Other celebrities were often mentioned. Aaron Burr, now old and feeble, was writing his memoirs. Martin Van Buren had taken lodgings at the City Hotel. The Siamese Twins were arrested in the South for beating a man. “Mr. Clay arrived in town last evening and attended the new opera.” This was “Fra Diavolo,” in which Mr. and Mrs. Wood sang at the Park Theatre. “It is said that Dom Pedro has dared his brother Miguel to single combat, which has been refused.” A week later the Sun gloated over the fact that Pedro—Pedro I of Brazil, who was invading Portugal on behalf of his daughter, Maria da Gloria—had routed the usurper Miguel’s army.
On December 5, 1833, the Sun printed the longest news piece it had ever put in type—the message of President Jackson to the Congress. This took up three of the four pages, and crowded out nearly all the advertising.
On December 17, in the fourth month of its life, the Sun announced that it had procured “a machine press, on which one thousand impressions can be taken in an hour. The daily circulation is now nearly FOUR THOUSAND.” It was a happy Christmas for Day and Wisner. The Sun surely was shining!
The paper retained its original size and shape during the whole of 1834, and rarely printed more than four pages. As it grew older, it printed more and more local items and developed greater interest in local affairs. The first page was taken up with advertising and reprint. A State election might have taken place the day before, but on page 1 the Sun worshippers looked for a bit of fiction or history. What were the fortunes of William L. Marcy as compared to a two-column thriller, “The Idiot’s Revenge,” or “Captain Chicken and Gentle Sophia”?
The head-lines were all small, and most of them italics. Here are samples:
INGRATITUDE OF A CAT.
PERSONALITY OF NAPOLEON.
WONDERFUL ANTICS OF FLEAS.
BROUGHT TO IT BY RUM.
The news paragraphs were sometimes models of condensation:
PICKPOCKETS—On Friday night a Gentleman lost $100 at the Opera and then $25 at Tammany Hall.
The Hon. Daniel Webster will leave town this morning for Washington.
John Baker, the person whom we reported a short time since as being brought before the police for stealing a ham, died suddenly in his cell in Bellevue in the greatest agony—an awful warning to drunkards.