"I promise the public no amusement": Governor Mark Twain, Governor James W. Nye, and the Third Annual Message

[...]the San Francisco Alta California reported as early as 1849 that "the solicitude manifested by the members of the legislature to ascertain where they are to get their mileage and per diem, is a subject of much jocularity among the third house" (Gilbert 1 ). [...]the joke itself was a parody, inspired by the recent presentation of a fine cane by fellow-representative Robert Fisher to A. J. Simmons, Speaker of the House of the third Territorial Legislature. In this capacity, he almost certainly would have parodied Governor Nye's annual address. Because the Third House mirrored the territorial government so closely, it appointed a Speaker of the House as a counterpart to the Speaker of the Territorial House of Representatives. Referring to the $200 inscribed gold watch that Sandy Baldwin and Theodore Winters purchased for him after hearing his speech, Twain wrote, "I don't know that anybody tendered the other Governor a testimonial of any kind" ("Legislative Proceedings, January" 147). Because the quip occurred in a report of his own successful governor's message, and because Twain appeared to be referring to a particular event or moment (he says he doesn't know that "anybody tendered," not "has tendered"), the implication seems to be that nobody gave Nye any special recognition after his Third Annual Message, strengthening the con- nection between the two governors' speeches.