Existing comment:
Phoenixania:
In 1853, army engineer Lieutenant George H. Derby went to "Sandyago," as he termed it. At the Colorado House he observed the Herald occupying the second story "as a vast sign bearing that legend informed us." On the ground floor, visitors were "invited by the urbane proprietor to irrigate".
Seeking diversion during his tour of duty, Derby wrote for the paper, using the pen names "John Phoenix," and for the paper, using the pen names "John Phoenix," and "Squibob," from squib, a term for a sharp, witty attack, derived from the name of a small rocket. Derby often found San Diego to be "usually dull," leading him to indulge in a "reckless propensity to lampoon."
Derby's best-known prank was in 1853 when Judge J. Judson Ames, publisher of the Herald, went out of town. Upstairs at the Colorado House, Derby changed the editorial politics from Democratic to Whig. The Whigs won in San Diego county, and the diminutive Derby anticipated the results when the brawny Ames returned: "We held the 'Judge' down over the Press by our nose (which we inserted between his teeth for that purpose), and while our hair was employed in holding one of his hands..." Ames, of course, did no such thing, and in 1855 collected Derby's writings and published Phoenixania. |