December 15 Friday – Moncure Conway wrote to Sam. In part:

My dear Clemens / A paragraph in the Cin. Commercial says “Mark Twain and Bret Harte are said to be writing a play together.” If ever you write a play again be sure to arrange to have it copyrighted here and brought out on the same night that it is brought out in America. For it was yesterday decided in the Courts against Dion Boucicault that his copyright to the Shaugran in England was worthless because the play was first brought out in America. This decision ends your hope, I fear, of protecting Col. Sellers here—though I do not yet absolutely know whether the English copyright of the Gilded Age could protect it. I am pretty sure not [MTPO].