This entire article, from the much-maligned San Francisco Chronicle, is
worth a read. It was recommended by Hilton Obenzinger
<[log in to unmask]> on the Forum just last week. The journalist is
David Kipen at <[log in to unmask]>. I wrote Kipen a note, which is
as yet unanswered, suggesting the full article be published on this
Forum.

If I remember right, Clemens of the SF CALL was losing his job right
about then, before accepting one with The San Francisco Dramatic
Chronicle (later shortened by deleting the word "Dramatic"). The latter
was at first published as a theatrical program with added news of the
day gotten from a private telegraph receiver.  It was born on the 16th
of January 1865, and is the one Kipen writes for today...  The word
"freelance" in the piece means "jobless" if that is the timing.

The Chron, like many papers, usually deletes articles after a few days,
so check it now.  --Richard R (in Poland, formerly of San Francisco)

=================
     URL:
sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/03/DDGTN4M1P71.DTL

=================
How it starts:
-------------
     Sometime in 1866, probably in his lodgings at the Occidental Hotel
near Sutter and Montgomery, an  impecunious freelance journalist named
Samuel Clemens put a pistol to his head. We know this, or think we do,
because of a marginal note he scribbled into a book the year before he
died under his other name,  Mark Twain.