1 Clemens may have directed this semi-anonymous letter to the Post because Orion had recently obtained a position on the editorial staff (25 Sept 72 to OLC, n. 11). The editor in chief at this time was probably Henry Thompson Sperry (1837–1912), part owner of the newspaper and president of the Evening Post Association. Sperry was certainly the editor by July 1873, and had presumably held the post since July 1872, when Isaac Hill Bromley (1833–98) resigned. It is not known if Sperry and Clemens were personally acquainted (Trumbull, 1:611; Geer: 1872, 37, 124, 290; 1873, 127, 293; “Editorial Announcement,” Hartford Evening Post, 16 July 72, 2).

2 Abraham Oakey Hall (1826–98) overcame early poverty, earning the money for his education by writing for newspapers. He attended the University of the City of New York and Harvard law school, and received further training in law offices in New York and New Orleans. In 1851 he was admitted to the New York bar; that same year he was appointed assistant district attorney of New York County. He served as district attorney from 1855 to 1858 and again from 1862 to 1868, gaining a reputation as an energetic and effective prosecutor. In 1864 he became a member of New York’s powerful Tammany Hall, and, through its influence and his association with William (“Boss”) Tweed and the Tweed Ring, became mayor in 1868 and was easily reelected in 1870. Literate, social, and meticulous in dress, he was known as “Elegant Oakey.” In July 1871 the New York Times began to escalate its campaign to expose Hall’s corrupt administration, charging that the city’s debt had ballooned while Hall rubber-stamped millions of dollars of fraudulent bills submitted by Tammany contractors. The Times’s daily attacks were reinforced by Thomas Nast’s scathing cartoons in Harper’s Weekly. A committee of outraged citizens demanded Hall’s resignation in November 1871. An attempt to prosecute him ended in March 1872 in a mistrial, when one of the jurors died. His retrial in October 1872 resulted in another mistrial, with five jurors voting for acquittal and seven for conviction. Hall maintained his innocence throughout, claiming to have authorized payments without questioning their validity and without fraudulent intent. He was tried again on similar charges in December 1873 and was found innocent, but his political career was ended. Clemens had previously commented on the Tweed Ring’s depredations in a satirical article written for the New York Tribune in September 1871, “The Revised Catechism,” in which “St. Hall’s Garbled Reports” were cited as prized texts “for the training of the young” in the new municipal morality (SLC 1871; see Vogelback 1955). He apparently soon concluded that Hall was more “fool” than “knave”: in a burlesque of Tammany frauds in chapter 33 of The Gilded Age, he stated, “The controller and the board of audit passed the bills, and a mayor, who was simply ignorant but not criminal, signed them” (SLC 1873–74, 303; “The Committee of Seventy Demands Mayor Hall’s Resignation,” New York Tribune, 29 Nov 71, 1; New York Herald: “Second Trial of Mayor Hall,” 24 Oct 72, 4; “Mayor Hall’s Trial—The Lessons of the Past,” 2 Nov 72, 7; “A. Oakey Hall Is Dead,” New York Times, 8 Oct 98, 1; Paine 1904, 140–46, 166–76; Hershkowitz, 177–84, 209, 217, 222–23).

3 James Anthony Froude (1818–94) arrived in the United States on 9 October 1872 on a lecture tour connected with the publication of the first volume of The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (3 vols., 1872–74). The Lotos Club, whose members reputedly “watched the wharves for the arrival of distinguished strangers from Europe” (Elderkin, 13), honored him with a reception on 12 October. Mayor Hall, who served as president of the club from 1870 until May 1872 (when Whitelaw Reid succeeded him), was one of several speakers. He referred facetiously to the welcome accorded Froude by the city and suggested:

Members and guests at the reception included John Bigelow (1817–1911), former U.S. minister to France; Samuel J. Tilden (1814–86), chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee; David G. Croly of the New York World; William C. Church of the Galaxy; Edward Eggleston; Bret Harte; John Hay; Josiah Holland; Joaquin Miller; and Edmund Yates. On 29 October the New York Times referred to the occasion:

Reuben E. Fenton (1819–85), U.S. senator from New York, was one of the leaders of the anti-Grant faction. The Times’s allusion to Froude’s skill at “white-washing” probably referred to his appreciative portrait of Henry VIII in the History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth (12 vols., 1856–70), and to the opinions he expressed in his most recent work, which were seen as an attempt to vindicate England’s policies toward Ireland (Dunn, 2:266–70, 370–87; New York Tribune: “New-York City,” 10 Oct 72, 8; Elderkin, 11–12, 18–20; Cortissoz, 1:235–36; Paine 1904, 208; see also 1 Feb 73 to Reid, n. 2).

4 Henry M. Stanley arrived in New York from Europe on 20 November. The next day Mayor Hall addressed a message to the city council, asking it to pass “joint resolutions of welcome” and recommending that an “opportunity upon some appointed day be afforded to our citizens of giving, under civic auspices, a popular welcome to Mr. Stanley in the City Hall” (“Honors to Mr. Stanley,” New York Tribune, 25 Nov 72, 2). The publication of Hall’s message, before the council had considered it, occasioned “severe comment”: “The matter was characterized as a misdemeanor and an infringement upon the dignity of the legislative branch of the City Government” (“Municipal Matters,” New York Tribune, 27 Nov 72, 2). On 22 November the Lotos Club gave Stanley a reception, at which Mayor Hall was one of the speakers (New York Tribune: “Arrival of Mr. Stanley,” 21 Nov 72, 5; “Stanley Welcomed,” 23 Nov 72, 5; for Queen Victoria’s reception of Stanley, see 25 Oct 72 to OLC, n. 4; see also 30 Nov 72 to Redpath, n. 6).

5 On 1 December, two days after Horace Greeley’s death, Mayor Hall sent a telegram to George Maxwell Robeson, secretary of the navy:

Robeson replied the next day that President Grant had decided to attend the funeral even before receiving Hall’s telegram (“The President to Attend the Funeral,” New York Tribune, 3 Dec 72, 1).

6 Grand Duke Alexis Aleksandrovich (1850–1908), the third son of Tsar Aleksandr II, sailed into New York harbor with a fleet of Russian ships on 19 November 1871, on the first leg of an extensive tour of the United States. In April, as soon as unofficial reports of the upcoming visit appeared in the press, a committee of prominent citizens had begun preparations for an elaborate reception. Mayor Hall was not on the committee, nor did his name appear on the list of those attending the climactic event of the prince’s stay, a banquet and ball at the Academy of Music on 29 November (“The Grand Duke’s Arrival,” New York Tribune, 20 Nov 71, 1; New York Times: “An Imperial Visitor,” 21 Apr 71, 1; “The Coming Reception of the Grand Duke Alexis,” 27 Apr 71, 2; “The Russian Grand Duke,” 18 Oct 71, 2; “The Prince’s Ball,” 30 Nov 71, 1).