AN EDITOR INCOG.
In the years 1864 and 1865 I lived in Carson City, the capital of Nevada, which recently became famous as the place where the great prize fight between Bob Fitzsimmons and Gentleman Jim Corbett occurred. The racecourse which became the arena on that occasion was during all the time of my residence there used by me daily as a gymnasium for exercise. I had very little to do with the actual politics of the country, because I was, and had always been, a Democrat of the most uncompromising character, and the party divisions out in that country were between the Republicans and men from the Southern States, who were generally outspoken rebels; and as it was in the midst of the Civil War, the feeling was intense between them. I was a warm supporter of the war for the Union, and found myself in the position of a man without a party. The situation did not incommode me, however, as I was fully occupied outside the realm of politics.
There were two daily newspapers published in the town,—one Republican, which was called the Carson Daily Appeal, and the other Democratic, called the Evening Post. There were no associated press dispatches, although the telegraph had reached the Pacific Coast and the San Francisco papers had the benefit of that great purveyor of news.
The proprietor of the plant of the Republican paper was an old Minnesota man, and a friend of mine, with whom I frequently came in contact, both in a business and social way. Under this condition of things, you may imagine my surprise and consternation when I tell you that one day he rushed into my office in a great state of excitement, and told me that his editor had left him and gone to San Francisco, and that he could not keep his paper going unless I would run it until he could arrange for another editor, adding that a failure to publish it for a single day would ruin him. At first I looked upon the proposition as utterly out of the question, and said: "How can I edit a Republican newspaper, when I am at swords' points with everything they believe and advocate?" It was with him, however, "a groundhog case," as we used to call such imperative occasions. He had to get him, as he was out of meat. He was persistent in his demands, and as the negotiations progressed, I began to look upon the matter as a good joke, and finally promised that I would undertake to keep the paper going if he would swear that he would never disclose my identity, which condition he promised faithfully to observe.
It was a matter that admitted of no delay. I had to prepare a column and a half of editorial that night for the next morning's issue. What I wrote about, I don't pretend to remember, but it was well received, and its Republican orthodoxy was never questioned, and I repeated the dose daily for some time with the same success, growing more and more violent in my attacks on the Democracy in each successive issue. Carson was a small town, and, as the old editor was missed by his friends, public curiosity increased as to who had succeeded him, and I enrolled myself among the guessers, and improved every occasion to criticise publicly the editorials. It soon became very tiresome and difficult to maintain my ground, with politics as the sole text for my editorials, and as news was very scarce, I sought relief in any channel that opened a way. A great race took place in San Francisco between Charley Brian's ever victorious horse, Lodi, and a colt of the celebrated stallion Lexington, named Norfolk, for which Joe Winters of Carson had paid fifteen thousand and one dollars to the owner of Lexington,—Lord Bob Alexander of Kentucky,—especially to make the race with Lodi. The $15,001 was exacted by the owner of Lexington, because he had been laughed at for paying $15,000 for Lexington when he was old and blind, and had said he would sell his colts for more than he had paid for their sire. This race, of course, created an immense excitement. At least twenty thousand people went to see it, and everybody on the Pacific Coast from the forty-ninth parallel to the Mexican line had a bet on the result. Lodi was beaten, and as Nevada was the victor, and I knew all about Lexington, I wrote several essays on race horses in general and Norfolk in particular.
The office of sheriff of our county was a very hazardous one, every incumbent of it prior to the then holder having "died with his boots on." Tim Smith, who filled the office when I was there, and had shown desperate courage on several occasions in the performance of his duties, had gained my admiration and friendship, and afforded me a good text, and I wrote him up.
There was an ex-governor of California residing in Carson with whom I became intimate, and on one occasion I wrote him up; and last, but not least, I made the acquaintance of a beautiful and accomplished lady living in the town, and as such a person was a phenomenon in that rude land, I was inspired to write her up, and did so in the following poem: