Explanatory Notes
Apparatus Notes
MTPDocEd
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49. City Marshal Perry
4 March 1863

John Van Buren (Jack) Perry, the subject of this burlesque biography, was reelected city marshal of Virginia City on 2 March 1863.1 Since Clemens tells us in the piece that Perry was reelected “day before yesterday,” we conjecture that it appeared in the Territorial Enterprise on March 4. The Enterprise printing is not extant; our text is taken from Kate Milnor Rabb's The Wit and Humor of America.

In early May 1863, when Clemens temporarily relinquished his post as editor of the Enterprise local column in order to spend two months in San Francisco, an Enterprise writer—almost certainly Joseph T. Goodman—published a good-natured farewell in the form of a mock eulogy of Mark Twain, in which he dubbed him “Monarch of Mining Items, Detailer of Events, Prince of Platitudes, Chief of Biographers.”2 Although Goodman may have been thinking especially of “City Marshal Perry,” it seems likely that Clemens had in fact contributed his share of more serious work as well, since it was not unusual for the Enterprise staff to write brief biographies of candidates for public office.3

In mid-August 1863 the Enterprise published a straightforward biography of Perry (not now extant), perhaps on the occasion of his campaign for reelection as city constable.4 Clemens, who was then at Steamboat Springs, wrote the Enterprise in mock dismay on August 18:

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I notice in this morning's Enterprise, a lame, impotent abortion of a biography of Marshal Perry. . . . You either want to impose upon the public with an incorrect account of that monster's career . . . or else you wish to bring into disrepute my own biography of him, which is the only correct and impartial one ever published. Which is it? If you really desired that the people should know the man they were expected to vote for, why did you not republish that history?

The real Jack Perry, he insisted, “was born in New Jersey; . . . is by occupation a shoemaker,—by nature a poet, and by instinct a great moral humbug.”5

“City Marshal Perry,” by relentlessly piling up outlandish genealogies and “facts,” became an elaborate joke on a well-known town character. But this technique also ridiculed by implication the usual pompous tone and deferential rhetoric of real newspaper campaign biographies, some of which Clemens himself must certainly have written, and which used similar means to extol the candidates' accomplishments.

Far from being a shoemaker, as Clemens asserted, Perry was trained as a pressman. Politically he was known as a fierce Unionist. He figured prominently in anecdotes about Virginia City life in the 1860s, which characterized him as a large, aggressive, emotional man equally capable of weeping at East Lynne and of smashing the face of a “Secesh.” He was president of the Virginia Fire Department in 1862, foreman of Hook and Ladder Company No. 1, twice city marshal (1862 and 1863), and a habitual practical joker.6

Editorial Notes
1 San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 3 March 1863, p. 2; J. Wells Kelly, Second Directory of Nevada Territory (San Francisco: Valentine and Co., 1863), p. 270.
2 “Mark Twain,” Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, 3 May 1863, Scrapbook 2, p. 43, MTP.
3 See, for example, “Biographical Sketches of the Union Nominees,” Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, August 1863, Scrapbook 2, pp. 62–63, MTP.
4 On September 2 Perry was elected constable of Virginia City on the Union ticket (“Election Returns,” Virginia City Evening Bulletin, 3 September 1863, p. 3).
5 Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, 19 August 1863, Scrapbook 2, p. 62, MTP, reprinted in MTEnt , p. 68.
6  MTEnt , pp. 66–67; Kelly, Second Directory, pp. 270, 299; Margaret G. Watson, Silver Theatre (Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1964), p. 149. Perry is also mentioned in chapter 49 of Roughing It.
Textual Commentary

The first printing in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise for 4 March 1863 is not extant. The sketch survives in the only known reprinting of the Enterprise in Kate Milnor Rabb, ed., The Wit and Humor of America, 5 vols. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1907), 5:1809–1813, which is copy-text. Copy: PH from Library of Congress. The source of Rabb's text and the nature of her printer's copy are not known; see the textual commentary to “Ye Sentimental Law Student”(no. 44).

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City Marshal Perry

John Van Buren Perry, recently re-elected City Marshal of Virginia City, was born a long time ago, in County Kerry, Ireland, of poor but honest parents, who were descendants, beyond question, of a house of high antiquity. The founder of it was distinguished for his eloquence; he was the property of one Baalam, and received honorable mention in the Bible.

John Van Buren Perry removed to the United States in 1792—after having achieved a high gastronomical reputation by creating the first famine in his native land—and established himself at Kinderhook, New Jerseyexplanatory note, as a teacher of vocal and instrumental music. His eldest son, Martin Van Buren, was educated there, and was afterwards elected President of the United States; his grandson, of the same nameexplanatory note, is now a prominent New York politician, and is known in the East as “Prince John;”explanatory note he keeps up a constant and affectionate correspondence with his worthy grandfather, who sells him feet in some of his richest wildcat claims from time to time.

While residing at Kinderhook, Jack Perry was appointed Commodore of the United States Navy, and he forthwith proceeded to Lake Erie and fought the mighty marine conflict, which blazes upon the pages of history as “Perry's Victory.”explanatory note In consequence of this exploit, he narrowly escaped the Presidency.

Several years ago Commodore Perry was appointed Commissioner Extraordinary to the Imperial Court of Japanexplanatory note, with unlimited power to treat. It is hardly worth while to mention that he never exercised [begin page 236] that power; he never treated anybody in that country, although he patiently submitted to a vast amount of that sort of thing when the opportunity was afforded him at the expense of the Japanese officials. He returned from his mission full of honors and foreign whisky, and was welcomed home again by the plaudits of a grateful nation.

After the war was ended, Mr. Perry removed to Providence, Rhode Island, where he produced a complete revolution in medical science by inventing the celebrated “Pain Killer” which bears his nameexplanatory note. He manufactured this liniment by the ship-load, and spread it far and wide over the suffering world; not a bottle left his establishment without his beneficent portrait upon the label, whereby, in time, his features became as well known unto burned and mutilated children as Jack the Giant Killer'sexplanatory note.

When pain had ceased throughout the universe Mr. Perry fell to writing for a livelihood, and for years and years he poured out his soul in pleasing and effeminate poetry. . . . Histextual note very first effort, commencing:

“How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,”explanatory note etc.—

gained him a splendid literary reputation, and from that time forward no Sunday-school library was complete without a full edition of his plaintive and sentimental “Perry-Gorics.”explanatory note After great research and profound study of his subject, he produced that wonderful gem which is known in every land as “The Young Mother's Apostrophe to Her Infant,” beginning:

“Fie! fie! oo itty bitty pooty sing!
To poke oo footsy-tootsys into momma's eye!”

This inspired poem had a tremendous run, and carried Perry's fame into every nursery in the civilized world. But he was not destined to wear his laurels undisturbed: England, with monstrous perfidy, at once claimed the “Apostrophe” for her favorite son, Martin Farquhar Tupperexplanatory note, and sent up a howl of vindictive abuse from her polluted press against our beloved Perry. With one accord, the American people rose up in his defense, and a devastating war was only averted by a public denial of the paternity of the poem by the great Proverbial over his own signature. This noble act of Mr. Tupper gained him a [begin page 237] high place in the affection of this people, and his sweet platitudes have been read here with an ever augmented spirit of tolerance since that day.

The conduct of England toward Mr. Perry told upon his constitution to such an extent that at one time it was feared the gentle bard would fade and flicker out altogether; wherefore, the solicitude of influential officials was aroused in his behalf, and through their generosity he was provided with an asylum in Sing Sing prison, a quiet retreat in the state of New York. Here he wrote his last great poem, beginning:

“Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so—
Your little hands were never made
To tear out each other's eyes with—”explanatory note

and then proceeded to learn the shoemaker's trade in his new home, under the distinguished masters employed by the commonwealth.

Ever since Mr. Perry arrived at man's estate his prodigious feetexplanatory note have been a subject of complaint and annoyance to those communities which have known the honor of his presence. In 1835, during a great leather famine, many people were obliged to wear wooden shoes, and Mr. Perry, for the sake of economy, transferred his boot-making emendation patronage from the tan-yard which had before enjoyed his custom, to an undertaker's establishment—that is to say, he wore coffins. At that time he was a member of Congress from New Jerseyexplanatory note, and occupied a seat in front of the Speaker's throne. He had the uncouth habit of propping his feet upon his desk during prayer by the chaplainexplanatory note, and thus completely hiding that officer from every eye save that of Omnipotence alone. So long as the Hon. Mr. Perry wore orthodox leather boots the clergyman submitted to this infliction and prayed behind them in singular solitude, under mild protest; but when he arose one morning to offer up his regular petition, and beheld the cheerful apparition of Jack Perry's coffins confronting him, “The jolly old bum went under the table like a sick porpus” (as Mr. P. feelingly remarks), “and never shot off his mouth in that shanty again.”

Mr. Perry's first appearance on the Pacific Coast was upon the boards of the San Francisco theaters in the character of “Old Pete” in [begin page 238] Dion Boucicault's “Octoroon.”explanatory note So excellent was his delineation of that celebrated character that “Perry's Pete” was for a long time regarded as the climax of histrionic perfection.

Since John Van Buren Perry has resided in Nevada Territory, he has employed his talents in acting as City Marshal of Virginia, and in abusing me because I am an orphan and a long way from home, and can therefore be persecuted with impunity. He was re-elected day before yesterday, and his first official act was an attempt to get me drunk on champagne furnished to the Board of Aldermenexplanatory note by other successful candidates, so that he might achieve the honor and glory of getting me in the station-house emendation for once in his life. Although he failed in his object, he followed me down C street and handcuffed meexplanatory note in front of Tom Peasley'sexplanatory note, but officers Birdsall and Larkin and Brokawexplanatory note rebelled against this unwarranted assumption of authority, and released me—whereupon I was about to punish Jack Perry severely, when he offered me six bits to hand him down to posterity through the medium of this Biography, and I closed the contract. But after all, I never expect to get the money.

Editorial Emendations City Marshal Perry
  boot-making (I-C)  ●  boot- | making
  station-house (I-C)  ●  station- | house
Textual Notes City Marshal Perry
 poetry. . . . His] The ellipsis points appear in the copy-text and probably indicate an omission made by Rabb, although it is barely possible that the Enterprise printing so read.
Explanatory Notes City Marshal Perry
 Kinderhook, New Jersey] Kinderhook, New York, was the birthplace and home of Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States. New Jersey often had comic associations in Clemens' early writings.
 grandson, of the same name] John Van Buren, son of Martin Van Buren.
 “Prince John;”] In 1832, while serving as attaché to the American legation in London, John Van Buren attended a court dinner, and the list of guests published in the British court journal included his name in the roster of princes. American Whig publications consequently dubbed him “Prince John.” For more than two decades he was very active in New York State politics; in 1844 he headed the Barnburners faction at the Democratic national convention, and for a period in the mid-1840s he stumped for the Free Soil faction.
 Commodore . . . “Perry's Victory.”] Oliver Hazard Perry, the American naval commander on Lake Erie, defeated the British naval forces for control of the lake on 10 September 1813. His famous announcement was: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”
 Commissioner Extraordinary to the Imperial Court of Japan] In 1852 Matthew Calbraith Perry, brother to Oliver Hazard Perry, led the American trade delegation to Japan.
 “Pain Killer” which bears his name] In 1840 Perry Davis of Massachusetts (after 1843 a resident of Providence, Rhode Island) invented “Perry Davis's Celebrated Painkiller,” which became an enormously popular cure-all on several continents. (For example, Hannibal newspapers advertised it in 1849, and Virginia City newspapers in 1863). The label on each bottle bore his name and picture (Stewart H. Holbrook, The Golden Age of Quackery [New York: Macmillan Co., 1959], pp. 149–156). Aunt Polly prescribed it for Tom Sawyer, who in turn dosed Peter the cat with it. Its main component was alcohol, with an admixture of gum myrrh, gum opium, and a few other minor ingredients: “simply fire in a liquid form” (Tom Sawyer, chapter 12).
 unto burned . . . Jack the Giant Killer's] While Davis was making a batch of Painkiller in March 1844, the alcohol he was using exploded, severely burning his face and arms. After curing his burns by applying his own medicine, he employed an artist to depict him prostrate and engulfed with flames. The drawing was widely publicized (Holbrook, Golden Age, pp. 152–153). The English folktale hero Jack the Giant Killer, known to generations of children, saved many tortured victims from Blunderbore, Rebecks, and other giants.
 

“How doth . . . shining hour,”] The first two lines of Song 20, “Against Idleness and Mischief,” in Isaac Watts, Divine and Moral Songs for the Use of Children (London: John Van Voorst, 1848), p. 49. About 4 October 1887 Clemens wrote in his notebook:

 |  How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour b'gosh,
Gathering honey all the day
From many a lovely flower b'gosh.
( N&J3 , p. 334)

Watts's popular hymn “Alas! and Did My Saviour Bleed!” may have been a source of Emmeline Grangerford's “Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd” in Huckleberry Finn (John R. Byers, Jr., “Miss Emmeline Grangerford's Hymn Book,” American Literature 43 [May 1971]: 259–263). Watts's hymns and moral songs were ideal targets for Clemens' satirical thrusts at the false conception of life promoted by the literature of church and Sunday school.

 “Perry-Gorics.”] A multiple pun.
 Martin Farquhar Tupper] An English poet and moralist (1810–1889), best known for Proverbial Philosophy (1838), a work whose didactic intention was to provide the reading public with moral reflections on scores of subjects such as Humility, Self-acquaintance, Flattery, Faith, and Estimating Character. Tupper's poetry was uninspired and often fatuously sentimental, reaching extremes of banality in his poems to and about children. Thus some of the lines in “A Family Picture” (“The last, an infant toothless one, now prattling on my knee,/Whose bland, benevolent, soft face is shining upon me”) approach a male equivalent to “The Young Mother's Apostrophe to Her Infant” in Clemens' text (Tupper's Complete Poetical Works [Boston: Phillips, Sampson, and Co., 1857], pp. 332–334). Tupper toured America, reading from his works, in 1851 and again in 1876. Clemens said in chapter 38 of Life on the Mississippi that among the books on the parlor table of the “best dwelling” in every river town was “Tupper, much penciled.”
 

“Let dogs . . . eyes with—”] Isaac Watts's Song 16, “Against Quarrelling and Fighting,” verses one and two, reads:

 |  Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so:
Let bears and lions growl and fight,
For 'tis their nature, too.
But children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise:
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes.
(Divine and Moral Songs, p. 39)
 

his prodigious feet] According to C. A. V. Putnam, who also wrote for the Enterprise, “if there was any one thing that particularly distinguished Jack Perry at that time, it was the faultless style of his footwear. Boots that any dandy might envy were constantly worn by him, and were always well polished.” Putnam recalled that Clemens published the following local item as a way to needle Perry about this dandyism:

Found—Yesterday the local reporter of this paper found a gigantic horse or muleshoe. On showing it around at the different blacksmith shops the reporter was informed that it was of a size larger by a good deal than any of the shoes made by machinery in any of the Eastern factories and that to replace it on the animal's foot a new shoe will have to be made expressly to fill the bill. Therefore, if this should meet the eye of the teamster losing the shoe from one of his animals, he is hereby informed that he can have it by calling at this office.

P. S.—Since the foregoing was in type we have learned that it was no horse or muleshoe at all. It was simply a plate from Jack Perry's bootheel.

(“Dan De Quille and Mark Twain,” Salt Lake City Tribune, 25 April 1898, p. 3)

 member of Congress from New Jersey] Nehemiah Perry was a New Jersey member of the House of Representatives from 1861 to 1865.
 propping his feet . . . the chaplain] Compare Roughing It, chapter 25.
 “Old Pete” in Dion Boucicault's “Octoroon.”] Dion Boucicault (1820–1890), a prolific Irish-American playwright and actor, first produced The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana, his play on slavery and miscegenation, in 1859. The following year the play ran successfully in San Francisco, and during the Civil War years it became a fairly standard drama on the San Francisco and Virginia City repertory stage (Margaret G. Watson, Silver Theatre [Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1964], pp. 186, 279, 293). The character Pete, originally played by George Jamieson, was perhaps the most famous Negro stage character of the day. He was the type of kindly, authoritative, paternal, respected plantation slave later developed by Joel Chandler Harris and others (Townsend Walsh, The Career of Dion Boucicault [New York: The Dunlap Society, 1915], p. 68). The actor Harry A. Perry was particularly praised as early as June 1861 for his representation of Pete at Maguire's Opera House in San Francisco (“Maguire's—The Octoroon,” San Francisco Evening Journal, 11 June 1861, p. 2; advertisement, San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 11 June 1861, p. 1). Perry's wife, Agnes Land Perry, starred in the role of Zoe, the octoroon, about the time Clemens wrote his burlesque.
 Board of Aldermen] As of July, the board consisted of R. J. Mitchell, Charles Jones, G. H. Shaw, James Bolan, S. A. Chapin, and Alexander Coryell, with Mayor Rufus E. Arick presiding (“Municipal Officers of the City of Virginia,” Virginia City Evening Bulletin, 16 July 1863, p. 3).
 handcuffed me] “A Treasonable Conspiracy” by Dan De Quille, an account that appeared in the Enterprise, relates the arrest and handcuffing of Clemens by Jack Perry and Deputy Marshal George Birdsall, who is mentioned in chapter 49 of Roughing It, at a popular saloon in Virginia City. The incident was an elaborate practical joke that led to a mock trial in which Clemens, according to Dan, participated as judge rather than as defendant (undated clipping in carton 1, folder 145, William Wright Papers, Bancroft).
 Tom Peasley's] Thomas Peasley of New York State, who came to Virginia City in 1860 from Mokelumne Hill, California, owned the Sazerac Saloon on South C Street. He was foreman of Virginia Engine Company No. 1 and later chief engineer of the Virginia Fire Department. He exerted great political influence upon the police and fire departments and among the “sports” and “roughs” of the city. In 1865 he became manager of Maguire's Virginia City Opera House. At the time of his death from gunshot wounds in February 1866 he was sergeantat-arms of the Nevada State Legislature (“Two Men Killed, in Carson,” San Francisco Morning Call, 3 February 1866, p. 3; “The Recent Tragedy in Carson, Nevada,” San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 6 February 1866, p. 2; Angel, History, pp. 599–600; Sam P. Davis, ed., The History of Nevada, 2 vols. [Reno and Los Angeles: Elms Publishing Co., 1913], 1:249–251, 256–258).
 Larkin and Brokaw] Peter Larkin and Isaac Brokaw were prominent Virginia City police officers and members of the Virginia Fire Department (Kelly, Second Directory, pp. 147, 167, 177, 299).