July 21 Sunday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “THE SEX IN NEW YORK,” which Sam had dated May 26. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 22 [bibliog.].
BLOOD
The old Washoe instincts that have lain asleep in my bosom so long are waking up again here in the midst of this late and unaccountable freshet of blood-letting that has broken loose in the East. The papers, all of a sudden, are being filled with assassinations, and second-degree murders, and prize-fights, and suicides. It is a wonderful state of things. From a careless in difference to such matters, I have been roused up to an old-time delight in them, and now I have to have my regular suicide be fore breakfast, like a cocktail, and my side-dish of murder in the first degree for a relish, and my savory assassination to top off with while I pick my teeth and smoke. A breakfast would be insipid, now, without these condiments. If I were to order a beef steak rare and a murder in the first degree, and only got the former, I believe I would have to retire and wait for the evening papers [Schmidt].