Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/367

Rh as to be startling when one comes upon it in a perfectly serious paragraph. Mrs. Victor often laughed over the interlineation in a paragraph written by her on the Oregon boundary question of the words:

"Man is a preposterous pig; probably the greediest animal that crawls upon this planet": (Oregon, I, 592.)

In passing upon the work of his corps of writers, one who combined the duties of financier as well as editor of the work either consciously or unconsciously must have been influenced by the question whether the treatment of the subject before him was such as would please the people in the locality whose history was being written. The Mormon turn given the History of Utah by the toning down of certain incidents which other historians have "shrunk from contemplating" occurs to us as a case in point: (Frances Fuller Victor in Salt Lake Tribune, April 14, 1893; New York Mail and Express, November 23d).

The publication of the Chronicles before all of the volumes of history were out could hardly have lessened this tendency, as a favorable mention of a man in the history would naturally tend to make him more approachable upon the subject of contributing to that work. Upon the back of the letter to Mrs. Victor instructing her to give prominence to certain dictations, which he admits are practically worthless, is written in her hand the legend, "Ways that are dark and tricks that are vain." As a result of complaint, changes were sometimes made in the text, even after the first edition was out: (Pamphlet, Proceedings of the Society of California Pioneers in Reference to the Histories of Hubert Howe Bancroft).

In the History of Montana occurs an example of a change made directly for business reasons. Several pioneers justly entitled to a place in the history of their territory disagreed with the agent of the Bancroft house concerning the number of volumes of the history which their