Year: 1870




say the fingers of his right band were
| spread apart; then talk about the back OF
his head little, and return and say the
left thumb was hooked into the right
little finger; then ramble all about
something else, and by and by
drift back again and remark that the
fingers of the left hand were spread
like those of the right. But 1 was
too ingenious. l mixed it up rather too
much; so all the description of the atti
tude, key to the humbuggery of the
article, Was entirely lost, for nobody but
me ever discovered and comprehended
the peculiar and suggestive position of
The petrifed mans hands.


As satire on the petrifaction mania,
or anything else, my Petritied Man was
disheartening failure; for everybody re-
cCived him in innocent good faith, and
was stunned to see the creature | had be
gotten to pull down the wonder business
with and bring derisiOn upon it, calmly
exalted TO the grand chief place in the list
of the genuine marvels our Nevada had
produced. | was SO disappointed Stt ne
curious miscarriage of my scheme that at
first was angry and did not like to think
about it; but by and by, when the ex-
changes began to come in with the Petri


fed Man copied and guilelessly glorified,
| began to feel a soothing secret satisfac
tion; and as my gentleman's field of
travel broadened, and by the exchanges
saw that he steadily and implacabl pene-
trated territory after territory, State after
State, and land after land, till he swept
the great globe and eliminated in sublime
and unimpeached legitimacy in the au
gust I" London Lancet" my cup was tu,l.
and said was glad l had done 1t.
think that for about eieven months, as
nearly as L can remember, Mr.. Sewalls
ualy mail contained along in the neigh
bOrhOOd of half bushel of newspapers
hailing from many chimes with the Petri-
fed Man in them, marked around with a
prominent belt of ink. | sent them to
him. did it for spite, not for fun. He
used to shovel them into his back yard
and curse. And every day during all
those months the miners, his constituents
lfOr mlpcrs never quit joking persOA
when they get started), would call on him
and ask If be could tell them where they
could get hold of a paper with the Petri-
fled MAJ in it. He could have accommo-
dated a continent with them. 1 hated
Sewall In those days, and these things
pacified me and pleased me. l could not
have gotten more real comfort out of him
without killing him.


MY FAMOUS "BLOoDY MASSACRE"


The other burlesque | have referred to
was my fine satire upon the expedient of
cooking dividends" thing which be-
came shametully frequent on the Pacific
coast. Once more, in my self-cOmplacent
simplicity, | felt that the time had arrived
for me TO rise up and be reformer | put
this refOrmatOry satire in the shape OF
fearful Massacre at Empire City" The
San Francisco papers were making great
outcry about the Daney Silver Mining
Company, whose directors had declared
cooked" or false, dividend, for the pur-
pose of increasing the value Of their
stock, so that they could sell out at
comfortable figure and then scramble from
under the tumbling concern. And, while
abusing the Daney, those papers did not
forget 10 urge the public to get rid of ali
their silver stocks, and invest in sound
Spring Valley Water Company, etc. But
right at this unfortunate juDcture, behold
the Spring Valley cooked dividend too
And so, under the insidiOus mask of an
invented +" bloody ma ssacre," | stole upon
the public unawares with my scathing
satire upon the dividend-cOoking system
In about half column of imaginary in
human carnage told low citizen had
murdered his wife and nine children and
then committed suicide. And said slyly,
at the bottom, that the sudden madness of
which this melancholy massacre was the
result, had been brought about by his
having allowed himself to be persuaded
by the California papers to sell his
sound and lucrative Nevada silver
stocks and buy into Spring Valley
just in time to get cooked along with that
company's fancy dividend, and sink every
cent he had in the world. All, it was
deep satire, and most ingeniouslY con
trived But | made the horrible details so
carefully and conscicntiOUsly interesting
that the public simply devoured them
greedily, and wholly overlooked the fol-
lowing distinctly stated facts, to-wit:
The murderer was perfectly well known
to every creature in the land as a bache-
lor, and consequently he could not muir
der his wife and nine children; he muir
dered them ''in his splendid dressed stone
mansion just in the edge of the great
pine forest between Empire City and
Dutch Nlck's," when even the very
picked oysters that came on our tables
knew that there was not "dressed-
stone mansion" in all Nevada Territory /;
also, that Sd far from there being great
pine forest between Empire City and
Dutch Nicks," there wasn't solitary
tree within fifteen miles of either place !;
and, finally, it was patent and notorious
that Empire City and Dutch Nick's were
one and the same place, and contained
only six houses anyhow, and cOnse-
quently there could be no forest bstaceen
them; and on top Of all these absurdities,
| stated that this diabOlical murderer, after
inf1icting wound upon himself that the
reader ought to have seen would have
killed an elephant in the twinkling of an
eye, jumped on his horse and rode four
miles, waving his W ifes reeking scalp in
the air, and thus performing entered Car
son City with tremendous ecldt, and
dropped dead in front of the chief saloon,
the envy and admiration of all beholders.


Well in all my life | never saw any
thing like the sensation that little satire
created. 1t was the talk of the town, it
was the talk of the Territory Most of
the citizens dropped gently into it at
breakfast, and they never finished their
meal There was something about these
minutely- faithful details that was a suffi-
cient substitute for food. Few people
that were able to read took food that
morning. Dan and | dan was my re-
pOrtorill asHociate) took our meals on
either side of our customary table in the
Eagle Restaurant" and as | unfOlded
the shred they used TO call napkin in
that establishment, / saw at the table two
stalwart innOcents with that sort of veg
etable dandruff sprinkled about their
clothing which was the sign and evidence
that they were in from the Trukee with
load of hay. The one facing me had the
morning paper folded to long, narrow
strip, and | knew, without any telling,
that that strip represented the column
that contained my pleasant financial satire
From the way he was excitedly mum
bling, 1 saw that the needless son of hay
NOW was skipping with all his might, in
order to get to the bloody details as quick
ly as possible; and so he was missing the