Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910), not yet famous as Mark Twain, worked for San Francisco newspapers off and on from 1864-1866. He was also a correspondent for the territorial Enterprise (Virginia City, Nevada), which published this dispatch. It was reprinted Jan. 21, 1866, in a San Francisco newspaper, The Golden Gate. This copy was transcribed from the Editorial pages of the Monday, August 18, 1997 edition of the San Francisco Examiner.

Ain't they virtuous? Don't they take good care of the city?

Is not their constant vigilance and efficiency shown in the fact that roughs and rowdies here are awed into good conduct? - isn't it shown in the fact that ladies even on the back streets are safe from insult in the daytime, when they are under the protection of a regiment of soldiers? - isn't it shown in the fact that although many offenders of importance go unpunished, they infallibly snaffle every Chinese chicken-thief that attempts to drive his trade, and are duly glorified by name in the papers for it? - isn't it shown in the fact that they are always on the look-out and keep out of the way and never get run over by wagons and things?

Ain't they spry? - ain't they energetic? ain't they frisky? - Don't they parade up and down the sidewalk at the rate of a block and hour and make everybody nervous and dizzy with their frightful velocity? Don't they keep their clothes nice - and ain't their hands soft?

And don't they work? - don't they work like horses? - don't they, now?

Don't they smile sweetly on the women? - and when they are fatigued with their exertions, don't they back up against a lamp-post and go on smiling till they break plumb down?

But ain't they nice? - that's it, you know! - ain't they nice?

They don't sweat - you never see one of those fellows sweat. And ain't they at ease and comfortable and happy - always leaning up against a lamp-post in the sun, and scratching one shin with the other foot and enjoying themselves? Serene? - I reckon not.

I don't know anything the matter with the Department, but may be Dr. Rowell does.

Now when Ziele broke that poor wretch's skull the other night for stealing six bit's worth of flour sacks, and had him taken to the Station House by a policeman, and jammed into one of the cells in the most humorous way, do you think there was anything wrong there? I don't.

Why should they arrest Ziele and say, "Oh, come, now, you say you found this stranger stealing on your premises, and we know you knocked him on the head with your club - but then you better go in a cell, too, till we see whether there's going to be any other account of the thing - any account that mightn't jibe with yours altogether, you know - you go in for confessed assault and battery, you know." Why should they do that? Well, nobody ever said they did.

And why shouldn't they shove that half-senseless wounded man into a cell without getting a doctor to examine and see how badly he was hurt, and consider that next day would be time enough, if he chanced to live that long?

And why shouldn't the jailor let him alone when he found him in a dead stupor two hours after - let him alone because he couldn't wake him - couldn't wake a man who was sleeping and with that calm serenity which is peculiar to men whose heads have been caved in with a club - couldn't wake such a subject, but never suspected that there was anything unusual in the circumstance?

Why shouldn't the jailor do so? Why certainly - why shouldn't he? - the man was an infernal stranger. He had no vote. Besides, had not a gentleman just said he stole some flour sacks?

Ah, and if he stole flour sacks did he not deliberately put himself outside the pale of humanity and Christian sympathy by that hellish act? I think so. The Department thinks so.

Therefore, when the stranger died at 7 in the morning, after four hours of refreshing slumber in that cell, with his skull actually split in twain from front to rear, like an apple, as was ascertained by post mortem examination, what the very devil do you want to go and find fault with the prison officers for?

You are always putting in your shovel. Can't you find somebody to pick on besides the police? It takes all my time to defend them from people's attacks...