The assassination of the Czar Alexander II of Russia did not sell an extra paper, but the hanging of Foster, the “car-hook murderer,” sent the sales up seventeen thousand. The deaths of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Alexander T. Stewart had no effect on the Sun’s circulation, the passing of Napoleon III raised it only one thousand for the day, and the death of Pius IX caused only four thousand irregular readers to buy the paper; but the execution of Dolan, a murderer now practically forgotten, sent the sales up ten thousand. The beginning of coercive measures in Ireland by the arrest of Michael Davitt sold no extra papers in a city full of Irishmen, but the Fenian invasion of Canada meant the sale of ten thousand copies more than usual.
Tweed’s death caused an increase of five thousand; the death of President Garfield, of seventy-four thousand. Only thirteen thousand extras were sold after the Brooklyn Theatre fire, while the Westfield steamboat explosion sold thirty-one thousand. Twenty-one thousand irregular readers bought the Sun to read about the first blasting of Hell Gate in 1876, while only eight thousand were interested in the fact that Tilden had been counted out by the Electoral Commission. The flare-up of the Beecher scandal, in August, 1874, sold as many extras—ten thousand—as the shooting of Fisk.
The beginning of the Crédit Mobilier exposé added only a thousand to the normal circulation, but on the morning after a big walking-match the presses had to run off forty thousand more than their usual daily grist. The resignation of Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. Platt from the United States Senate hoisted the circulation only two thousand, but the fight between John L. Sullivan and Paddy Ryan meant a difference of eleven thousand. The opening of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia caused extra sales of three thousand; an international rifle-match at Creedmoor, ten thousand.
In 1882 the Sun made the calculation that the average effect of certain sorts of news in increase of circulation was about as follows:
| Presidential elections | 82,000 |
| State and city elections | 42,000 |
| Last days of walking-matches | 25,000 |
| October State elections in Presidential years | 21,000 |
| Great fires | 10,000 |
| Notable disasters | 9,000 |
| Hangings in or near New York | 8,000 |
The Sun expressed a curiosity to know—
Who are the eighty or ninety thousand people, not regular readers of the Sun, that buy the paper after a Presidential election? Where do they live? Do they read the papers only after exciting events?
On its fiftieth birthday—September 3, 1883—the Sun printed a table showing the high-tide marks of its circulation:
| November 8, 1876—Presidential election | 222,390 |
| Sept. 20, 1881—Garfield’s death | 212,525 |
| Nov. 3, 1880—Presidential election | 206,974 |
| July 13, 1871—Orange riots | 192,224 |
| Sept. 21, 1881—Second day after Garfield’s death | 180,215 |
| Nov. 3, 1875—State and city election | 177,588 |
| July 3, 1881—Garfield shot | 176,093 |
In the same article, a page review written by Mr. Mitchell, the reasons for the Sun’s success were succinctly given: