Pete...so happens I researched this quite a bit about a year ago and
already have some info in MTDBD vol. II for 1894. This may not translate to the
text only forum well, so if you like, email me and I'll forward it to you.
Here's a cut & paste anyway:
January 27 Saturday – James J. Corbett arrived in New York only twodays after beating Charley Mitchell in Jacksonville Florida, to defend the
title he won in 1892 from John L. Sullivan. The fighter’s party
included Dan Creedon, middleweight champion of Australia (he was actually a New
Zealander). Creedon had beaten Alexander Greggains in a big middleweight
bout in Roby, Indiana on Aug 14, 1893, and engaged afterward in several
exhibition matches with Corbett in Florida [NY Times “Creedon the Winner” Aug. 15, 1893, p5].
5,000 fans and the Old Guard Band met Corbett at the train station in
Jersey City. The band played “Hail to the Chief.” Later that
night Corbett and Creedon put on an exhibition for 7,000 at Madison Square
Garden. Sam had dinner with H.H. Rogers and wife. Rogers bought a $15 box at the
Garden for the boxing exhibition featuring Corbett. Sam, Rogers, Dr. Rice,
and two artists from the Players Club occupied the box. (Sam referred to one
of the artists as “fire-escape Simmons, the inveterate talker”) Afterward, Sam met Corbett in his dressing room [NY Times,
“Corbett Arrives in Town” Jan.28, 1894 p3]. See Jan. 28 entry for theirconversation that Sam wrote to Livy.
Afterwards, Sam enjoyed a musical evening that lasted till dawn:
I had an engagement at a beautiful dwelling close to the Players for 10.30;I was there by 10.45. Thirty cultivated and very musical ladies and
gentlemen present—all of them acquaintances and many of them personal
friends of mine. That wonderful Hungarian Band was there (they charge $500 for anevening.) Conversation and Band until midnight; then a bite of supper; thenthe company was compactly grouped before me and I told about Dr. B. E.
Martin and the etchings, and followed it with the Scotch-Irish Christening. My,
but the Martin is a darling story! Next, the head tenor from the Opera sang
half a dozen great songs that set the company wild, yes, mad with delight,
that nobly handsome young Damrosch accompanying on the piano.
Just a little pause—then the Band burst out into an explosion of
weird and tremendous dance music, a Hungarian celebrity and his wife took the
floor—I followed; I couldn’t help it; the others drifted in,one by one, and it was Onteora over again.
By half past 4 I had danced all those people down—and yet was not
tired; merely breathless. I was in bed at 5, and asleep in ten minutes.Up at 9 and presently at work on this letter to you. I think I wrote until
2 or half past. Then I walked leisurely out to Mr. Rogers’s (it is
called 3 miles but it is short of it) arriving at 3.30, but he was out—to return at 5.30—(and a person was in, whom I don’t
particularly like)—so I didn’t stay, but dropped over and
chatted with the Howellses until 6.
First, Howells and I had a chat together. I asked about Mrs. H. He said shewas fine, still steadily improving, and nearly back to her old best health
[MTLP 2: 605].
January 28 Sunday – Sam wrote at 9:30 AM from New York to Livy in
Paris, of the goings on the night before:
Livy dear, when we got out to the house last night, Mrs. Rogers, who is up
and around, now, didn’t want to go down stairs to dinner, but Mr. R.persuaded her and we had a very good time indeed. By 8
o’clock we were down again and bought a fifteen-dollar box in the Madison Square
Garden (Rogers bought it, not I,) then he went and fetched Dr. Rice while I
(went) to the Players and picked up two artists—Reid and Simmons—and thus we filled 5 of the 6 seats. There was a vast multitudeof people in the brilliant place. Stanford White came along presently and
invited me to go to the World-Champion’s dressing room, which I was
very glad to do. Corbett has a fine face and is modest and diffident, besidesbeing the most perfectly and beautifully constructed human animal in the
world. I said:
“You have whipped Mitchell, and maybe you will whip Jackson in June—but you are not done, then. You will have to tackle me.”
He answered, so gravely that one might easily have thought him in earnest:
“No—I am not going to meet you in the ring. It is notfair or right to require it. You might chance to knock me out, by no
merit of your own, but by a purely accidental blow; and then my reputation
would be gone and you would have a double one. You have got fame enoughand you ought not to want to take mine away from me.”
Corbett was for a long time a clerk in the Nevada Bank in San Francisco.
There were lots of little boxing matches, to entertain the crowd: then at
last Corbett appeared in the ring and the 8,000 people present went mad with
enthusiasm. My two artists went mad about his form. They said
they had never seen anything that came reasonably near equaling its perfectionexcept Greek statues, and they didn’t surpass it.
Corbett boxed 3 rounds with the middle-weight Australian
champion—oh, beautiful to see!—then the show was over and we struggled out
through aperfect wash of humanity [MTLP 2: 603-4]
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