This is just fun. Since it includes a horse breed created by Mark Twain, I
thought I would share it here.
In my ongoing project of cleaning up OCR errors on the California Digital
Newspaper Collection [cdnc.ucr.edu; I am rstew160, #3 corrector at 149,000
corrected lines and counting], I search for some word or phrase, then clean
up the articles that include it. Today I found three articles when I
searched for "Genuine Mexican Plug." Two of the articles involved Twain and
lectures from Roughing It. The third (below) is in a column in the Sacramento
Daily Union of October 31, 1895 (pg 5, col.2). This is a column of comments
clipped from exchange newspapers from "Interior California" [An 1792 law
allowed newspaper printers to send each other newspapers for free,
facilitating the spread of national and foreign news outward from the seat of
government.]
Below, the close of a clipping titled "Let Them Fight", from the Stockton
Record, is followed by the "Mexican Plug" paragraph:
"...It seems rank nonsense, anyway, for the law-makers of a commonwealth
to pass laws against the comparatively harmless pastime of prize-fighting,
while the healthful and promising young collegians are daily allowed to kick
each other to death on the football field.
Some Leading Questions.
Los Angeles Times: What the bicycle riders now want to know is this: If
they are only "keeping up" with a street-car or a buggy on the street, are
they liable to arrest for "scorching"? Is the bicycle rider to be jugged in
groups, and are the fiendish drivers of milk wagons, butcher carts and other
horse-pulled vehicles who slam through the highway of the town at fifteen
miles [an] hour to go unscathed? Is there to be one law for the devotee of
the wheel and another for the drivers of the genuine Mexican plug of
commerce? . . . .
Robert Stewart
In response to a legal interrogatory regarding the truth of statements in
published portions of his autobiography Sam Clemens stated: "Yes,
literally, they are true, that is to say they are a product of my
impressions--recollections. As sworn testimony they are not worth anything; they are merely
literature."
|