While reading old Twain newspaper stories from Barbara Schmidt's awesome site, www.twainquotes.com, I noticed Twain had been "critical" of the Chinese. Then, in Chapter 54 of Roughing It, he seems to have been reformed his thinking. Twain, from my limited reading experience, seems to have become more enlightened as he grew older. I wonder if calling Twain a racist is fair, without specifying which Twain you're talking about. By using the same logic, everyone on this list is a bed-wetter since we all have done it at least once in infancy...or after a college frat party, but I don't want to talk about that right now. Being Irish, I have also noticed pieces by Twain that were awfully "critical" of Irish immigrants. I've never come across any writings of Twain that showed a revision of his original opinion of the Irish, but I have faith that he was no more down on Irishmen than he was on the human race in general. Just one layman's opinion :) Jim Future visitor of Hannibal