Sam Davis, an old time Californian, and now in Nevada, writes the freest of any penman I know. When he is deliberate, he may be be-traved into making a deformed letter and a crooked mark attached to it, which he characterizes as a word. He puts a lot of these together and actually pays postage on the collection under the delusion that it is a letter, that it will reach its destination, and that it will accomplish its object. He makes up for his bad writing, however, by being an unpublished volume of old time anecdotes and funny experiences. Goodwin, of the old Territorial Enterprise, and Mark Twain's old employer, writes with a pencil in a methodical manner and very plainly. The way he sharpens a "hard medium" lead pencil and skins the apostle of the so-called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, makes my heart glad. Hardly a day passes that his life is not threatened by the low browed thumpers of Mormondom, and yet the old war horse raises the standard of monogamy and under the motto, "One country, one flag and one wife at a time," he smokes his old meerschaum pipe and writes a column of razor blades every day. He is the buzz saw upon which polygamy has tried to sit. Fighting these rotten institutions hand to hand and fighting a religious eccentricity through an annual message, or a feeble act of congress, are two separate and distinct things. If I had a little more confidence in my longevity than I now have, I would go down there to the Valley of the Jordan, and I would gird up my loins, and I would write with that lonely warrior at Salt Lake, and with the aid and encouragement of our brethren of the press who do not favor the right of one man to marry an old woman's home, we would rotten egg the bogus Temple of Zion till the civilized world, with a patent clothes pin on its nose, would come and see what was the matter. I see that my zeal has led me away from my original subject, but I haven't time to regret it now. THE WILD COW. When I was young and used to roam around over the country gathering watermelons in the light of the moon, I used to think I could milk anybody's cow, but I do not think so now. I do not milk a cow now unless the sign is right, and it hasn't been right for a good many years. The last cow I tried to milk was a common cow, born in obscurity; kind of a self-made cow. I remember her brow was low, but she wore her tail high and she was haughty, oh, so haughty. I made a common-place remark to her, one that is used in the very best of society, one that need not have given offense anywhere. I said "So"--and she "soed." Then I told her to "hist" and she histed. But I thought she overdid it. She put too much expression in it. Just then I heard something crash through the window of the barn and fall with a dull,' sickening thud on the outside. The neighbors came to see what it was that caused the noise. [Illustration: 0239] They found that I had done it in getting through the window.