, that his trip across the plains, through 1800 miles of cheerful hay-stacks, will so restore our love and lost to his ancient health and energy, that when he returns next fall he will be able to run our 500 mills as easily as he used to keep five score moving. Dan is gone, but he departed in a blaze of glory, the like of which has hardly been seen upon this earth since the blameless Elijah went up in his fiery chariot. Territorial Enterprise, December 30, 31, 1862 Local Column Our Stock Remarks Owing to the fact that our stock reporter attended a wedding last evening, our report of transactions in that branch of robbery and speculation is not quite as complete and satisfactory as usual this morning. About eleven o'clock last night the aforesaid remarker pulled himself upstairs by the bannisters, and stumbling over the stove, deposited the following notes on our table with a remark, Hey, just elaborate this, will you? We said we would, but we couldn't. If any of our readers think they can, we shall be pleased to see the translation. Here are the notes. Quote, Stocks brisk, and Ofer has taken this woman for your wedded wife. Some few transactions have occurred in rings and lace veils, and at figures tall, graceful and charming. There was some inquiry late in the day for parties, who would take them for better or for worse, but there were few offers. There seems to be some depression in this stock. We mentioned yesterday that our father which art in heaven. Quotations of lost reference. And now I lay me down to sleep." Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Board of Education In accordance with a law passed at the late session of the legislature, a board of education is to be organized in each of the several counties. The Story County Board will be composed of seven members, apportioned as follows. Four from Virginia, two from Gold Hill, and one from Flowery. The Chairman of the Board will be County School Superintendent. These officers will have power to issue bonds sufficient to defray the expenses of the schools from the 1st of January until the 1st of November. To establish schools of all grades, engage and examine teachers, et cetera. The election for the Board of Education will be held next Monday at the courthouse in Virginia. At the post office in Gold Hill, and at the house of I. W. Knox in Flowery, the polls to be open from eight o'clock in the morning until six in the evening. The Board will meet and organize on the Monday following their election. At sunset yesterday the wind commenced blowing after a fashion to which a typhoon is mere nonsense, and in a short time the face of heaven was obscured by vast clouds of dust all spangled over with lumber and shingles and dogs and things. There was no particular harm in that, but the breeze soon began to work damage of a serious nature. This Moore's new frame house on the east side of C. Street above the courthouse was blown down, and the firewall front of a one-story brick building higher up the street was also thrown to the ground. The latter house was occupied as a store by Mr. Heldman, and owned by Mr. Felton. The storm was very severe for a while, and we shall not be surprised to hear of further destruction having been caused by it. The damage resulting to Mr. Heldman's grocery-store amounts to two thousand two hundred dollars. At home, Judge Brunfield's nightmare, the Story County delegation, have straggled in one at a time, until they are all at home once more. Messers Mills, Mitchell, Meagher, and Maneer returned several days ago, and we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Davenport also yesterday. We do not know how long the latter gentleman has been here, but we offer him the unlimited freedom of the city anyhow. Justice to a good representative is justice, you know, whether it be tardy or otherwise. The School Mr. Melville's school will open again next Monday, and in the meantime the new furniture is being put up in the schoolhouse. The Virginia Cadets, a company composed of Mr. Melville's larger pupils, will appear in public on New Year's Day, the weather permitting, armed and equipped as the law directs. The boys were pretty proficient in their military exercises when we saw them last, and they have probably not deteriorated since then. Sad Accident We learn from Messers Hatch and brother, who do a heavy business in the way of supplying this market with vegetables, that the rigorous weather accompanying the late storm was so severe on the mountains as to cause a loss of life in several instances. Two sacks of sweet potatoes were frozen to death on the summit, this side of strawberry. The verdict rendered by the coroner's jury was strictly in accordance with the facts. Thrilling Romance On our first page today will be found the opening chapters of a thrilling tale entitled, An Act to Amend and Supplemental to an Act to Provide for Assessing and Collecting County and Territorial Revenue. This admirable story was written especially for the columns of this paper by several distinguished authors. We have secured a few more productions of the same kind at great expense, and we designed publishing them in their regular order. Our readers will agree with us that it will redound considerably to their advantage to read and preserve these documents. Fire almost. The roof of the New York restaurant took fire from the stovepipe yesterday morning, and but for the timely discovery of the fact a serious conflagration would have ensued as the restaurant is situated in a nest of frame houses which would have burnt like tinder, as it was nothing but a few shingles were damaged. Private Party The members of Engine Company No. 2, with a number of invited guests, are to have a little social dance at La Plata Hall this evening. They have made every arrangement for having a pleasant time of it, and we hope they may succeed to the very fullest extent of their wishes. End of Section 2 This is Section III of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. Section III. Territorial Enterprise. January 1863 Territorial Enterprise January 1, 1863. More Ghosts. Are we to be scared to death every time we venture into the street? May we be allowed to go quietly about our business, or are we to be assailed at every corner by fearful apparitions? As we were plodding home at the ghostly hour last night, thinking about the haunted house humbug, we were suddenly riveted to the pavement in a paroxysm of terror by that blue and yellow phantom who watches over the destinies of the shooting gallery this side of the International. Seen in daylight, placidly reclining against his board in the doorway with his blue coat and his yellow pants and his high boots and his fancy hat just lifted from his head, he is rather an engaging youth than otherwise. But at dead of night, when he pops out his pallid face at you by candlelight and stares vacantly upon you with his uplifted hat and the eternal civility of his changeless brow and the ghostliness of his general appearance heightened by that gravestone inscription over his stomach, to-day shooting for chickens here, you are apt to think of specters starting up from behind tombstones and you weaken accordingly. The cold chills creep over you, your head stands on end, you reverse your front and with all possible alacrity you change your base. Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in community. New Years is a harmless annual institution of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks and friendly calls and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion. Territorial Enterprise, January 4, 1863. Local Column. First lines not recovered. Benevolent Enterprise, and to be present and see such a phenomenon, would be well worth the price of the ticket. Six dollars supper included. Wherefore we advise every citizen of story to go to the ball early and stand ready to enjoy the joke. The fund to be acquired in this way for a trifling sum of money cannot be computed by any system of mathematics known to the present generation, and the more the merrier. We all know that a thousand people can enjoy that failure more extensively than a smaller number. Mr. Unger has tendered the use of the large dining-hall of the What-Cheer House, nearly opposite the La Plata Hall, with all the necessary tableware and the waiters employed in the hotel free of charge. This generosity, this liberality in a noble cause, calls for a second from somebody. Get your contributions ready. Money, wines, cakes, and knick-knacks and substantials of all kinds, and when the ladies call for them, deliver your offerings with a grace and dignity graduated by the market value of the same, the condition of your pecuniary affairs, and the sympathy you feel for maimed and suffering humanity. The ladies may be looked for to-morrow. Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock the polls will be opened at the courthouse on C. Street for the election of the four members of the county board of education to which Virginia is entitled. Gold Hill is entitled to two members, and Flowery to one. In the former place the polls will be at the post office, and in the latter at the house of Mr. I. W. Knox. The board will meet and organize on the Monday following their election. They will have power to issue bonds for a sum sufficient to defray the expenses of the respective schools of the county from the beginning of the present month until the first of November. They will also have power to establish schools of all grades, engage and examine teachers, etc. The chairman of the board will be county school superintendent. Let those who feel interested in school matters go and deposit their opinions in the ballot box to-morrow. Public school. The juveniles are hereby notified to put away their sleds and doll babies and go into the traces again at Mr. Melville Schoolhouse, corner of E. and Washington streets, to-morrow morning at ten o'clock. The pupils used to learn fast under the old regime of puritanical straight-back benches. We shall expect the new chairs and desks to impart a telegraphic celerity to their improvement hence-forward. New Year's Extension. Yesterday was New Year's Day for the ladies. We kept open house and were called upon by seventy-two ladies, all young and handsome. This stunning popularity is pleasant to reflect upon, but we are afraid some people will think it prevented us from scouting for local matters with our usual avidity. This is a mistake. If anything had happened within the county limits yesterday, those ladies would have mentioned it. Supreme Court. General Williams finished his long and able argument in the Collar and Potosi case at a late hour last night. This was the closing speech. It is said that the Supreme Court cannot reasonably be expected to render a decision in this important case before the end of the present month. Ball in Carson. Just as we are going to press, we learn that Mrs. Williamson is to give a ball at the White House in Carson City next Thursday evening. We have no particulars, but we suppose that one of those pleasant sociable affairs which are Mrs. Williamson's specialty is in contemplation. Mass. Reverend Father Manogue notifies the Roman Catholics of Carson City that Mass will be celebrated there this four-noon at eleven o'clock. We presume that this service will take place at Miss Clap Schoolhouse, as it has been used by that denomination for some time past as a chapel. Fireman's Meeting. The Virginia Engine Company will hold a meeting at the Engine House, A Street, on Tuesday evening, January 6, for the purpose of electing officers to serve during the present year. Recorder's Court. Business in this institution is still feeble. Only one case yesterday. A scion of the noble house of Howard, Christian name, John Doe, D.D., fined ten dollars and costs, paid the same, and was discharged. Territorial Enterprise, January 6, 1863. Local Column. Free Fight. A beautiful and ably conducted free fight came off in C. Street yesterday afternoon, but as nobody was killed or mortally wounded in a manner sufficiently fatal to cause death, no particular interest attaches to the matter, and we shall not publish the details. We pine for murder. These fist-fights are of no consequence to anybody. Humboldt stocks are plenty in the market, at figures which we have no doubt are low for the claims. The want of buyers is probably attributable to the indefinite knowledge of these claims. There are unquestionably many valuable ledges in the district offered at exceedingly low prices. The old friends and acquaintances of Jonathan D. Kinney, who came to Nevada Territory with Chief Justice Turner, and who returned to the States last March, will be gratified to learn that that sterling patriot is now a captain in the 7th Ohio Cavalry. Milstead, who murdered a man named Varney some time ago near Ragtown in Humboldt County, will be hung in Dayton next Friday. James Lacani, W. H. Barstow, James Feelen, and John A. Collins were elected members of the Board of Education at Virginia. Territorial Enterprise January 8, 1863, written after having his hat stolen. Unfortunate thief! We have been suffering from the seven years itch for many months. It is probably the most aggravating disease in the world. It is contagious. That man has commenced a career of suffering which is frightful to contemplate. There is no cure for the distemper. It must run its course. There is no respite for its victim, and but little alleviation of its torments to be hoped for. The unfortunate's only resource is to bathe in sulfur and molasses, and let his fingernails grow. Further advice is unnecessary, instinct who prompt him to scratch. Territorial Enterprise January 10, 1863, Local Column The Sanitary Ball The sanitary ball at La Plata Hall on Thursday night, January 8, 1863, was a very marked success, and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt the correctness of our theory that ladies never fail in undertakings of this kind. If there had been about two dozen more people there, the house would have been crowded. As it was, there was room enough on the floor for the dancers without trespassing on their neighbors' corns. Several of those long, trailing dresses, even, were under fire in the thickest of the fight for six hours, and came out as free from rips and rents as they were when they went in. Not all of them, though. We recollect a circumstance in point. We had just finished executing one of those inscrutable figures of the plain quadril. We were feeling unusually comfortable, because we had gone through the performance as well as anybody could have done it, except that we had wandered a little toward the last. In fact, we had wandered out of our own and into somebody else's set. But that was a matter of small consequence, as the new locality was as good as the old one, and we were used to that sort of thing anyhow. We were feeling comfortable, and we had assumed an attitude—we have a sort of talent for posturing—a pensive attitude, copied from the colossus of roads, when the ladies were ordered to the centre. Two of them got there, and the other two moved off gallantly, but they failed to make the connection. They suddenly broached to under full headway, and there was a sound of parting canvas. Their dresses were anchored under our boots, you know. It was unfortunate, but it could not be helped. Those two beautiful pink dresses let go amid ships, and remained in a ripped and damaged condition to the end of the ball. We did not apologise, because our presence of mind happened to be absent at the very moment that we had the greatest need of it, but we beg permission to do so now. An excellent supper was served in the large dining-room of the new Wat Cheer House on B Street. We missed it there somewhat. We were not accompanied by a lady, and consequently we were not eligible to a seat at the first table. We found out all about that at the Gold Hill Ball, and we had intended to be all prepared for this one. We engaged a good many young ladies last Tuesday to go with us, thinking that out of the lot we should certainly be able to secure one, at the appointed time, but they all seemed to have got a little angry about something—nobody knows what—for the ways of women are past finding out. They told us we had better go and invite a thousand girls to go to the ball. A thousand? Why, it was absurd. We had no use for a thousand girls, but those girls were as crazy as loons. In every instance, after they had uttered that pointless suggestion, they marched magnificently out of their parlours, and if you will believe us, not one of them ever recollected to come back again. Why, it was the most unaccountable experience we ever heard of. We never enjoyed so much solitude in so many different places in one evening before. But patience has its limits. We finally got tired of that arrangement, and at the risk of offending some of those girls we stalked off to the sanitary ball alone, without a virgin out of that whole litter. We may have done wrong—we probably did do wrong to disappoint those fellows in that kind of style—but how could we help it? We couldn't stand the temperature of those parlours more than an hour at a time. It was cold enough to freeze out the heaviest stockholder on the Gould and Currie's books. However, as we remarked before, everybody spoke highly of the supper, and we believe they meant what they said. We are unable to say anything in the matter from personal knowledge, except that the tables were arranged with excellent taste and more than abundantly supplied, and everything looked very beautiful and very inviting also. But then we had absorbed so much cold weather in those parlours, and had had so much trouble with those girls that we had no appetite left. We only ate a boiled ham and some pies, and went back to the ballroom. There were some very handsome cakes on the tables manufactured by Mr. Slade and decorated with patriotic mottos, done in fancy icing. All those who were happy that evening agree that the supper was superb. After supper the dancing was jolly. They kept it up till four in the morning, and the guests enjoyed themselves excessively. All the dances were performed, and the Bill of Fair wound up with a new style of plain quadril called a medley, which involved the whole list. It involved us also. But we got out again, and we stayed out with great sagacity. But speaking of plain quadrils reminds us of another new one, the Virginia Reel. We found it a very easy matter to dance it, as long as we had thirty or forty lookers on to prompt us. The dancers were formed in two long ranks facing each other, and the battle opens with some light skirmishing between the pickets, which is gradually resolved into a general engagement along the whole line. After that you have nothing to do but stand by and grab every lady that drifts within reach of you and swing her. It is very entertaining, and elaborately scientific also. But we observed that with a partner who had danced it before, we were able to perform it rather better than the balance of the guests. Altogether the sanitary ball was a remarkably pleasant party, and we were glad that such was the case, for it is a very uncomfortable task to be obliged to say harsh things about entertainments of this kind. At the present writing we cannot say what the net proceeds of the ball will amount to, but they will doubtless reach quite a respectable figure, say, four hundred dollars. Do notice! Moralists and philosophers have adjudged those who throw temptation in the way of the airing equally guilty with those who are thereby led into evil, and we therefore hold a man who suffers that turkey to run at large just back of our offices as culpable as ourself, if some day that foul is no longer perceptible to human vision. The Tsar of Russia never cast his eye on the minarets of Byzantium, half as longingly as we gaze on that old gobbler. Turkey stuffed with oysters is our weakness, our mouth waters at the recollection of sundry repasts of that character, and this bird, aforementioned, appears to us to have an astonishing capacity for oyster stuffing. Wonder if those fresh oysters at Almax are all gone. We grow ravenous. Pangs of hunger gnaw our vitals. If to-morrow's setting sun gleams on the living form of that turkey, we yield our reputation for strategy. The New Courthouse Mr's Unger and Denninger's new brick house on B. Street has been leased by the county commissioners for courtrooms and offices. The first floor, we believe, is to be used for a United States District courtroom, and the second story will be partitioned into offices and a probate courtroom. It would probably have been better to have reversed this order of things on account of the superior light and the freedom from dust and noise afforded by the upper story, yet it is possible that these advantages may be as necessary in one case as the other. We do not care about dictating much in the matter so long as no one will be likely to pay us for it. But, nevertheless, since the first story is to be used for the district court, we wish to suggest that that box, that partition, be removed, and the whole of it set apart for that purpose. It would then be a large, handsome and well-lighted hall, whereas in its present shape it is not very greatly superior to the present courtroom on C. Street. A gentleman informed us yesterday that he thought the intention was to remove the partition, but he could not be positive about it. The Music Millington and McCluskey's band furnished the music for the sanitary ball on Thursday night and also for the Oddfellows Ball the other evening in Gold Hill, and the excellence of the article was only equalled by the industry and perseverance of the performers. We consider that the man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia reels without losing his grip may be depended upon in any kind of musical emergency. Territorial Enterprise January 11th through 21st, 1863 Local Column High Price of Pork In our record of probate proceedings today will be found the case of John Hill versus John Doe Wentworth. As a matter of principle it may be well enough to stand by your rights until the Lake of Fire and Brimstone is no longer in a state of liquefaction, but whether it be good policy to do so at all times is a question which admits of argument. This case is an instance in point. The property involved is about twenty or thirty dollars worth of pork in a crude state. We mean two living hogs, probably worth but little more than ten dollars each, yet this suit to determine their ownership has already cost the parties to it some six or seven hundred dollars and the defeated but plucky plaintiff has given notice that he will apply for a new trial. The new trial will double the bill of expenses in all human probability. We learn from gentlemen who were present at the trial today that there were about thirty witnesses on the stand and one of them a woman. The hog dispute afforded those concerned and the lookers on a good deal of fun, but it was very costly. Those two distinguished pigs ought to be taken care of and exhibited at the first agricultural fair of Nevada Territory. At any rate we shall officially spread the proceedings of this trial upon the records of the Washoo Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Society as evidence of the high value placed upon the hog in Nevada Territory. Territorial Enterprise January 22 through 28 1863 Territorial Sweets The following, which will do to sweeten some bachelor's coffee with, was picked up in front of the International. Darling, I have not had time to write you to-day. I have worked hard entertaining company. Do come and see your little pet. I yearn for the silvery cadence of your voice. I thirst for the bubbling stream of your affection—your Madeleine. We feel, for that girl, the water privilege which she pines for so lovingly has probably dried up and departed, else her sweet note would not have been floating around the streets without a claimant. We feel for her deeply, and if it will afford her any relief, if it will conduce to her comfort, if it will satisfy her yearning even in the smallest degree, we will cheerfully call around and bubble a while for her our self, if she will send us her address. End of Section 3