May 23 Monday – Sam wrote in “Our Assistant’s Column” of the Journal that the steamboat Jennie Deans had put ashore two children stricken with cholera [Branch, “Steersman” 206n10]. More importantly, Sam poked fun at the rival town of Quincy, Illinois (“one horse town with stern wheel prospects”), and insulted the Bloomington (Missouri) Republican [Wecter 261]. Sam was an instigator, forever trying to stir up fun and controversy in an otherwise boring newspaper. Also in the column was a satire of “The Burial of Sir John Moore” titled, “The Burial of Sir Abner Gilstrap, Editor of the Bloomington ‘Republican’”[ET&S 1: 106; MTL 1: 2].