MARK TWAIN.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 3, Issue 156, 27 November 1895, Page 3

MARK TWAIN.

The preat American humorist, Mr S iinUfl L. Clemens, Letter known under his pre.-s sobriquet of Mark Twain, has arrived in Auckland and submitted liims,.]i' to the inevitable interviewer. He lectured there on Thursday and Friday to overflowing audiences and it is quite on the cards that before leaving this portion of the Southern hemisphere he may ~: i v Rotorua a visit. " American humor," said Mr Clemens to his interviewer, '• is different entirely to French, German, Scotch and English humor." Had he substituted Irish for Scotch he would have been more correct for it is the simi-lui-ity existing between American and Scotch humor which lias achieved for Mr Clemens' own works their intense popularity in Scotland over any other Eng-lish-speaking, or quasi-English-speaking country we should say, and obtained for in Ramsay's "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character " a quite unanticipated sale in America. The same •• puwkincss " of expression and apparent unconsciousness of any extravagance of statement exist in both. A correspondent sends us the report ol an alleged interview with Mr Clemens which appeared in a Sydney paper. The voice is not the voice of Jacob, however, hut the hand is the heavy hand of the Sydney pressman. The article affects to deal with ihe Prohibition question and in it Clemens regrets that prohibitionists, dn not remcnibev Edmund Burke's words: " Lawful indulgence is the only cheek on illicit gratification." In regard to local ~pt unfile remarks that, temperance people in America and Canada see the absurdity of shutting up houses in one locality and driving drinkers into a neighbouring one. From which it is to be deduced "that Mr Clemens is not a prohibitionist.