The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1871-05-03
My First Experience in Journal
ISM.
BY MARK TWAIN.

/ was q very smart child at the g
of thirteen-an unusually smart child,
I thought at tho time. 1t was her
I did my first newspaper scribbling,
and, most unexpectedly to me, it
stirred up a fine sensation in the COM
munity. 1t did, indeed, and 1 was
very proud of it, too.
I was a printers "devil," and o
progressive and aspiring one. My
uncle had me on his paper (the "Week-
ly Hannibal Journal" two dollars e
year in advance-500 subscribers, and
that paid in cord wood cabbages and
unmarketable turnips), and on a
lucky summers day he left town to be
gone q week, and asked me if l tho't
1 could edit one issue of the'paper ju
diciously. All, didn't I want to try
i'll Hinton was the editor of the RI
val paper. He had lately been Tilted,
and one night a friend found a note
on the poor fellow bed, in which he
stated that he could no longer endure
life, and had drowned himself in Bear
Creek. The friend ran down and
found Hinton wading back to shore!
He had concluded he wouldn't. The
village was full of it for several days,
but Hinton did not suspect it. |
thought this a fine opportunity. I
wrote an deliberately wretched account
of the whole matter, and then illustra-
ted it with villainous cuts engraved
on the bottom Of wooden type with a
a jack-knife IL of them a picture
Of Hinton wading out into the creek
in his shirt, with a lantern, sounding
the depth Of the water with n walking
stick. I thought it was desperately
funny, and was densely unconscious
that there was any moral obliquity
about such a publication. Being sat
isfed with this effort, l looked about
for other worlds to conquer, and 1t
struck me that it would make good
interesting matter to charge the editor
of a neighboring country paper with a
piece of gratuitous rascality and "see
him squirmp 1 did it putting the
article in the form of a parody on the
Burial of Sir John Moore'-and a
crude parody it was. too Then L
lampooned two prominent citizens out
rageously-not because they had done
anything to deserve it, but merely
because I thought it my duty to make
the paper lively. Next l very gently
touched up the newest stranger-the
lion of the day, the gorgeous journey
man tailor from Quincy. lie was a
simpering coxcomb of the first water,
and the .IIeudest" dressed a in the
State. He was an inveterate woman
killer. Every week he wrote lushy
poetry for the Journal about his last
conquest. His rhymes for my week
were headed MARY In H." mean
ing, of course. Mary in Hannibal
But while setting up the piece l was
suddenly riven from head to heel by
what 1 regarded as a perfect thunder
holt of humor, and compressed it into
a snappy foot note at the bottom,
thus:
1--WE will let this thing pass, just
this once; but we wish Mr.. j Cor
| don Runnels to understand distinctly
that we have a cl aracter TO sustain,
and from this time forth, when he
wants 10 with his friends in
hi, he must select some other medl-
um than the columns OF this journal +
The paper came out, ana L e
knew any little thing attract so much
attention as those playful tribes oil
mine For once the Hannibal Jour
| nal was in demand-a novelty it had
not experienced before. The whole
town was stirred. Hinton droppei
in with q double-barreled shotgun
early in the forenoon. When he
| found it was an infant, as he called
ne, that had done theSdamage, he
simply pulled my ears and went away;
but he threw up the situation that
night and left town for good. The
tailor came with his goose and a 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 incensed at my in~signiicance.
The country editor pranced in with a
war-whoop next day, suffering for
blood to drink; but he ended by tor
giving me cordially and inviting me
down to the drug store to wash away
all luminosity in a friendly bumper of
"Fahnestock's Vermifuge." 1t was
his little joke.
My uncle was very mad when he
got back-unreasonably so, 1 thought,
considering what an impetus I q
given the paper, and considering also
that gratitude for his preservation
ought to have he. uppermost in his
mind, in as much as by his delay he
had 90 wonderfully escaped dissection,
tomahawking, libel, and getting his
head shot off. But he softened when
he looked at the accounts and saw that
1 had actually booked the unparallel
ed number Of thirty-three new sub
scribers, and hgd the vegetables to
show Tor it, ~cord-wood, cabbages,
beans, and unsaleable turnips enough
to run the family for two years.
Gaka1y.