MARK TWAIN IN THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC CHRONICLE
1865
OUR ACTIVE POLICE
The Call gives an account of an unoffending Chinese rag-picker being set upon by a gang of boys and nearly stoned to death. It concludes the paragraph thus: "He was carried to the City and County Hospital in an insensible condition; his head having been split open and his body badly bruised. The young ruffians scattered, and it is doubtful if any of them will be recognized and punished." If that unoffending man dies, and a murder has consequently been committed, it is doubtful whether his murderers will be recognized and punished, is it? And yet if a Chinaman steals a chicken he is sure to be recognized and punished, through the efforts of one of our active police force. If our active police force are not too busily engaged in putting a stop to petty thieving by Chinamen, and fraternizing with newspaper reporters, who hold up their wonderful deeds to the admiration of the community, let it be looked to that the boys who were guilty of this murderous assault on an industrious and unoffending man are recognized and punished. The Call says "some philanthropic gentlemen dispersed the miscreants;" these philanthropic gentlemen, if the police do their duty and arrest the culprits, can probably recognize them.
[published in Early Tales & Sketches, Volume 2, 1864-1865,
University of California Press, 1981, p. 511.]
