Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1880-03-06
How a Newspaper Secured a
IS Beat.,,

Az q SOAlC0HOuuCAU VI LILO
Journal Mr.. Henry l. Stephens has told the
Illustrated Ne,rs, published BY Demorest. and
fghting for months over sickles' trial and the
it was about nip and tuck, for the
Ne,os had Mast. Then came the Heenan.
struggle between the two papers. Both sent
artists to England.
About the time the fight was to come OF, and
1t, for there was no cable then, the Illustrated
Ne,os came out with the announcement that
they had sent Mr.. Thomas Mast to England to
Draw picture Of the fight and Mr.. Anthony to
engrave it on wood on the Vanderbilt while
coming home, and that 1T would be published
on the very day OF the steamers arrival.
Next morning the governor (MI. Leslie) called
me to vacant room up stairs, and locked the
door as went In. We must have picture OF
the fight said he 1n this And he laid his
enough for four page picture. Said he, take
this room. Keep # locked. Admit nobody but
me and the two or three other artists that you
Viii need, and compel us to give certain speci-
fled signal We must knock the Netrs out OF
time
"He told me to call for anything or any man
wanted. sent for Perkins, who was English,
and who knew the low country around Farms
borough. Leslie, who was English too. thought
the fight would come on on level ground with
background Of English farms Perkins was
struck the ring and laid out vague perspective
with English trees and hedge-roWs.
"Then we sent down to The Pewter Mug for
Brown to represent Heenan. Brown was a strap
per, standing at least six feet three inches and
weighing not less than two hundred pounds.
We got Thad. Glover to do Savers. He was
very lively and pretty sparrer. They went att
hammer and tOngs, as waited, crayon in hand
to catch their attitude when 1t was right. 1 can
see them now Suffering and hopping around
the little room, driving one another into
corner and getting anOthpr'S heads n
chancery, and finally, when Heenan-Brown
gave Sayers Glover a vicious side-winder on
th hea ear taking pains s,o not to hit him
posed in that attitude. and caught it on paper.
Then the pugilists went out and took drink. l
drew the faces Of Heenan and Sayers on the
bodies; then put lot OF figures and heads,
and then sent for Violin, an Englisman, and he
put In q dozen or so typical English heads, with
English hats, etc., and then sent for TWaites.
and he added great lot OF English spectators.
/ took it then and finished it up, and then the
block was sawed into sixty pieces and divided
among sixty artists to be engraved. About half
course they didn't recognize their own work
when the paper was out. Then the whole was
electrotyped, and an immense edition of the
paper was printed on one side, ready for the
"When we came to write out the account OF
the fight we made IT very vague, making much
Of the preliminaries already known here, with
ready. One morning came down town and
found the streets flooded with Frank Lesltes
Newspaper: 1t seemed to me there were mil
lions of copies. never saw so many papers in
my life. It was the biggest success there ever
was The Neeos with Nast's picture, was not
out till six hours afterward, and then the whole
picture made only two pages, and looked mean
the best OF it was that we had ten times as
much landscape and perspective as Mast, his
picture showing nothing but conventional tree
tops oyer the heads OF the spectators, while we
mad miles and miles Of mead and Wo0dland
Leslie was delighted. never saw him In
such happy frame of mind He must have
made thousands of dollars that week. whats
the sense Of denouneing such pictures as bogus
ture as that taken on the spot?' The beauty OF
it was that by accident we placed the men right
-Heenans back to the sun. as 1t actually was
in the fight, though OF course we couldn't know
he had won the toss. This puzzled even those
who knew we must have made the picture here
and everybody was bewildered."