Since 24 April it had been clear to anyone reading the theater advertisements in the New York newspapers that the “Imperial Troupe” of Japanese jugglers and acrobats, managed by San Francisco’s Thomas Maguire, would open in New York at the Academy of Music on 6 May. Likewise, since 22 April it had been announced daily that Italian actress Adelaide Ristori would appear in a series of six farewell performances at the French Theatre; on 6 May she was to portray Thisbe in Victor Hugo’s Angelo, Tyrant of Padua. But the announcement that Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax (1823–85) would deliver his “Across the Continent” lecture at Irving Hall to benefit the Southern Famine Relief Commission, also on 6 May, could not have been seen by Fuller or Clemens before the afternoon of 1 May, when it first appeared in a late edition of the Evening Post, presumably following the arrival in the city of Colfax himself (“Amusements,” New York Tribune, 22 and 24 Apr 67, 6 May 67, 7; advertisement, New York Evening Post, 1 May 67, 4).

Clemens inscribed a copy of the Jumping Frog “To ǀ My Mother— ǀ The dearest Friend I ever ǀ had, & the truest. ǀ Mark Twain ǀ New York, May 1,1867” (ViU).