Year: 1875

from the Carson Appeal OF November 4th


A telegram to Sundays Enterprise in


forms the public of the death at Battle
Mountain of w. j. Forbes, editor of
Measure for Measure. He was found
dead in bed. The fact that of late
months he has been subject to sudden
illness, something like epileptic fits. pre-
pared his friends for this sudden taking
of. No man ever connected with the
Press of Nevada, and but few connected
with it anywhere, broughtso marked and
distinctive personalism to their edito-
rial duties as Forbes. In the best of his
writing times. during the publication of
the Sierra Democrat and Humboldt Regis
ter, every number of his paper was bub-
bling over with quaint conceits and sting
ing wit. He called his writing genius
-'Semblins "a squash-and made it
say the brightest and oldest and cutting
est things in the world. He was as full
OF this genius-for it was nothing less
than that-as an egg is full of meat land
not content to vent his wordy pranks in
his paper, he was all the time seeking
and keeping up correspondence with
congenial spirits. If Freedom shrieked
when Kosciusko FELL" we may be sure
that the house of Humbug, Pretense,
Cant d Co. breathed sigh of relief
when the news reached it that Forbes
was dead. How he could let the sawdust
out of any stuffed image of mock gran
deur or mock patriotism What thorn
he was in the side of hypocricy We
think that all of us press-gangers were
just the least bit afraid of him. There
was whole. thoroughbred journalist of
the olden sort, in Forbes. The new
tangled wit of the times he repudiated
with biting scorn all his own; and he
tortured with merciless hand the witlings
who lisp it. Another thing is to be al
ways remembered by those who had a
speaking acquaintance with his earlier
newspapers. They were not only mar
vels of typographical neatness and taste,
but there Was certain attractive some
thing about their makeup that bespoke
the artist A thing worth saying gains
much by the tone and expression with
which it is uttered and with the keen
eye for the real, the fitting and the i'm
pressive, Forbes made up his columns so
that the tid-bits and meat kernels were
never wasted. He threw many a pearl,
and many-a-one before swine, no doubt
but he valued his wit and was not willing
that its efforts should be Loves labor
lost. Our dead friend-and as such we
held hlm-was native of Ohio, and
learned his trade there at time and
among men and events that were more
like the early California times and men
than anything known nowadays except
as we clutch it and hate to part with it
hereabouts in the mountains and ont on
the border yonder. He dated back to
Sam Medary and the likes, and was fnll
OF the knowledge of such old politicians as
he. That was when Ohio was in 1.-The
West, and whisky and coon-hunting and
barbecues were the order of the day. He
never ceased to yearn for the good old
days never to come again, just as Scotch
men yearn for the bonnie days that Aud
Bobbie filled with light. and just as the
typical English Squire sighs for the good
old stage coach times. In the death of
Forbes the coast has lost its best single
handed, hebdomedal mountain writer.
He would have been lost ina city like San
Francisco, and his audacities of a semi
shocking, but very funny, sort wouldn't
have been tolerated there but he lit a
signal fire in the Sierra that shone like a
(. burning diamond. Well, he has gone
and taken piece out of the journalism
OF the times which cannot be filed.
Where his pen fell there is void. He
has gone to join Billy Parkinson and
Lance Nightingale and John James, whom
he loved SO well and when the Spring
grass begins to grow upon his new-made
grave in the quiet cemetery at Coloma,


where, beside his long-mourned wife,
he is to lie, it will hasten to dig its roots
down there as into the richest mold over
which the generous April air of Califor-
ma waves its balm. May the turf grow
, quick and green above him