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[portion of San Francisco Letter]
GRAND FETE-DAY AT THE CLIFF HOUSE
PERFORMANCE TO COMMENCE PRECISELY AT HIGH NOON.
The following celebrated artistes have been engaged at a ruinous expense, and will perform the following truly marvelous feats:
PETE HOPKINS, the renowned Spectre of the Mountains, will walk a tight rope - the artist himself being tighter than the rope at the time - from the Cliff House to Seal Rock, and will ride back on the Seal known as Ben Butler, or the Seal will ride back on him, as circumstances shall determine.
JIM EOFF will exhibit the horse Patchen, and explain why he did not win the last race.
HARRIS COVEY will exhibit Lodi and Jim Barton, and BILLY WILLIAMSON will favor the audience with their pedigree and sketches of their history. N.B. - This will be very entertaining.
JEROME LELAND will exhibit the famous cow, in a circus ring prepared for the occasion, and perform several feats of perilous cowmanship on her back.
COMMODORE PERRY CHILDS will take a drink - the weather permitting. This was to have been done by another acrobat, but he is out of practice, and Mr. Childs has kindly volunteered in his place.
MICHAEL REESE will dance the Stock Gallopade, in which fine exhibition he will be assisted by several prominent brokers.
After which JUDGE BRYAN will sing two verses of "Neapolitaine" - by request.
The whole to conclude with the grand tableau of the "Children in the Wood" - Children in the Wood: Emperor Norton and the Spectre of the Mountains.
[reprinted in
The Works of Mark Twain; Early Tales & Sketches, Vol. 2 1864-1865,
(Univ. of California Press, 1981), pp. 400-01.]
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