April 24 Saturday – James Redpath wrote from Boston to Sam:

Dear Sir—I was very sorry that I failed to see you when in Boston; but next time I hope to have better luck.

Now, about lecturing. Let me use your name, say for—“from the 1st of November,” conditional on your return from California;—tell me your terms; send me the titles of your lectures; and I will work you up during the summer. Send me regularly all your short humorous pieces so that I may get them republished, and so keep up & increase your reputation in N. E. I think you wd do well in this section; altho’ you are not so widely known here as in the Middle & Western States. However by sending me a lot of your newspaper scraps that can be remedied.

What I propose to do for lecturers is to advertise my whole list in leading papers, send circulars to every “Post,” (GAR) Y.M.C.A. & Lyceum, & newspaper editor in N.Y; and when the lecturer furnishes me with special circulars scatter them at my own expense

Now, this I wd like to do for you

I enclose the two last that have come to hand for me. Can’t you get up something similar & let me have 500 copies.

Some lecturers prefer also to spend some money (in my name) in special advertisements. Du Chaillu did it & it paid. Whatever am’t (if any) you choose to send for this purpose, I will expend judiciously.

Circulars, however, you ought to have.

Finally, don’t think that I’m half such a dandy as this Notepaper wd seem to imply—I have nothing else & it is my daughters!

Yours truly

Jas Redpath

P.S. My final list for the season won’t be issued till the middle of August. But a Spring list is necessary, as a sort of opening medicine to the body Lyceumic [MTPO; MTL 3: 216n1]. Note: Paul Belloni Du Chaillu (1831-1903), French-American anthropologist famous for being the first modern outsider to confirm the existence of gorillas, and later the Pygmy people of Africa.