January 30 Tuesday – Sam lectured in The Tabernacle, Jersey City, New Jersey – “Roughing It.” Sam had become used to introducing himself, and played it up for all the humor it offered. He often related the true story about a man out West who’d been forced to introduce him: “I don’t know anything about this man except two things, one is, he has never been in the penitentiary, and the other is, I don’t know the reason why” [MTL 5: 38].

After the lecture Sam took the ferry back to New York and spent the night at the St. Nicholas. He purchased 200 Figaro cigars, Cuban, from Case & Rathbun, shirt manufacturers & cigars wholesale, New York, for $24 [MTP]. Note: Sam was famous for loving the cheapest cigars, but as this purchase shows, not always the cheapest.

The first copies of Roughing It arrived from the American Publishing Co. [MTL 5: 45n4].