Home | Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search
MEXICAN JOLLIFICATION [original item not recovered]
The Mexican jollification of the night of the 15th occasioned some of the more timid of citizens a big scare. During the day there had been considerable talk on the streets about those 500 guerillas camped somewhere on the Carson river, and armed to the teeth with rams, howitzers, fire crackers, rifled cannon, and other such tools as may be picked up anywhere along the river floating among the drift wood. Of course, nobody was afraid -- in the daytime -- and all went to bed alike forgetful of the guerillas and the Mexican celebration, which was to "explode" at 12 o'clock precisely. At 12, "bang! bang! bang!" went the cannon, martial music was heard in the streets; there was loud cheering and shouting. "The guerillas! Heavens, the guerillas!" was hissed in a suppressed screech throughout the city, by 1,150 men and women, as 1,150 men and women suddenly rose to a sitting posture on their spring mattresses. The larger number, however, of our citizens who did not know the true reason of the firing supposed a grand Federal victory had been achieved. One woman was "Lo me, so grieved; I thought poor Stonewall Jackson was taken." So much for the Washoe guerillas.
[Text recovered by Michael Marleau from San Francisco Bulletin, September
23, 1862, p. 1. Possibly
written by Mark Twain. No further evidence of his authorship has yet been established.
]
