January 11 Wednesday – On or just after this day at 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam responded to a questionnaire (“Questions Pertaining to Medical Legislation”) sent by Andrew C. Biggs, a “non-Medical physician” sent this day, from Greensboro, N.C. To all but two of the questions Sam either answered “no” or left unanswered. To the other two:

4. In your opinion, are the medical practice laws now in force in some of the states, drawn solely in behalf of the general public? If not, what other purpose do they serve?

Clemens: “They serve to curtail the citizen’s liberties: they serve to abolish the citizen’s fair & legitimate right to do with his body as he does with his soul: choose healer & creed to suit himself.”

7. Please express any other views you may hold on the subject of medical legislation.

Clemens: “The allopaths have elected themselves a public-health monopoly so long that they have come at last to believe it their actual right to say who may kill & who may not. The bravos of Venice took the same attitude in the thirteenth century: they held that a person was not properly killed unless the killer possessed an assassin’s certificate” [MTP].

Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Today Mr. & Mrs. Twichell came to spend a night. It is a blessing for Mr. Clemens has been too much alone” [MTP: TS 37].

Isabel Lyon’s journal #2: Letter & statement received from Mr. Cecchi. Today, wrote Miss Harrison asking her to place $800, in the Manhattan Bank for Mr. Clemens’s credit with Haskard & Co.

Answered Mr. Cecchi’s letter & enclosed Bill to be paid.

Mr. Stanchfield called [MTP TS 1].