MARK TWAIN IN THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC CHRONICLE
1865
[EDITOR'S NOTE: These items have not been previously republished elsewhere. They are included in this collection because of their potential to be the work of Clemens and are deserving of further research and consideration.]
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THE OPENING OF THE SIXTH SEAL
The lion of the sage brush has roared, and the jackal of the sandhills has followed suit. The coryphaeus of the Alkali Enterprise hath smote the "Outcroppers" hip and thigh, their bones are as dust, and the editor of the Sunday Mercury defileth their graves. Bismillah! -- on their heads be it. But wasn't it cruel in the Mercury to liken Joe Goodman to the reviewer who made himself ridiculous to all history by pitching into the outcroppings of Master George Gordon Noel Byron? We understand that there is no truth in the report that the Mercury's objection to "Outcroppings" is because it contains a decent specimen of Linen!
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THE KING IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE KING!
The Country Paper (so at least it is rumored) has at last pegged out. But another "country paper" is to spring from its ashes. Tuolumne caves, and San Joaquin takes the helm. In other words, the proprietors of the Stockton Independent have bought out the Flag, and are about to assume the management. Farewell Sonora! All hail Stockton! By the way, isn't there something sinister -- almost ominous in fact, in the circumstance that the gentlemen who inaugurate the new enterprise come direct from Stockton? Wonder how it strikes Sam Seabough?
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SAIL IN!
The following spirited war-lyric (which the Californian inappreciatively designates as "an elegiac poem") is addressed by the editor of the Gold Hill News to Joe Goodman of the Enterprise, the great poetical coryphaeus of Sage Brush Land, by way of stimulus and encouragement in his little job of demolishing the "San Francisco literati:"
"Bold chieftain with the vitrious eye,
Old stallion of the land of Storey!
Shall dastard Flop-tods make thee fly,
Or purp-stuff dim thine ancient glory;
No -- leave the hurdy-gurdy halls --
The maidens fair that would scuyugle.
Ha! ha! the foe before thee falls,
Smashed by a a paster on the bugle!"
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[transcribed from microfilm]
