Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1871-04-19


only to ask him when he had last seen
Jerry the Fool. 2. ~
Mark Twafn's First Experience as
n-t an Editor.
was very smart child at the age Of
thirteen--an unusually smart child, |
thought at the time. 1t was then that |
did my first newspaper scribbling, and,
most unexpectedly to me, it stirred up a
fine sensation in the community. Itdid,
indeed, and Twas very proud of it, too.
was printers :" devil, and a pro-
gressive and aspiring one. Ny uncle had
me on his paper 1.-THE Weekly Hannibal
Journal--$2 year, in advance-r500
subscribers, and they paidin cord-wood,
cabbage and unmarketable turnips), and
on lucky summers day he left town to
be gone week, and he asked me if ]
thought could edit one issue of the
paper judiciously. All, didn't / want to.
tryl Hinton was the editor of the rival
paper He had lately been Tilted, and
one night a friend found an open note
on, the poor, fellow bed, in which he
stated he could no longer endure life,
and had drowned himself in Bear creek
The friend ran down there, and discoy-
cred Hinton wading back to shorel He
had concluded he wouldn't. The village
was full of it for several days, but Hinton
did not suspect it. j thought this was a
fine opportunity, / wrote an elabo-
rately-wretehed account of the whole
matter, and then illustrated it with vii
lainous cuts engraved on .he bottoms of
wooden type with a jack-knife, one of
them a. picture of Hinton wading out
into the creek in his shirt, with Ian
tern, sounding the depth of the water
with walking-stick. / thought it was
desperately funny, and was densely un-
conscious that there was any moral OBJ
liquity about such a publication. Being
satisfied with the effort, l looked around
for other worlds to conquer, and it struck
me that it would make good, interesting
matter to charge the editor of neigh
boring country paper with a piece of
gratultous rascality and see him
squirm" l did it, putting the article
into the form of parody on the burial
of Sir John Moore, and a pretty
crude parody it was, too. Then |
lampooned two prominent citizens out
rageously-not because they had done
anything to deserve it, but merely be-
cause thought it was my duty to make
the paper lively Next gently touched
up the newest straneer-the lion of the
day, the gorgeous journeyman tailor from
| Quincy. He was q simpering coxcomb
of the first water, and the loudest y
dressed man in the State He was an
inyeterate woman-killer. Every week
he wrote lushy poetry to the journal
about his newest conquest. His rhymes
for my week were headed ITO. Mary in
H" meaning to Mary in Hannibal
of course. But when setting up the
piece was suddenly riven from head to
heel by what / regarded as perfect
thunderbolt of humor, and | compressed
it into a snappy footnote at the bottom
thus "We we will let this thing pass,
Just this once; but we wish Mr.. j. Cor
don Runnels TO understand that we have
character to sustain, and from this
time forth when he wants to commune
with his friends in hi he must select
some other medium than the columns of
this journal r. ,H- L'.L .1
The paper came out, and never knew
tention as those playful trihes of mine |
For once the Hannibal Journal was in
demand-a novelty it had not expert
enced before. The whole town was
stirred. Hinton dropped in with a
double-barreled shotgun early in the
forenoon. When he found that it was
an infant (as he called mel that had done
him the damage he simply pulled my
ears and went away; but he threw up his |
situation that night and left town for
good. The tailor came with his goose |
and pair of shears; but he despised |
me, too, and departed for the South that
night The two lampooned citizens came
with threats of libel, and went away in
eensed at my insignifieance.i The eoun-
try editor pranced in with a war-whoop I
next day, suffering for blood to drink;
but ended by forgiving me cordially,
and inviting me down to the drugstore
to wash away all animosity in friendly
bumper of Fahnestocks Vermifuge. 1t
was his little joke.
My uncle was very angry when he got
back, unreasonahly so, thought con-
sidering what an impetus had given the
paper, and considering, also, that graft
tude for his preservation ought to have
been uppermost in his mind, inasmuch
as by his delay he had so wonderfully
escaped dissection, tomahawking, libel
and getting his head shot Off But he
softened when he looked at the accounts
and saw that actually booked the un-
paralleled number of thirty-three, new
subscribers, and had the vegetables to
show for it-cord-vood, cabbage, beans,
and unstable turnips enough to run the
family for two years.