Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-12-05

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Mark Twain was ''in his capacity as a
story teller an inordinate and unscien-
tifc liar" The humorist resented these
accusations, insisting that if in any of
his published variations there appeared
to be anything which justified such ac-
cusation he had written it in moments
of responsibility or insanity, and he
declared that he was willing to stand
trial upon these charges.
Captain Dampfer, who has the power
of an autocrat upon his ship, authorized
a court of admiralty to be organized, of
which Mr.. Dittenhoefer was appointed
Judge. Mr.. Wallach was chosen by the
court counsel for prosecution, and Mark
Twain selected the eminent lawyer, Mr..
Webster, counsel for the defense. The
Yale students were impaneled as jurors,
and Mr.. McClung was made foreman.
The court was held on the evening of
July IA in the great saloon of the steam
ship. Judge Dittenhoefer took his seat
on the bench, and he never looked more
stern when he was serving as judge in
a New York city court. The jury were
seated in box to the right of the judge,
and the counsel were gathered at a
table, and near them were the witnesses
for the prosecution and the defense.
After the court was opened Judge Dit
tenhoefer instructed the sheriff to bring
the prisoner in. The clanking of chains
was heard, and moment later Mark
Twain, with disheveled hair, with shut
fling step because the ships irons hung
heavy on his legs, and with his wrists
inclosed in handouts, was brought in
and placed in the prisoners dock.
AT command from the judge the
irons were removed, and the trial began
with a speech from the prosecuting Off
Ger, in which he declared that he should
prove that Mark Twain had been guilty
of inordinate and unscientitic lying.
Here the prisoner bent his head to
conceal his emotion apparently, and
seemed to be sobbing. Miss b. r. Dit
tenhoefer was called as the first witness.
She read extracts from Mark Twain's
description of the jumping frog. The
jury looked very solemn when this evil
dence was introduced, and Mr.. Webster,
the counsel for the defense, on cross ex-
animation demanded of the witness
what there was unscientific in this lie, if
it was a lie, and she replied that al
though it caused people to laugh they
smiled at the improbability of the story,
and added that there was nothing funny
in the suggestion of filling the stomach
of q frog with shot to prevent its making
a jump, and thereby causing its owner
to lose a bet.
Mr., X. d, Cheney, being summoned
as a witness, produced one of Mark
Twain's books and read from it his as.
sertion that he dropped tear upon the
tomb of Adam. When asked by Mr..
Webster what there was unscientitic
about that lie, if it was lie, Mr.. Cheney
replied that the world knew that Mark
Twain never wept and never made any
one else weep. If he had written that
he searched the vicinity for the tomb of
Eve or had exhumed Adams remains,
that he might discover which rib was
taken for the creation Of Eve, that would
have been an entirely scientific and ra-
tional undertaking at Adams tomb.
Other witnesses read extracts from
"Huckleberry Finn" and quoted from
the exploits of Colonel Mulberry Sellers
as narrated by Mark Twain to prove that
the accusation that the various humor-
GUS lies there narrated were unscientific,
and therefore improbable, and then the
prosecution rested.
The defense was insanity or irrespon-
sibility, and the two ships physicians
were put upon the stand, each of whom
testified that in all their experience they
had never met man who talked so ir-
nationally as Mark Twain did. They
declared that the stories he told them
had not one grain IF probability, and
of the ground is high and slightly, COM
manding view for thirty or forty miles
in all directions. From the eminence on
which the Vanderbilt palace is being
erected one may see mountain peaks in
four states-North Carolina, South Car
DINA, Georgia and Tennessee.
Vanderbilt set about creating the
finest estate in the world in systematic
manner. He employed architects, gar
deners, engineers, landscape artists and
an army of workmen. His payroll
alone is $4,000 week. About once in
six months his hired men, thinking Of
their employers twenty million fortune,
go on strike for higher wages. His man