16 June 1874 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: NN-B, UCCL 02471)
A Postal Case.
To the Editor of the Advertiser:
Last year, in England, people told me that the English postal system was so thorough that a misdirected letter would relentlessly chase a man from end to end of the British dominions & never give up till it found him or his corpse.1explanatory note Of course the American eagle stirred within me & I said our postal system was just as thorough. I said a letter could hardly be so barbarously misdirected but that our postoffice officials would manage to get it to the person it was meant for.
I may have been right about as regards some of our postmasters, & I believe I have evidence that will partially bear me out in my opinion—but as regards some others of our postmasters, I believe I was wrong. For instance: D during this the last few months, two letters have tried to get to me from Scotland, but failed in their first attempt; they only touched our shores & then were rushed back home again marked “Unclaimed,” & had to be re-directed before they could make their trip to me successfully. The first time these letters left Scotland, they were addressed thus:
Mr. Samℓ. L. Clemens,
Hartford,
State of New York,
They probably went to the New York postoffice to be distributed. What would an official with three cents worth of brains have said? would a truly gifted official have said? No doubt he would have said, “There is only one Hartford in America—we will try sending these letters to Connecticut.” But what would an official with less than three cents worth of brains do? muggins do? Naturally he would say, “There is no Hartford in the State of New York—these letters must go back to Scotland.” Back they went. , anyway—& you may estimate the value of the distributing clerk’s brains to suit yourself. Isn’t it charming?
Last week I received a letter from England addressed in this vague & perplexing way:
Mr. Clemens,
Hartford,
Near Boston,
New York,
U.S. of A.
It came promptly to me without being sent back.3explanatory note Now why should a Boston postal clerk be wiser have more brains than a New York one? Is the salary higher?
Hartford, June 16.4explanatory note
Clemens witnessed the efficiency of the English postal system when he toured the London post office in 1873. His visit was probably arranged by his friend Edmund Yates, who served as head of the missing-letter department for about ten years. In a sketch entitled “The ‘Blind Letter’ Department, London P. O.,” soon to be published in Sketches, New and Old, Clemens expressed his amazement at a clerk whose “speciality is a wonderful knack in the way of deciphering atrocious penmanship. That man can read anything that is done with a pen” (CtY-BR; SLC 1875, 279; L5 , 540 n. 2).
The misaddressed letters were from John Brown (15 June 74 to Brownclick to open link). Brown had correctly addressed his previous letters, dated 12 February and 18 March, to Hartford, Connecticut.
This letter is not among the correspondence that survives in the Mark Twain Papers.
Clemens adopted a Hartford dateline as appropriate for his complaint, but he wrote this letter from Elmira. The Boston Advertiser published it on 23 June (SLC 1874). For the result, see 4 Sept 74 to Brown.click to open link
MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B), is copy-text for ‘A . . . one?’ (162.1–163.14). The last sentence, signature, and date were cut away—according to a 1924 auction catalog—by the proofreader for the Boston Advertiser, which published the letter on 23 June 74 (“A Postal Case,” 2; Henkels 1924, lot 60). The copy-text for ‘Is . . . 16.’ (163.15–17) is therefore that printing. Several other pages of MS have been cut and reassembled. There are no missing pieces, however, and it is very unlikely that Clemens was responsible. The MS may have been cut by the typesetter for the Advertiser (who wrote several typographical instructions on the MS), or a collector, who mounted the sheets on what appear to be scrapbook pages.
L6 , 162–163; “Mark Twain’s Literary Troubles,” Hartford Courant, 24 June 74, 2.
The MS was offered for sale in 1924 by Henkels (lot 60). Sometime before 1936 it was purchased by businessman William T. H. Howe (1874–1939); in 1940 Dr. Albert A. Berg bought and donated the Howe Collection to NN.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.