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Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
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Robert E Stewart <[log in to unmask]>
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Fri, 21 Nov 2014 19:37:22 -0500
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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." 

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