OF DETECTIVES AND THEIR DERRING-DO:
THE GENESIS OF MARK TWAIN’S "THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT"

Mark Twain was fascinated by detectives and detective stories. At the same time he was repelled by what he saw as pomposity covering for ineptitude in the detectives whom he encountered in books and in real life. In 1896 he could say, "What a curious thing a ‘detective’ story is. And was there ever one that the author needn’t be ashamed of, except ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’"¹ Yet over and over again he introduced elements of the detective story into his own fiction. Beginning in the 1870s "detection" figured as a major component in a number of works. From a burlesque of both amateur and professional sleuths in the play and novel featuring Cap’n Simon Wheeler (written mainly in 1877) and of professionals in "The Stolen White Elephant" (written in late November or early December, 1878), his stories proceeded to a "straight" treatment of amateur detectives David Wilson and Tom Sawyer, whose abilities to unravel the mysteries in Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) and Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896) he clearly meant to be admired. Finally, he combined burlesque and praise in two other works—Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy (written 1897-1900), in which Tom Sawyer was to show up the ignorant town detective, Jake Flacker, and "The Double-Barrelled Detective Story" (1902), in which the skills of protagonist Archy Stillman put to shame the highly touted but inept "professional," Sherlock Holmes.

This study will not attempt to explain the reasons for this love-hate relationship. Rather, it will examine the backgrounds of one of the early burlesque treatments of detectives in order to illustrate Mark Twain’s use of contemporary materials in his fiction.

During the 1870s a number of the humorist’s stories found their primary stimulus in current newspaper reports. "Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls" (1874, publ. 1875) is compounded, among other elements, of expeditions to observe the transit of Venus, discoveries of the Moabite Stone and Chaldean Deluge tablets, and the death of the original Siamese Twins.² The long-distance courtship in "The Loves of Alonzo Fitz-Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton" (1878) was born in contemporary descriptions of Alexander Graham Bell’s early telephone demonstrations. "The Great Revolution in Pitcairn" (1879) incorporates part of a newspaper

account of a recent visit to Pitcairn’s Island which doubtless helped inspire the tale.

The fact that these "newspaper-based" stories are burlesques, or contain strong burlesque elements, suggests that Clemens obviously read his papers with an eye to the ridiculous. And in November, 1878, he encountered a most worthy target in the accounts of the sensational Stewart grave-robbery and its aftermath. Writing on January 21, 1879, from Munich he announced to William Dean Howells that he had given up work on his Simon Wheeler detective story because he had decided that the novel was not his forte. "But," he continued, "when the detectives were nosing around after Stewart’s loud remains, I threw a chapter into my present book in which I have very extravagantly burlesqued the detective business—if it is possible to burlesque that business extravagantly."³ That "chapter," ultimately omitted from A Tramp Abroad, was "The Stolen White Elephant," later published as title piece of a collection in 1882.

The burlesque is indeed extravagant. With tall-story insistence on the sincerity and earnestness of his narrator, Mark Twain introduces the "chance railway acquaintance" who tells of his strange adventure. Some five years earlier, as a British civil servant, he had been commissioned by the King of Siam to deliver a sacred white elephant to Queen Victoria as a token of appreciation for the settlement of a border dispute between India and Siam. On arriving in New York en route to London, and finding that his charge required rest, he obtained suitable quarters for the elephant in Jersey City. For a fortnight all was well, but suddenly came the dreadful news that the sacred beast had been stolen. Immediately the narrator sought the aid of New York’s "celebrated Inspector Blunt," who, with utmost calm, set the immense machinery of his office in motion.

After minutely detailed questions about the missing pachyderm’s name, parentage, size and distinguishing marks, Blunt ordered 50,000 copies of the description and of a photograph to be made and distributed. Establishing a $25,000 reward as a proper beginning, he posed dozens more questions, for nothing escaped the chief "which by any possibility could be made to serve as a clew."⁴ The Inspector then directed detective Captain Burns to detail five men to shadow the elephant, seven to shadow the thieves, and two shifts of thirty men to guard the elephant’s former quarters. Plainclothesmen were to cover all railway, ferry, and steamship depots, and to search all trains, boats, and suspicious persons. Others were sent "north as far

as Canada, west as far as Ohio, and south as far as Washington." All operatives were to telegraph immediately any "clew," no matter how insignificant. This done, Blunt announced, "I am not given to boasting, it is not my habit; but—we shall find the elephant" (p. 237).

Next morning the papers carried the whole story "in the minutest detail," complete with eleven different theories by eleven detectives. But all accounts concluded with Blunt’s own assurances that the principals in the crime were the "noted villains," Brick Duffy and Red McFadden, whom he could apprehend any moment he chose. Telegraphic reports soon began to pour in from nearby New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. When one "clew" suggested that the elephant had killed a horse, Blunt detailed ninety-six men to scour the area. Thereafter scores of successive wires revealed the elephant’s passage through numerous towns and villages, doing outrageous damage to barns, factories, lamp-posts, policemen, anti-temperance meetings, and plumbers, and killing and wounding hundreds of other innocent victims—but just managing to elude the swarms of detectives who were "shadowing" him. The newspapers continued to feature the varied "detective theories," and sensational headlines blared out the progress of the "FATAL MARCH!" with its "SCENES OF CARNAGE." The reward was raised to $75,000. But it soon was evident that the white elephant had disappeared into a fog that had settled over the whole area. New "clews" arrived hourly from as far away as Delaware and Virginia. But the quarry remained elusive.

Undaunted, though it was now three weeks since the "robbery," Blunt finally decided to "compromise" with the thieves for $100,000. When Duffy and McFadden proved unavailable, he inserted a "personal" in the papers—in code—and late the next night, with bank-notes in hand, set out for "the usual rendezvous." In an hour he returned alone, but announced, "We’ve compromised! . . . . Follow me!" Leading the narrator down "into the vast, vaulted basement where sixty detectives always slept, and where a score were now playing cards to while the time," he strode to the end of the cellar, where he suddenly "stumbled and fell over the outlying members of a mighty object" (p. 251). And lo, the white elephant was found—though, unfortunately, he was dead. Rejoicing followed, with praises for the chief.

The newspapers, too, resumed their accolades, save "one contemptible exception," a sheet that sneered: "Great is the detective! He may be a little slow in finding a little thing like a mislaid

elephant—he may hunt him all day and sleep with his rotting carcass all night for three weeks, but he will find him at last—if he can get the man who mislaid him to show him the place!" (p. 253).

The news story that sparked Mark Twain’s investigative fiasco broke on November 8, 1878, when headlines announced the theft during the night before of the body of multi-millionaire dry-goods merchant, Alexander T. Stewart, from a family crypt in St. Mark’s churchyard. Lurid column headings gasped to their readers that "GHOULS IN NEW YORK CITY" had perpetrated this "UNPRECEDENTED AND GHASTLY CRIME," the New York Times, for instance, devoting six of its seven front-page columns to details of the robbery and speculations about motives and methods.⁵

Though some of the sensationalism stemmed from the fact that this was presumably the first case of body-snatching in New York City, the prominence of the victim provided the major impetus. The career of Stewart had been the American dream come true. It was not literally a rise from rags to riches, for the Scotch-Irish immigrant had brought a moderate sum of money with him from Belfast in 1818. But in all other respects the progress of A. T. Stewart and Co., from a tiny Broadway store to a dry-goods empire with branches in most of the world’s major cities, was a success story to match the most fantastic. And when Stewart died in 1876, he was one of the world’s wealthiest men.

As might be expected, the following day’s papers carried detailed front-page accounts of the merchant’s life and activities. Within a few weeks came the announcement that Mrs. Stewart would build an Episcopal Cathedral in her husband’s memory at Garden City, L.I., and that upon its completion, Stewart’s body would be reinterred in a special mausoleum to be constructed under the cathedral chancel (May 14, 1876, 12:2). Given the obvious importance of that building to the widow, and especially her plans for the special crypt, the actual construction of which began in 1878, the motive for the GHASTLY THEFT seems apparent.

With two and a half years having elapsed between burial and robbery, Clemens’ reference to the "loud" remains would have been natural enough. But his reaction may well have been underlined by the widely reprinted notice sent to all precinct captains by Inspector Dilks, acting Police Commissioner in the absence of vacationing Inspector George H. Walling. Exuding confidence in a speedy resolution of the mystery, Dilks’ directive described the body’s removal from the broken casket and then noted: "The decomposition of the remains is so offensive that this cannot be concealed.

It is apparent from standing at the opening of the vault this morning, consequently the body cannot be taken across the ferries or placed anywhere above ground without discovery" (Nov. 8, 1:1). The detectives’ "nosing around" and the detailed reporting of their investigations continued through most of November and into early December. Daily reports, often two or more full columns, kept eager readers informed of the "clues" that turned up in widely scattered locations in New York and New Jersey, and even as far away as Rutland, Vermont, and ultimately, Fredericksburg, Virginia. Multitudes of detectives, both professional and private, were involved, the latter including the famous Pinkerton force.

Even a cursory reading of the voluminous accounts reveals why Clemens had doubts that burlesque could possibly do justice to the ridiculousness of the "detective business." A brief, purely factual summary may serve to illustrate. First was the overwhelming confidence of the official reports. Each day brought positive statements from either Inspector Dilks or Captain Byrnes, chief of detectives. On November 13, for instance, under a headline "PRIVATE DETECTIVES ON THE SCENT," readers learned that all was going well and that some "forty-odd experienced detectives" in the "private employ" of Judge Hilton (administrator of A. T. Stewart’s estate) were now on the case. Judge Hilton, himself (much like Mark Twain’s Inspector Blunt) promised reporters "a big sensation in a few days" (1:4). Meanwhile, additional reports kept coming in from Jersey City and surrounding towns. And on Friday, November 15, under the glowing banner, "A. T. STEWART’S BODY FOUND! THE GUILTY PERSONS ALL KNOWN," the New York Times proudly announced: "Nearly complete evidence has been secured, sufficient beyond all cavil to send each one of the thieves to State Prison, and an officer of the law holds every man in his grasp, only awaiting the signal to drag him to prison." The story also promised amazing revelations, hinted of a large conspiracy involving prominent persons, and quoted Judge Hilton as crediting the New York police with "one of the finest pieces of detective work ever performed" (1:7).

On the 16th Captain Byrnes announced the arrest of two of the "ghouls," William Burke and Henry Vreeland, but though "swarms of detectives" were ready to pounce, the paper further noted that the "complete swoop" had not yet been made "because of the continued incompleteness of the proof against some of the guilty parties" (1:5). That night saw increased action. As the Times described it next day (under a head "THE WHOLE GANG SAID TO BE IN

THE POWER OF THE POLICE"), detective squads "scoured the city." To help the local forces, "Pinkerton’s entire Chicago force had come on, and representatives from nearly every other similar private body were present" (1:5). On the 18th readers learned that yesterday and last evening the detectives had "swarmed all over the city, and could be met with by persons knowing them on nearly every corner." And though the police were chary with details, they assured reporters that "something of the highest implication was in the wind." There were also "indications" that at least two arrests had been made and that the body had been "taken possession of and buried in a secret place previously selected" and known only to Judge Hilton and a few others (1:4).

But these were only "indications," and from here on it was all down hill, although confident announcements of imminent success continued daily for another week and the reward was raised to $50,000. Clue after clue, lead after lead petered out. It soon was apparent that Burke and Vreeland had had nothing to do with the crime. A Dr. Hatch, once named as "chief conspirator" and thought to be a notorious Chicago "resurrectionist," proved equally innocent. Another prime suspect, Kelly the Hackman, alias "Bull" Kelly, was also eliminated, though not until after two New York detectives detailed to find him had been with him one evening in a Patterson, N.J., bar but failed to recognize him: "Although they saw him, they passed him by and went away" (Dec. 3, 3:5).

By early December, the reports were only scattered ones. Thereafter, except for two short notices of investigations in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the Stewart mystery faded from the papers. But when Clemens read about it in Munich, where the family had settled for the winter, he was moved to create his own tale of investigative expertise.

Though the record does not reveal whether the humorist followed the case beyond these first bizarre chapters, it should be noted here that the riddle of Stewart’s whereabouts was never really solved. In January of 1879 Judge Hilton had hired extra watchmen to guard the unfinished crypt in Garden City, creating the impression that the recovered body had been interred there, in order to suggest that the case was closed. But in August it was revealed that no compromise had "been effected with the thieves," who "were still beyond the range of the law" (Aug. 14, 2:1). Then, sometime in 1880, Judge Hilton announced publicly that he had paid the ransom and recovered the remains. At that time popular report had it ‘that the body had arrived from Montreal on a flat car carrying marble for the

Garden City cathedral and that a group of masked men had subsequently buried a coffin in a temporary vault in the church. When the cathedral was finally finished in 1885, the much-moved cadaver allegedly found its permanent resting place in the elaborate memorial crypt under the chancel, protected by a device that would cause the cathedral chimes to sound if the vault was disturbed.⁶

Many have thought, therefore, that the case had finally been closed in 1880. But further tips in 1881 and 1882 led to additional investigations, apparently with Judge Hilton’s sanctions, and again with no results. The case then rested again until April, 1887, when a pre-publication review of George W. Walling’s Recollections of a New York Chief of Police once more revived it by summarizing Walling’s supposed first-hand account of robbery, investigation, $20,000 ransom, return, and reinterment (Apr. 71, 1:4). But the reviewer also emphasized the "imagination" in Walling’s account and the fact that "those in possession of the facts" now refused to say whether or not the remains had ever been returned. Thus, as a recent writer on the subject has noted, the question of whether Stewart’s remains really rest beneath the magnificent Garden City monument is still "one of Long Island’s unsolved mysteries."⁷

Meanwhile, back at "The Stolen White Elephant." Though one cannot be certain which accounts of the Stewart case Clemens actually read, a number of parallels in the tale itself suggest his close attention. Besides the obvious choice of New York detectives for his targets and the setting of the initial reward at $25,000, the humorist gave Inspector Blunt an aide named Burns, who saw to the detailing of myriad detectives to their respective pursuits, just as Detective Captain Byrnes figured significantly in Inspector Dilks’ investigation. The comment that, despite Blunt’s insistence of the importance of secrecy, the papers carried the whole story in "minutest detail," complete with "Detective This, Detective That, and Detective The Other’s ‘Theory’ as to how the robbery was done, who the robbers were, and whither they had flown with their booty," succinctly describes much of what filled the newspaper columns during the first several days in November. Especially detailed were the numerous analyses of exactly how Stewart’s body had been removed from the walled churchyard, the gates of which remained locked. And Mark Twain’s burlesque seems to strike at that single element when his narrator reports "one detail" about which all eleven widely varied "theories" agreed; namely, that "although the rear of my building was torn out and the only door remained locked, the elephant had not been removed through the

rent, but by some other (undiscovered) outlet" (p. 238).

In reading the newspaper reports, too, Clemens was no doubt struck by the possibility that printing the many "theories," often with the names of suspects, would allow the thieves to take evasive action. When his narrator says as much to Inspector Blunt, the Chiefs answer reflects both the continual assurances in the New York papers that the detectives were "ready to pounce" and also the author’s keen satiric sense of the "public relations" motive of both the papers and the police. Blunt assures his client that when he is ready the criminals will find "my hand descend upon them, in their secret places as erringly as the hand of fate." As for the newspapers, he says, since "fame, reputation, constant public mention are "the detective’s bread and butter," he must keep both public and papers happy. The detective "must publish his facts, else he will be supposed to have none; he must publish his theory, for nothing is so strange and striking as a detective’s theory, or brings him so much wondering respect; we must publish our plans, for these the journals insist upon having, and we could not deny them without offending. . . . It is much pleasanter to have a newspaper say, ‘Inspector Blunt’s ingenious and extraordinary theory is as follows’ than to have it say some harsh thing, or, worse still, some sarcastic one" (pp. 239-40). And indeed, on one occasion when Inspector Dilks and Judge Hilton had ordered detectives not to give information to the press, the New York Times commented: "Such an ignorant parcel of detectives as those engaged on the case would disgrace a country town. One and all ‘know nothing.’ The thing was overdone. The intention to conceal something was too manifest to deceive anybody" (Nov. 12, 1878, 1:3).

Another incongruity in the Stewart investigation may have been responsible for the white elephant’s being housed in Jersey City. According to a report of November 11, a mysterious box had "crossed the river from New York to Jersey City" early on the morning of the robbery, and a thorough search of the city had been made—without results. What would doubtless have appeared incongruous to an alert reader, especially in view of the number of detectives the papers said were involved, was a statement later in the same article that the Jersey City police had not been consulted about the matter, nor had their aid in searching for the body been solicited (1:1). Jersey City was also the place where police arrested three suspicious looking characters "who said they were Pinkerton men but refused to tell their business," and later discharged them on condition that they would leave the city (Nov. 14, 1:4).

Among other examples of ineptitude, the New York detectives’ failure to recognize "Bull" Kelly in the Patterson bar-room seems to find its counterpart in the experience of Mark Twain’s Cross and O’Shaughnessy who passed through Glover’s, New York, at the same time as the elephant, but missed him since they were going south while he was heading north. But the publicity surrounding the "unquestionable" evidence against Burke and Vreeland—and the subsequent collapse of that evidence—must have inspired the story’s closest parallel. Just as Captain Byrnes was certain that these two had helped steal the body, so too was Inspector Blunt positive that Brick Duffy and Red McFadden were "principals" in the white elephant case. Mark Twain made the collapse of evidence more striking, however, and the detective more ridiculous. When Blunt sends the notes to the "reputed wives" of the two in order to initiate his $100,000 "compromise," Bridget Mahoney informs the "owld fool" that Duffy’s "bin ded 2 yere," and Mary O’Hooligan says that McFaddin "is hung and in heving 18 month," adding "Any Ass but a detective knose that" (p. 250).

Finally, even the ultimate resting place of the elephant was very likely inspired by the reaction of one New York woman to the Stewart mystery and the elaborate police reports. On November 15 (in the same story that had glibly announced "THE GUILTY PARTIES ALL KNOWN") among various solutions proposed by readers appeared the "awful suggestion that the body may be buried in the cellar of the nearest Police Station, ‘way down deep in a damp place."’ And the woman’s added comment would surely have struck Clemens’ fancy: "People must not think because men are policemen they are all right" (2:2).

Though the Stewart case by itself could have supplied ample ammunition for Mark Twain’s story, the "all right" Inspector Blunt and his crew also display characteristics which point to another target—none other than the famous founder of the National Detective Agency—Allan Pinkerton. Such a connection was natural, for not only were the Pinkertons mentioned fairly often in the news stories Clemens read, but he had also satirized their operations in the play and novel about Simon Wheeler. Had those works been published at the time (1877), readers would immediately have recognized the allusion to Pinkerton when Wheeler introduces Detectives Baxter, Billings, and Bullet as members of "Inspector Flathead’s celebrated St. Louis Detective Agency," and the Inspector as the one "that writes the wonderful detective tales, you know."⁸

The National Detective Agency (and its founder) had achieved considerable fame since its founding in Chicago in 1850. But Clemens doubtless knew about its operations chiefly through Pinkerton’s own highly fictionalized accounts which began appearing in fat subscription volumes in 1874. The first of these, The Expressman and the Detectives—if the publisher’s blurbs were accurate—sold 15,000 copies in less than sixty days. By the end of 1876, three more were on the market, and total sales approached 100,000.⁹ By the time "The Stolen White Elephant" appeared in 1882, Pinkerton had ground out eleven more books, and would produce another five before his death in 1884.

In his story, Mark Twain made certain that his readers would relate his satire to the Pinkertons as well as to the New York police. At one point when the investigation lagged, the narrator reports that the theretofore sympathetic newspapers turned on the detectives. Among other caricatures, he says, appeared "all sorts of ridiculous pictures of the detective badge," and adds "—you have seen that badge printed in gold on the back of detective novels, no doubt—it is a wide-staring eye, with the legend ‘WE NEVER SLEEP."’ The eye does indeed grace the spines—and covers—of Pinkerton’s books. And Mark Twain’s detectives undergo further ridicule, both direct and indirect, when "would-be facetious barkeepers" ask, "Will you have an eye-opener?" (pp. 248-49) and when, near the end, Blunt leads the narrator into "the vast and vaulted basement where sixty detectives always slept. . ." (p. 251).

What seems to have irked Clemens most was the assumption of infallibility implied in the badge and motto, and in Pinkerton’s books themselves. One passage in The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives, which appeared sometime during the summer of 1877, if he had read it, would have seemed an epitome of the attitude. With the case solved, Pinkerton quotes, with obvious relish, a statement by one of the prosecutors which could have been written by Inspector Blunt himself. Warning all thieves of the futility of flight, the prosecutor proclaims: "There is not a place on the habitable globe that these men can find refuge.... Let them go to the Rocky Mountains.

Let them traverse the bleak deserts of Siberia, penetrate into the jungles of India, or wander over the wild steppes of Central Asia, and they will be dogged and tracked and brought to justice. . . . The cat that holds the mouse in her grasp sometimes lets it go for a little while to play; but she knows well that at her will she can again have it secure within her claws; and Pinkerton’s Agency may sometimes permit a man to believe that he is free who does not know that he

may be traveling five thousand miles in the company of those whose vigilance never slumbers and whose eyes are never closed in sleep."¹⁰

Blunt’s name, which obviously reflects on his perceptiveness rather than any sort of gruffness, suggests that of George H. Bangs, head of Pinkerton’s New York Agency. But otherwise Inspector Blunt was Mark Twain’s very model of immodest Allan Pinkerton. From the outset the burlesque reflects Pinkerton’s insistence on system, his allegedly keen cerebrations, and his supreme confidence. And Blunt’s operation closely follows typical procedures of "the Chief." As Franklin Rogers has aptly summarized them, Pinkerton’ s method involved "the accumulation of exhaustive details, both relevant and irrelevant, the constant surveillance of the suspect by detectives in disguise, and the securing of a confession by gaining the confidence of the suspect." Over and over again in his books "the Chief’ tells of dispatching detectives with orders to send back voluminous reports, including all manner of gossip, family histories, the movement of suspects, drawings, measurements—anything, trivial or not, that might conceivably be related to the crime. Everyone possibly connected with the case was "shadowed."¹¹ The number of operatives must have been astounding, and the cost immense. Although there is no question that the thoroughness of Pinkerton’s methods often brought results, his stories reveal that there must have been much wasted money and effort.

All of these elements, except the disguises, find their place in Mark Twain’s parody. The long series of absurd questions for the "description," the floods of circulars, the hourly telegraph messages from scores of detectives, the order to arrest a farmer (obtusely suspected of complicity) and "force him to name his pals," the total cost of the operation ($100,000"compromise" plus $42,000 "expenses")—all present the burlesque parallel. Meanwhile— also like Pinkerton—Blunt remains in his office to sift through the myriad reports for significant "clews," which Pinkerton invariably found. And there is a slight echo of the fact that "the Chief’ occasionally undertook the final shadowing of the quarry in Blunt’s ultimate stumbling over the elephant in the Police Station basement.

"The Stolen White Elephant" thus clearly shows the extremes to which the detective’s sublime confidence and elaborate methods could easily be carried by one with an eye for the absurd. And what more appropriately absurd quarry for the perspicacious investigators than a huge white elephant, last seen wearing "a castle containing seats for fifteen persons, and a gold-cloth saddle-blanket,

the size of an ordinary carpet" (p. 232). So, too, the very term "white elephant" itself, with its suggestion of costliness and uselessness, further underlines the absurdity.

Most of what Clemens knew about Siam and its traditions probably came from Frank Vincent’s Land of the White Elephants: Sights and Scenes in South-Eastern Asia (1874), a copy of which the author presented him in 1877. Yet, like so many other details, the Siamese elements in the story seem at least partly inspired by newspaper "items." Though there were some border disputes between British India and Siam during the 1870s, I have been unable to identify a specific event that occurred "five years ago"—i.e., prior to 1878 when the story was written. I suspect, however, that Clemens had in mind British intervention in 1875 to settle a dispute between the Siamese king and a rebellious son. Between January and March of that year, the son took refuge in the British Consulate, a British gunboat sailed from Singapore to insure the safety of British citizens in Bangkok, and early in March came notice of a "satisfactory adjustment" between the warring parties. That adjustment the New York Times attributed to the "interference" of British official Sir Andrew Clarke, who drew up the plan of settlement (Jan. 17, 1:7; Mar. 7, 1:3; 10, 6:5).

Even more likely, Clemens may well have seen a widely copied item from the Times of India which appeared in March of 1878, the year he wrote his burlesque. Titled "Funeral of A Siamese God" in the New York Times reprint, the article described the ceremonies that accompanied the death of the eldest of four royal white elephants of Siam. It especially emphasized the deep veneration accorded these beasts, each of which had its own palace, gold eating vessels, jeweled harnesses, and Siamese nobles who acted as special servants. At the funeral itself, a hundred Buddhist priests conducted the ceremony. The three surviving elephants, "preceded by trumpets and followed by an immense concourse of people," accompanied the funeral car to the Menam River. A procession of thirty vessels followed the one carrying the body to its burial place on the opposite bank. Lining the river in double file, some 60,000 houseboats "adorned with flags of all colors and symbolical attributes" paid tribute to the "god" (Mar. 4, 2:6). Here was a spectacle to delight the heart of a Tom Sawyer, and probably a Samuel Clemens, too.

Thus, out of a combination of the death of a "Siamese God," Pinkerton’s detective tales, and a sensational unsolved grave robbery, Mark Twain wove his elaborate burlesque of detectives

and their methods. Not only does acquaintance with the sources make the burlesque richer, but in the face of the absurdities of both Pinkerton’s books and the Stewart case, the "extravagance" of Mark Twain’s burlesque seems less far-fetched.

BUTLER UNIVERSITY

NOTES

    ¹Notebook 30, TS, p. 32, quoted by F. R. Rogers, Simon Wheeler, Detective (New York: New York Public Library, 1963), p. xii.
   ²For fuller discussion see my "Mark Twain on Scientific Investigation: Contemporary Allusions in ‘Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls’" in Literature and Ideas in America: Essays in Memory of Harry Hayden Clark, ed. Robert Falk (Athens, Ohio: Ohio Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 128–54.
   ³Mark Twain-Howells Letters, ed. Henry Nash Smith and William Gibson (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960), p. 246.
   ⁴Tom Sawyer Abroad, Etc., Author’s National Edition, XX, 229. All quotations from "The Stolen White Elephant" hereafter will be indicated by page numbers in parentheses following quotations.
   ⁵New York Times, Dec. 8,1878, p. 1, cols. 1–6. All newspaper references hereafter will be to the Times and will be identified by date, page: column in parentheses following quotations.
   ⁶Mrs. Irwin Smith, "When Garden City Became a Cathedral Town," Nassau County Historical Journal, 23, No. 1 (Winter 1962), 6. I am grateful to Gunther Pohl, Chief of Local History and Genealogy Division, New York Public Library, for calling this article to my attention.
   ⁷Ibid. Clemens did know of Walling’s book, though he may not have read it. In September, 1886, Fred J. Hall wrote him that the book had been offered to the Webster publishing firm and described its contents. But though Clemens urged Hall to try to get the book, negotiations evidently fell through, for it appeared in 1887 under the imprint of the Caxton Book Concern Limited (Mark Twain’s Letters to His Publishers, ed. Hamlin Hill [Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1967], pp. 206-07n).
   ⁸Quoted by Rogers, Simon Wheeler, Detective, p. xxii.
   ⁹Robert Rowlette, Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson: The Development and Design (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green Univ. Popular Press, 1971), p. 41. For additional specific elements satirizing Pinkerton and his methods in the Simon Wheeler play and novel, see Rowlette, pp. 42-45, and Rogers, pp. xxi-xxv.
   ¹⁰The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives [1877] (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1880), p. 517.
   ¹¹Rogers, p. xxii.