The story of the Sun, New York: 1833-1928 / by Frank M. O'Brien ; with an introduction by Edward Page Mitchell ...

THE FIELD OF THE LITTLE "SUN"

21

criticism, its first subject in that field being the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Wood at the Park Theater in
"Cinderella," a comic opera. The paper's first animal
story was printed on September 12, recording the fact
that on the previous Sunday about sixty wild pigeons
stayed in a tree at the Battery nearly half an hour.
On September 14, the Sun printed its first illustration-a two-column cut of "Herschel's Forty-Feet Telescope." This was Sir W. Herschel, then dead some ten
years, and the telescope was on his grounds at Slough,
near Windsor, England. Another knighted Herschel
with another telescope in a far land was to play a big
part in tile fortunes of the Sun, but that comes later.
In the issue with the cut of the telescope was a paragraph about a rumor that Fanny Kemble, who had just
captivated American theatergoers, had been married to
Pierce Butler, of Philadelphia-as, indeed, she had.
Broadway seems to have had its lure as early as
1833, for in the Sun of September 17; on the first page
is a plaint by "Citizen":
They talk of the pleasures of the country, but
would to God I had never been persuaded to leave
the labor of the city for such woful pleasures. Oh,
Broadway, Broadway! In an evil hour did I forsake thee for verdant walks and flowery landscapes
and that there tiresome piece of made water. What
walk is so agreeable as a walk through the streets of
New York? What landscape more flowery than
those of the print-shops? And what water was made
by man equal to the Hudson?
This was followed by uplifting little essays on "Suicide" and "Robespierre." The chief news of the day