Slinking in San Francisco: Day By Day

October 31–November 2 Thursday – Sam’s short insert, “Steamer Departures” ran in the Enterprise sometime between these dates, and is another humorous example of Sam making interest out of boring news—a departure list in this case for the Pacific Mail Steamship’s Colorado, which left for Panama on Oct. 30, 1865 carrying 600 passengers.

October 8 Sunday – Around noon on a peaceful Sabbath day, a severe earthquake hit San Francisco. Sam’s later account: I was walking along Third Street, and facing north, when the first shock came; I was walking fast, and it “broke up my gait” pretty completely—checked me—just as a strong wind will do when you turn a corner and face it suddenly….The noise accompanying the shocks was a tremendous rasping sound, like the violent shaking and grinding together of a block of brick houses. It was about the most disagreeable sound you can imagine [ET&S 2: 304]. See Jump’s cartoon insert.

September 8 Friday – San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle ran this squib:
It appears that a “Hasheesh” mania has broken out among our Bohemians. Yesterday, Mark Twain and the “Mouse-Trap” man were seen walking up Clay street under the influence of the drug, followed by a “star,” who was evidently laboring under a misapprehension as to what was the matter with them. The “experiences” of the twain may be looked for in the next number of the Californian” (“Hasheesh Eaters”).

September 9 Saturday – Sam’s Californian articles won praise in the New York Round Table. He is, we believe, quite a young man, and has not written a great deal. Perhaps, if he will husband his resources and not kill with overwork the mental goods that has given us these golden eggs, he may one day take rank among the brightest of our wits. By the end of the year, Sam was a literary celebrity.

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Misery loves company.