Yours, etc. 
Sergeant fathom.

APPENDIX C I

Mark Twain’s empire city hoax (See Chapter xli)
the latest sensation

    A Victim to Jeremy Diddling Trustees—­He Cuts his Throat from Ear to
    Ear, Scalps his Wife, and Dashes Out the Brains of Six Helpless
    Children!

From Abram Curry, who arrived here yesterday afternoon from Carson, we learn the following particulars concerning a bloody massacre which was committed in Ormsby County night before last.  It seems that during the past six months a man named P. Hopkins, or Philip Hopkins, has been residing with his family in the old log-house just at the edge of the great pine forest which lies between Empire City and Dutch Nick’s.  The family consisted of nine children—­five girls and four boys—­the oldest of the group, Mary, being nineteen years old, and the youngest, Tommy, about a year and a half.  Twice in the past two months Mrs. Hopkins, while visiting Carson, expressed fears concerning the sanity of her husband, remarking that of late he had been subject to fits of violence, and that during the prevalence of one of these he had threatened to take her life.  It was Mrs. Hopkins’s misfortune to be given to exaggeration, however, and but little attention was given to what she said.

About 10 o’clock on Monday evening Hopkins dashed into Carson on horseback, with his throat cut from ear to ear, and bearing in his hand a reeking scalp, from which the warm, smoking blood was still dripping, and fell in a dying condition in front of the Magnolia saloon.  Hopkins expired, in the course of five minutes, without speaking.  The long, red hair of the scalp he bore marked it as that of Mrs. Hopkins.  A number of citizens, headed by Sheriff Gasherie, mounted at once and rode down to Hopkins’s house, where a ghastly scene met their eyes.  The scalpless corpse of Mrs. Hopkins lay across the threshold, with her head split open and her right hand almost severed from the wrist.  Near her lay the ax with which the murderous deed had been committed.  In one of the bedrooms six of the children were found, one in bed and the others scattered about the floor.  They were all dead.  Their brains had evidently been dashed out with a club, and every mark about them seemed to have been made with a blunt instrument.  The children must have struggled hard for their lives, as articles of clothing and broken furniture were strewn about the room in the utmost confusion.  Julia and Emma, aged respectively fourteen and seventeen, were found in the kitchen, bruised and insensible, but it is thought their recovery is possible.  The eldest girl, Mary, must have sought refuge, in her terror, in the garret, as her body was found there frightfully mutilated, and the knife with which her wounds had been inflicted still sticking in her side.