March 31 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster, seeking the man who would be hired as the illustrator for Huckleberry Finn, Edward Windsor Kemble (1861-1933). Sam had seen Kemble’s work in Life magazine, at the time an illustrated comic weekly. He especially liked Kemble’s cartoon, “Some Uses for Electricity” [Oxford MT edition of HF, 1996, after-notes by Beverly David & Ray Sapirstein].

“Is that artist’s name Kemble?—I can not recall that man’s name. Is that it?…That is the man I want to try….Osgood has sent me $2500” [MTBus 246].

These subscribed to George W. Cable’s “April Fools” joke (see Apr. 1 entry), writing to Clemens: Lillian W. Aldrich; Thomas Bailey Aldrich; William S. Andrews; Charles Y. Beach; Moses S. Beach; Henry Ward Beecher; William Constantine Beecher; Hjalmar Boyesen; Noah Brooks; Clarence C. Buel; Henry C. Bunner; William Carey; Robert J. Collier; Charles C. Duncan; Austin C. Dunham; Frank J. Eakins; George Cary Eggleston; Charles S. Fairchild; Mary Fiske; Charles Frohman (1860-1915); Daniel Frohman; R.S. Gifford; Jeannette L. Gilder; John E. Gowers; Julian Hawthorne; John M. Hay; Andrew Hendman; Joseph Howard; Joseph Hutton; Laurence Hutton; Henry Irving; Robert U. Johnson; Clara L. Kellogg; Jane E. Kellogg; Horatio C. King; John C. Kinney; Thomas Wallace Knox; Charles M. Leoser; D.G. MacNeill; Brander Matthews; Elizabeth M. Millet; Henry L. Pierce; T.F. Plunkett; James B. Pond; Nella B. Pond; Ozias W. Pond; Quixote de la Mancha; Rossiter Worthington Raymond; H. Robinson; Napoleon Sarony; Horace E. Scudder; Wesley Sisson; Francis Hopkinson Smith; Edmund C. Stedman; Ellen Terry; Charles Watrous; Charles G. Whiting; Della Young [MTP]. Note: many of these letters were outrageous requests for autographs, letters, pieces of writing, appearances, and the like. They are not included here due to space restrictions.

Statement from Hubbard & Farmer, bankers & brokers, shows Sam’s balance $10,176.89; interest pd this date $52.31; balance Mar. 1 $10,124.58 [MTP].