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MARK TWAIN
AND THE
Jubilee Singers.

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, March 8th, 1875.

THEO. F. SEWARD, ESQ.,

DEAR SIR:—I am expecting to hear the Jubilee Singers to-night for the fifth time, (the reason it is not the fiftieth is because I have not had fifty opportunities), and I wish to ask a favor of them: I remember an afternoon in London when their "John Brown's Body" took a decorous, aristocratic English audience by surprise, and threw them into a volcanic irruption of applause before they knew what they were about. I never saw anything finer than their enthusiasm.

Now, "John Brown" is not in this evening's programme; cannot it be added? It would set me down in London again for a minute or two, and at the same time save me the tedious sea voyage and the expense.

I was glad of the triumph the Jubilee Singers achieved in England, for their music so well deserved such a result. Their success in this country is pretty well attested by the fact that there is already an ostentatiously pious company of imitators trying to ride into public favor by so wording their advertisements (from pulpits and in the newspapers), as to convey the impression that THEY are the original Jubilee Singers. Now that is a very high compliment, shabby and disreputable as such conduct is. It is a most excellent compliment.
Very truly,
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS,
(MARK TWAIN)
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CITY HALL,
TUESDAY EVENING!
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