April – Sometime during the month, William J. Hamersley loaned Sam $2,500 to help with typesetter expenses. This was a three-month loan but still unpaid a year later. Since Sam expected “Ham” to kick in with one-fifth of ongoing expenses, he may have seen this as an offset. (See July 11 entry.)
Henry Clay Lukens’ article, “American Literary Comedians,” ran in Harper’s Monthly, LXXX p.783-97. Mark Twain is “the one man of all our newspaper harlequins whom Good Luck chose for its pampered idol” [Tenney, ALR supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1978) 166]. Note: Lukens’ pen name, “Erratic Enrique.”
Webster & Co. Sent Sam a report “Books sent out during March, 1890” totaling 5,727 books led by CY 1,889 [MTP]. Note: the MTP catalogues this as a March incoming entry.