January 28 Tuesday – Sam wrote a public plea for charity to the Hartford Evening Post. The letter was an advertisement for his lecture to be given on Jan.

January 27 Monday – Sam’s article on John E. Mouland’s award, “British Benevolence,” was published in the New York Tribune [MTL 5: 282n2].

January 26 Sunday – Whitelaw Reid wrote to Sam on Lotos Club stationery.

My Dear Twain: /Wont you come to New York next Saturday, and “be dined” as the guest of the Lotos? The members of the Club will give you a hearty welcome, and I will see that your dinner is not wholly indigestible. You will have to endure the solemnity of my society during the dinner, but at its close you can find some relief. / Very truly Yours, / Whitelaw Reid [MTPO]. Note: Sam telegraphed reply on Feb. 1

January 25 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Whitelaw Reid, enclosing a manuscript printed in the Tribune on Jan. 27 as “British Benevolence,” about the gold medal awarded to John E. Mouland for the rescue on the Batavia [MTL 5: 282].

January 24 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James Redpath about his somewhat revised Sandwich Islands lecture he was to give twice in New York and once in Brooklyn and Jersey City. Sam decided to end the lecture on a serious note, rather than a joke. The serious note was a summary of Hawaii as a:

January 22 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Captain John E. Mouland about the awards the captain and crew received for the rescue at sea on Sam’s trip home. Again he invited Mouland to visit Hartford on his next trip, and wrote about the lot he purchased and his plans to have a house built there while he was in England [MTL 5: 277].

Sam also wrote to his sister Pamela:

January 21 Tuesday – John E. Mouland wrote from Boston to reply to Clemens’ Dec. 3, 1875 invite.

January 20 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Thomas B. Pugh of Phila., owner of the “Star Course of Lectures and Concerts,” touting the idea of establishing a lecture circuit entirely on the Eastern seaboard in big cities with only big-name speakers [MTL 5: 275].

January 19 Sunday – From Livy’s diary:

“Mr. Chamberlin let us have the low land for less than $9 a foot—but in measuring the land there proved to be more of the bank than Mr. C. thought, so that by taking a hundred and thirteen (I believe) of the table land seventy five did not bring us to the flat land, so Mr. C. sold us the rest of the bank for $50 a front foot [Salsbury 13]. Note: Franklin Chamberlin.

January 17 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his old friend Will Bowen, commiserating about the loss of a child [MTL 5: 273]. Sam also wrote to James Redpath, declining to lecture in Philadelphia, but saying he might talk the “Sandwich Islands” lecture in New York and Brooklyn for the Mercantile Library [MTL 5: 274].