June 30 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn, Sam wrote to Frederick A. Dumeka who had forwarded a letter from Granville George Greenwood to Greenwood’s publisher, John Lane, listing three errors Sam had made in “Is Shakespeare Dead?”
Dear Duneka: / Why, they are mere slips of the pen. Anybody but a turnip can see that. Then why correct them? To educate the turnip? Just leave them alone. Once, by a mere slip of the pen, I spoke of the “raising of Lazarus, b’Jesus.”’ Of course I meant BY Jesus; anybody but a turnip would know that. People insulted me by wanting me to correct it. I told them in French where to go. / Yours sincerely / Mark [MTP].
The New York Times, p. 7 ran a short article which included Mark Twain in another financial failure:
EDUCATIONAL THEATRE FAILS.
Directors Petition to Dissolve Corporation Owing to Lack of Funds.
Supreme Court Justice Giegerich issued an order yesterday directing Attorney General O’Malley and Miss A.M. Herz to show cause on Aug. 9 why the Educational Theatre, at 217 East Eighteenth Street, should not be dissolved as a corporation.
The petitioners, who are also members of the Board of Directors, include Samuel L. Clemens, (Mark Twain,) Robert J. Collier, Charles S. Miner, and Otto H. Kahn, say the theatre, which was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York in October, 1908, was to be supported by voluntary contributions, and the necessary funds to carry it on successfully have not been forthcoming.