absurd terms they offered him—£3 or £4 for 10,000 words! His work, such as it was, on the Monterey paper, was more of a joke than anything else, and done to oblige the editor, for whom he had a strong regard. I believe it extended no further than some small news items, etc., of the reportorial kind.
'I have had so often the occasion to contradict the statement that Stevenson worked for the San Francisco press—statements often of great particularity—that I should be grateful to have you give them the lie altogether.'
With regard to the Monterey paper, of which Mr. Osbourne speaks, it will be remembered that in a letter to Mr. Edmund Gosse, dated November 15, 1879, Stevenson wrote that he was sending a copy to that gentleman, giving at the same time a humorous résumé of the manner in which his life could become clear through a study of the advertisements.[1] Unfortunately, as Mr. Gosse informs me, this paper was lost in the post in its passage from California, and no record seems to be in existence of the articles which as a reporter, on a salary of two dollars a week, Stevenson contributed to The Monterey Californian.
In The Book-Buyer (New York), xii. 497, it is stated that 'Mr. Stevenson wrote two letters to The Evening Post, which were printed in 1887 and 1888. One of them was a description of Dr. E. L. Trudeau's sanatorium in the Adirondacks, and an appeal for subscriptions for its maintenance; another had to do with Father Damien.' Through the medium of some zealous and warm-hearted friends in
- ↑ Letters to his Family and Friends, i. 157, 158.
