December 11 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster that Henry M. Stanley wanted to write a book for them but had to lecture for three or four months and could not do both.

His lecturing, this time, is going to make reputation for him — it destroyed it when he tried it before [MTP].

Sam also responded to a suggestion Webster made in his Dec. 7 letter, that they consider a book by General John A. Logan. Note: Logan would die on Dec. 26.

Caroline B. Le Row finished her Dec. 4 to Sam, enclosing eight pages of her student misstatements: “Parasite — some kind of umbrella; Culinary — cunning or cute,” etc. [MTP]. Note: Le Row, a Brooklyn schoolteacher, furnished the grist for Sam’s “English As She Is Taught.”

William Smith wrote to Sam from Morley, near Leeds, England. Smith thanked him for his “kindly expressions” to his work, responding late to Sam’s Oct. 18 letter, which he would have acknowledged but was waiting for the books on Hartford to arrive which he’d thought Sam “intimated would soon be on the way.” They had not arrived. Had Sam read Elijer Gof’s works? Smith thought Gof the “best English humorist at the present time” [MTP].