Russell Sage (1815-1906) was a well-known wealthy New York businessman with financial interests in banking, western railroads, and Western Union.
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mutoscope—In 1894 Henry Norton Marvin and Herman Casler patented the mutoscope, a device for showing moving pictures. A sequence of photographs was attached to a rotating drum, so that the images were flipped rapidly from one to the next as the drum rotated, creating the illusion of motion.
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International—The International and Great Northern Railroad (I. & G. N.) plays a prominent role in many of O. Henry's stories. It was one of the great early railroads of Texas, beginning in the northeast corner of the state and gradually extending southwestward almost 600 miles, reaching Rockdale by 1873, Austin by 1876, then San Antonio, and eventually the Mexican border at Laredo in 1881. Later it became part of the Missouri Pacific system.
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There is a town named Rincón almost 200 miles south of San Antonio, but it is not on the route of the I. & G. N. O. Henry often appropriated names of real places for his stories without worrying about geographical correctness. The description here is undoubtedly from O. Henry's memory of his journey from his home in North Carolina to a ranch in LaSalle County, Texas, when he was twenty. He would have gotten off the I. & G. N. at Cotulla, about 90 miles south of San Antonio, and ridden to the ranch as described in this paragraph. The description of this journey, with its vistas and aromas, is repeated in a number of O. Henry's stories.
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javeli—native wild pigs of the Sonoran desert, more often called javelinas, prized by hunters because of their ferocity. Their name comes from the Spanish word for javelin, "jabalina," because of their razor-sharp teeth.
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