MARK TWAIN IN THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC CHRONICLE
1865
OH, YOU ROBINSON!
One of Rev. Mr. Stebbins' deacons has been arrested for bigamy, and is to be examined in the Police Court. Mr. Robinson -- John R. Robinson -- is the culprit. It is charged that he married Kate R. Anderson in 1854, and afterward tried to get divorced from her in our courts. But he failed; and then he sent a statement of the case to Brigham Young's Probate Court, and that inspired body did the business for him -- though the chances are that these proceedings were exceedingly irregular in all their details, and that Brigham's Probate had no jurisdiction in the matter anyhow. However, it suited Robinson, and he went and got Rev. Mr. Stebbins to marry him to Laura Hatch in 1864, and then sailed in to hatch some more trouble. This kind of thing isn't going to do, Robinson. You must put a stop to it, you know. You are putting things into people's heads that shouldn't be there. And, moreover, your example is calculated to divert business from the California courts. The "Robertsonian method of teaching French" is very good, but the Robinsonian method of getting divorces is rather too brash. You won't do, Robinson. Robinson, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
[published in Early Tales & Sketches, Volume 2, 1864-1865,
University of California Press, 1981, p. 488.]
