Roughing It

Note: The contents of Chapter 3 correspond to Chapters 42-51 in print editions of the book.

After failing as a miner, Twain casts about for a way to make a living. His father left no inheritance on which he could rely: “Although he left us a sumptuous legacy of pride in his fine Virginian stock and its national distinction, I presently found that I could not live on that alone without occasional bread to wash it down with” (292). Twain has never considered a career as a writer and is surprised when his letters to the editor are frequently published. It comes as a shock when he receives an offer of $25 a week to serve as city editor for the Virginia Daily Territorial Enterprise. When Twain starts the job, news is slow in Virginia City. The chief editor advises him to wander around town and question everybody about everything. When this fails to produce results, the new reporter is told to question the drivers of any hay wagons that might have come to town. After a desperado kills a man in a saloon brawl, Twain is ecstatic to have enough copy to fill two columns in the newspaper. He says, “When I read them over in the morning I felt that I had found my legitimate occupation at last” (298).

The budding newspaperman learns how to embellish his stories and stretch the facts to make for more interesting reading. He also befriends reporters from other papers. Twain develops a friendly rivalry with a reporter for the Union named Boggs. The two compete to get a first glimpse at the monthly public-school report and sometimes resort to underhanded tactics to get the scoop on each other. During this time, Virginia City is experiencing a mining boom: “The great ‘Comstock lode’ stretched its opulent length straight through the town from north to south, and every mine on it was in diligent process of development” (303). The boom would continue for three years, affording Twain and his paper all the local news it could handle. When his pay increases to $40 per week, he finds that he doesn’t need the money. The new currency is mining stock.

Since Virginia City is located directly over the Comstock Lode, wildcat miners are confident that if they dig deep enough on their little plot of earth, they will tap into veins of ore: “Every one of these wild cat mines—not mines, but holes in the ground over imaginary mines—was incorporated and had handsomely engraved ‘stock’ and the stock was salable, too” (307). Frenzied speculation begins to drive up stock prices, and owners of certificates casually pass them along to friends. Twain finds himself the beneficiary of this generosity: “Money was wonderfully plenty. The trouble was, not how to get it,—but how to spend it, how to lavish it, get rid of it, squander it” (314).

During this time, the Civil War is raging in the East, and the United States Sanitary Commission is asking for donations to help wounded Union soldiers in hospitals. Virginia City forms a Sanitary Commission of its own and donates generously to the Union cause. A particularly odd incident increases these donations even more. The losing candidate in a mayoral election has vowed to carry a 50-pound flour sack home. After accomplishing this task, the loser, named Gridley, proceeds to stage an auction to sell the sack to the highest bidder, promising to donate the proceeds to the Sanitary fund. The winning bidder then suggests auctioning the sack again, and even more money is raised. The flour sack becomes a local phenomenon as it tours not only the territory but also other areas of the United States to generate more donations: “It was estimated that when the flour sack’s mission was ended it had been sold for a grand total of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks!” (318).

Virginia City’s pioneer atmosphere during these flush times attracts a rough element. Murders are common, and Twain’s paper never lacks news copy. Twain notes, “If an unknown individual arrived, they did not inquire if he was capable, honest, industrious, but—had he killed his man? If he had not, he gravitated to his natural and proper position, that of a man of small consequence” (339). Consequently, desperados abound. Ironically, very few murderers are found guilty in a court of law.

Twain theorizes that this miscarriage of justice is due to the peculiarities of the jury system, which he notes was first developed in the ninth century by Alfred the Great. In the age of the telegraph and news media, it becomes impossible for a potential juror to avoid knowing something about a case. Well-informed and intelligent people are thus dismissed from the jury pool, leaving know-nothings as the only qualified jurors. Twain says, “I desire to tamper with the jury law. I wish to so alter it as to put a premium on intelligence and character, and close the jury box against idiots, blacklegs, and people who do not read newspapers” (343).

Because the legal system fails to bring violent criminals to justice, Virginia City flourishes as a den of iniquity: “The saloons were overburdened with custom; so were the police courts, the gambling dens, the brothels and the jails—unfailing signs of high prosperity in a mining region—in any region for that matter. Is it not so?” (360). The only saving grace in this lawless atmosphere is that the toughs who want to establish their reputations tend not to bother honest citizens. They are only interested in achieving dominance within the criminal classes. Twain discusses the degree to which slang enters the common parlance because of the excessive numbers of criminals in the community. He describes a conversation between a local hoodlum and a clergyman, newly arrived from the East. The tough wants to arrange a funeral service for a deceased criminal friend, but his slang makes it impossible for the clergyman to understand what he wants.

Virginia City continues to attract criminals and solid citizens alike, and the best indication of its status as a sophisticated city is the establishment of a literary journal called the Weekly Occidental. The most creative writers on staff are asked to put together a serialized novel. Each author is responsible for writing one chapter per month. Twain describes the most convoluted plot imaginable as the story passes from one writer to the next. By the time his turn comes to write a chapter, the story is so turgid that nobody can make any sense of it, and the entire novel devolves into chaos. So does the Occidental: “It was but a feeble, struggling, stupid journal, and the absence of the novel probably shook public confidence […] the Weekly Occidental died as peacefully as an infant” (368).

Twain laments the journal’s passing because he has written a dramatic poem that was to be published in the Occidental. It is entitled “The Aged Pilot Man” and describes a weathered pilot on the Erie Canal who saves his passengers during a great storm. Twain presents it to the reader tongue-in-cheek because the Erie Canal of his day is about 30 feet wide and four feet deep, with barges being pulled by mules walking a tow line onshore. Drowning would be impossible. The overwrought poem concludes,

For straight a farmer brought a plank,—(Mysteriously inspired)—And laying it unto the ship, In silent awe retired. Then every sufferer stood amazed That pilot man before; A moment stood. Then wondering turned, And speechless walked ashore (375).