l68 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



at his distress that we did not think to call him back and endeavor to comfort 

 him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper had already gone to 

 press, but knowing that our friend would consider the publication of this item 

 important, and cherishing the hope that to print it would afford a melancholy 

 satisfaction to his sorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted 

 it in our columns: — 



Distressing Accident. — Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr. William Schuyler, an old and 

 respectable citizen of South Park, was leaving his residence to go down town, as has been his usual 

 custom for many years with the exception only of a short interval in the spring of 1850, during 

 which he was confined to his bed by injuries received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by 

 thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing up his hands and shouting, which 

 if he had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still 

 more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered 

 more melancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there 

 and saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she 

 should be reconnoitering in another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and on the 

 look out, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her own mother is said to have stated, who is 

 no more, but died in the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upwards of three years ago, aged 

 eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile, as it were, or property, in consequence of 

 the fire of 1849, which destroyed every single thing she had in the world. But such is life. Let us 

 all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and let us endeavor so to conduct ourselves that when 

 we come to die we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our heart, and say with earnestness and 

 sincerity that from this day forth we will beware of the intoxicating bowl. — First Edition of the 

 Califoriiian. 



The head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing his hair and 

 kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a pick-pocket. He says that 

 every time he leaves me in charge of the paper for half an hour, I get imposed 

 upon by the first infant or the first idiot that comes along. And he says that 

 that distressing item of Mr Bloke's is nothing but a lot of distressing bosh, and 

 has no point to it, and no sense in it, and no information in it, and that there 

 was no sort of necessity for stopping the press to publish it. 



Now all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as unaccommoda- 

 ting and unsympathetic as some people, I would have told Mr. Bloke that I 

 wouldn't receive his communication at such a late hour ; but no, his snuffling 

 distress touched my heart, and I jumped at the chance of doing something to 

 modify his misery. I neyer read his item to see whether there was anything 

 wrong about it, but hastily wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to 

 the printers. And what has my kindness done for me .' It has done nothing 

 but bring down upon me a storm of abuse and ornamental blasphemy. 



