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Show Josh Billings Last Letter. -New York, Oct. 20. One of the last letters . written by Josh Billings-from Monterey : to friends in this city, was printed this morning, dated October 3d, addressed to the editor of the Yonkers Gazette. - It enclosed a little tribute to Artemus ward, wnicn ne saiu ne wrous twenty years ago, and had not seen till it appeared in a California newspaper, its appropriaetness to Billing's demise is pointed out by the papers. In this letter-he letter-he says : "I hope you will not look upon me as a vain man when I tell you I am not only delighted but astonished at the vitality of the old .'ler.tur' which I have read for the last twenty-three years on the road. In the first ' place every line in it was published in the papers, then it was put into three different books, then it was put into more than 100 news- T Jnllnom ? tVtart T VlQTTA papeio no x nave ucuicicu m, vn. read it in every city on this continent that has 15,000 people in it, and hundreds of towns that have not 2,000 in them, and it has never had anything added to it, but much cut away from it, and it is now read from the same book it was first written in, and still being old the manuscript manu-script fights a good fight. I have read it six nights in California during the last seven weeks, and been paid for it $750. It seems to me that there must be some sand in the old words. Enclosed I send you a short criticism from a small town up the coast, Petaluma, which supports what I have just written." |