The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-09-05
MARK TWAIN AS A MINER

less than 100000 at that time-but I will
now. Finally ! walked Lonesome 200
| miles-partly for exercise and partly be-
| cause stage fares were expensive.
| Next l entered upon an affluent career
| in Virginia City. And by Judiclous m
vestment of labor and the capital OF
i friends became the owner of about all the
worthless wildcat mines there were III
| that part of the country.
+ Assessments Ruined Him.
Assessments did the business for me
| there. There were III assessments to one
| dividend and the proportion of income to
! outlay was little against me. My Tinan-
cial thermometer went down to y degrees
/ Pa hrenheft and the subscriber was frozen
ont took up extensions on the main
| NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. that reached to British
! America in one direction and to the
Isthmus of Panama in the other-and |
verify believe l would have been rich
mansif | ever found those Internal extern
sions But l didn't. | ran tunnels till l
tanned the Arctic ocean. and l sunk
shafts till I broke through the roof of
perdition, but those extensions turned up
missing every time.
am willing TO sell all that property
and throw in the improvements. Perhaps
you remember the celebrated North
Ophir? | bought that mine. 1t was very
rich in pure silver. You could take it out
in humps as big as a filbert. But when it
was discovered that those Jumps were
melted half-dollars, and hardly melted at
that a painful case of ''saltin' was APP
parent. and the undersigned adjourned to
the poor house again.
! paid assessments on Hale * Norcross
till they sold me out. and | had to take
in washing for a living-and the next
month that infamous stock went UP to
81 900 a foot | own millions and millions
of feet of affluent silver leads in Nevada
in fact ! own the entire undercrust of
that country. and if congress would move
that state off my property so that | could
get at it, | would be wealthy yet. But no.
tC md la~a Nai1
ing health persuadeS me to sell. If you
know of any one desiring permanent in
vestment | can furnish him one that will
have the virtue of being eternal
Mark Twain's Mining.
have been through the California mill,
with all it's dips spurs and angles, varl7
atoms and sinuOsities." l have worked
there at all the different trades and pro-
fessions known to the catalogue nave
been everything from newspaper eui it'
down to a cOWcatcher on a lCCOlIotINc;
and [ am encouraged to believe that hau
there been more occupations to expert
ment on | might have made odz1lIhS
success at last and found out what III! >
ferrous design providence had in view III
creating me.
But you perceive that, although I am
not a pioneer, | have had q sutHclehtT3
variegated time of it TO enable me 70 TAX
pioneer like native, and ! teei IKE d
Forty-Niner. Therefore, | cordially WEI
come you to your old remembered homes
and your long-deserted firesides, ana
close this screed with the sincere hope
that your visit here will be happy one
and unembittered by the sorrowful sur
prises that absence and lapse of years are
wont to prepare for wanderers; surprises
which would cove in the form OF OLD
friends missed W. their places; silence
where familiar ices should be: the
young grown old; change and decay eV-
erywhere: home a delusion and disap-
pointment; strangers at the hearthstone;
sorrow where gladness was; tears for
laughter; the melancholy pOmp of death
where the grace of life has been!
With all good wishes for the Returned
take of a small piece of the fatted calf
(rare and no gravy, am yours cordially,
MARK TWAIN.