San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1877-11-10
MARK Twain Makes n Hit In
journalism.

journalism.
Twas very smart child at the age
of thirteen-an unusually smart child
I thought at the time 1t was then
that l did my first newspaper scribbllng,
and, most unexpectedly to me, stirred
up quite sensation in the community.
1t did, indeed, aud | was very proud OF
it. too.
was a printers devil" and a pro-
gressive and aspiring one. My uncle
had me on his paper, (the weekly Han
ibal Journal, two dollars a year in ad-
vance, five hundred subscribers, and
that paid in cord wood, cabbages and
uumarketable turnips y and on lucky
summers day he left town to be gone
a week, and asked me if l thought l
could edit one issue of the paper ju-
diciously. All! didn't I want to try?
Hinton was the editor Of the rival
paper. He was lately Tilted, and one
night friend found an open letter on
the poor fellows bed, in which he stat
cd that he could no longer endure life
and had drowned himself 10 Bear
creek. The friend ran down there and
discovered Hinton wading back to the
shore. He had concluded he couldn't.
The village wss full of it for several
days, but Hinton did not suspect it. i
thought this was my opportunity.
l wrote an deliberately wretchsd ac-
count of the whole affair, and then il
Illustrated it with villainous wood cuts,
engraved on the bottom Of wood type
with jack knife, one of them repre-.
senting Hinton wading out in the creek
in his shirt, with lantern, sounding
the depth of the water with walking
stick. l thought it was desperately
funny, and was densely unconscious
tbrt there was any moral obliquity
about such a publication.
Being satisfied with the effort, l
looked about for other worlds to con-
duer, and it struck me that it would
make good, interesting matter to charge
the editor Of neighboring county pa
per with a gratuitous piece of rascality
and see him squirm. did it, putting
the article in the form Of parody on
the Burial OF Sir John Moore;" and
. crude parody it was, too.
Then l lampooned two prominent
citizens outrageously, not because they
had done anything to deserve it, but
because l thought it my duty to make
the paper lively.
Next Il gently touched the newest
stranger-the lion OF the day-the gor-
geous journeyman tailor from Quincy.
He was sirnpering coxcomb of the
first water, and the loudest dressed
man in town." He was an inveterate
lady killer. Every week he wrote
some poetry Tor the Journal about his
newest conquest. His rhymes for NY
week were headed, Mary in H--l,'
meaning I" Mary in Hannibal" of
course.
But while l was setting up the piece
| was suddenly riven from head to
heel by what l regarded as thunder
bolt of humor. and compressed it into
a snappy. foot note at the bottom,
thus:
ave will let this thing pass this
once; but we want MIR. Gordon Run
nels to understand distinctly that we
have a character to sustain, and from
this time forth, when he wants to COM
municate with his friends in h-ll, he
must select some other medium than
TINS journal.
The paper came out, and | never
knew anything to attract so much at
tentlon as those playful trifes of mine.
For once the Hannibal journal was in
novelty it had not expert
cnced before. The whole town was
stirred.
Hinton dropped in with a. shotgun
early in the forenoon. When he found
that it was an infant, as he called me,
that had done the damage, he pulled
my ears. and then 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,