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1419 illegible St. San Francisco, Cal Feb. 1st, 1878? My dear Mrs Bidwell I was delighted with your fine long sparkling
letter of Jan 21, which reached me just after posting a short note to you. Your account of your scientific discussions? with
Gunning is very amusing I could not help being pleased to know that he had caught a truth-loving Tartar, the only kind of
which such so- called scientists are afraid. You ask my opinion of this gentleman. I know very little about him nor will I
be likely to know much more, because I fear he belongs to a clan of Profs who are animated less by love of truth than by a
vulgar appetite for notricty money. The word humbug is very telling in descriptions of such characters, though I am loath
to apply so perfectly damming a term to anyone not well known to me. Still I have seen reports of some of his lectures, have
looked through a book that he wrote some years ago so that I can hardly be mistaken in his size genus. On the contrary my
friends Prof Norton of San Jose John Swett who have met him heard his lectures were pleased with him, although the latter
confessed that in a portion of one of his lectures he had tried to humbing the people. He met another friend of mine lately
on the Sacramento coast, sent me word that there was no one in California he was so anxious to meet as myself.