MARK TWAIN IN THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC CHRONICLE
1865
[EDITOR'S NOTE: This item has not been previously republished elsewhere. It is included in this collection because of its potential to be the work of Clemens and is deserving of further research and consideration. Clemens published an obituary for the dog Bummer in the Territorial Enterprise on November 8 which was reprinted in the Californian on November 11, 1865 -- the same day this item appeared. The Call's article referred to the artist Ed Jump and this item is a play on words from the Call's headline.]
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COWARDLY LITTLE "CALL"
Good kindly-hearted Bummer, the pet of the public, lies a corpse,
and now, while the sorrow-stricken people bemoan his loss, the horrid, fiendish
little Call publishes a paragraph which commences thus: "Jump upon
Bummer." You'd like to jump upon him now he's dead, would you? You daren't
do it while he was alive. "Jump upon Bummer!" -- Isn't this pretty
advice to give to people who loved and respected him while alive, and now mourn
his loss. We are not in favor of mob law, but -- could it cause any surprise
if an enraged populace demolished the office of the paper which dared to say
"Jump upon Bummer." The remainder of the paragraph may possibly afford
an explanation of the reasons the cowardly little Call has for saying
"Jump upon Bummer," but we are sure that nothing can extenuate the
barbarity of such advice. When we saw that first line it was enough for us --
we threw down the Call in disgust and jumped upon that. We read no further;
we hope we are not yet so hard up for reading matter as to be driven to read
the local items of the Call.
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[transcribed from microfilm]
