January 8 Monday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter, dated this day, ran sometime in January in the Enterprise. Sections: “White Man Mighty Onsartain,” “ Mint Defalcation,” “The Opening Night,” and:
THE PORTRAITS
In the bath-house sign are very correct likenesses of the chief stockholders, and are as follows: The fleshy, smiling, bald-headed man hanging to the middle of the little life boat, is Mr. O. P. Sutton, in the banking interest. The bald headed man hanging on near the stern of the boat, is Mr. Aleck Badlam, the shark-fancier. The man on the left, who is just starting on the spring-board, is Col. Monstery, the fencing-master. The inverted young man on the bow of the boat who is performing some kind of extraordinary gymnastic feat and appears to have got it a little mixed, is Captain McComb. The central figure, swinging on the trapeze, is Mr. Edward Smith, of the banking interest. The half-submerged figure diving head-foremost at the right of the central fountain, is Mr. A. J. Snyder, the carpenter and builder, and is a very correct portrait as far as it goes. The handsome fat man facing you from the stateroom door on the extreme left, is Mr. Louis Cohn, and is considered a masterpiece of portrait painting. I cannot recognize the stockholder immediately under the spring board on the left, on account of his truly extraordinary position. It may be Fitz Smythe. The gentleman who is splashing himself behind the figure in the swing, and [has] upon his countenance an expression of lively enjoyment, is Professor Nash. The figure in the swing is most too many for me. It may be Menken, or it may be Jeff. Davis, or it may be some other man or some other woman. It is the very picture that so exasperates the South Parkers. It has got baggy breasts like a squaw, and the hips have the ample and rounded swell which belong to the female shape; but the head is masculine. That figure has worried the ladies of South Park a good deal, and it worries me just as much. I shall have to let this personage swing on undisturbed, and leave it to a wiser head to determine the sex and discover the name that belongs to it. It would be very uncomfortable, now, if it should turn out that I have been mistaken, and this remarkable picture should never have been intended for a collection of portraits, after all—in which case I beg pardon.

[Schmidt: “The Opening Night” and “The Portraits” reprinted in Mark Twain: San Francisco Correspondent, (Book Club of California, 1957) 60-62].