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August 4 Tuesday  Sam took the train to Hartford, Conn. to work with Bliss on publishing Innocents Abroad for the next two weeks [Sanborn 400; Powers, MT A Life 241]. Sam would spend two weeks discussing the book and tightening the manuscript. Shortly after this, the manuscript was handed to Fay and Cox of New York, jobbers of illustrations, where Truman “True” Williams (1839-1897) was given the huge job of creating nearly 250 sketches [Winterich 177-8]. Williams would later work for the American Publishing Co.Frank Bliss later quoted Sam about Williams: “He was the greatest combination of hog and angel I ever saw” [180].

 “The Treaty with China,” appeared in the New York Tribune. Sam argued in the article that the treaty would ameliorate persecution of Chinese immigrants. Writing from his experiences in San Francisco, Sam wrote:

“I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature, but I never saw a policeman interfere in the matter and I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done him” [MTL 2: 239n1].

Note: In 1866, Sam and Steve Gillis had thrown bottles at Chinese shanties from their hotel windows, but time revealed the true nature of such abuse to Sam.

Day By Day Acknowledgment

Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.