aman's sojourn in America. Plain fact is amply
sufficient." The letters show how the supposed Chinese writer of them
had set out for America, believing it to be a land whose government was
based on the principle that all men are created equal, and treated
accordingly; how, upon arriving in San Francisco, he was kicked and
bruised and beaten, and set upon by dogs, flung into jail, tried and
condemned without witnesses, his own race not being allowed to testify
against Americans--Irish-Americans--in the San Francisco court. They are
scathing, powerful letters, and one cannot read them, even in this day of
improved conditions, without feeling the hot waves of resentment and
indignation which Mark Twain must have felt when he penned them.
Reverend Mr. Talmage was not the only divine to receive attention in the
"Memoranda." The Reverend Mr. Sabine, of New York, who had declined to
hold a church burial service for the old actor, George Holland, came in
for the most caustic as well as the most artistic stricture of the entire
series. It deserves preservation to-day, not only for its literary
value, but because no finer defense of the drama, no more searching
sermon on self-righteousness, has ever been put into concrete form.
--["The Indignity Put Upon the Remains of Gorge Holland by the Rev. Mr.
Sabine"; Galaxy for February, 1871. The reader will find it complete
under Appendix J, at the end of last volume.]
The "Little Church Around the Corner" on Twenty-ninth Street received
that happy title from this incident.
"There is a little church around the corner that will, perhaps, permit
the service," Mr. Sabine had said to Holland's friends.
The little church did permit the service, and there was conferred upon it
the new name, which it still bears. It has sheltered a long line of
actor folk and their friends since then, earning thereby reverence,
gratitude, and immortal memory.--[Church of the Transfiguration. Memorial
services were held there for Joseph Jefferson; and a memorial window, by
John La Farge, has been placed there in memory of Edwin Booth.]
Of the Galaxy contributions a number are preserved in Sketches New and
Old. "How I Edited an Agricultural Paper" is one of the best of these
--an excellent example of Mark Twain's more extravagant style of humor.
It is perennially delightful; in France it has been dramatized, and is
still played.
A successful Galaxy feature, also preserved in the Sketches, was the
"Bur
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