Thus the _Sun_ came out for the freedom of the slave twenty-eight years before that freedom was to be accomplished in the United States through war. The _Sun_ was the _Sun_ of Day, but the hand was the hand of Wisner. That young man was an Abolitionist before the word was coined. “Wisner was a pretty smart young fellow,” said Mr. Day nearly fifty years afterward, “but he and I never agreed. I was rather Democratic in my notions. Wisner, whenever he got a chance, was always sticking in his damned little Abolitionist articles.” There is little doubt that Wisner wrote the article facing the _Sun_ against slavery while he was waiting for something to turn up in the police-court. Then he went to the office, set up the article, as well as his piece about the arrest of Eliza Barry, of Bayard Street, for stealing a wash-tub, and put the type in the form. Considering that Wisner got four dollars a week for his break-o’-day work, he made a very good morning of that; and it is worthy of record that the next day’s _Sun_ did not repudiate his assault on human servitude, although on September 10 Mr. Day printed an editorial grieving over the existence of slavery, but hitting at the methods of the Abolitionists. These early issues were full of lively little “sunny” pieces, for instance: Passing by the Beekman Street church early this morning, we discovered a milkman replenishing his lacteous cargo with Adam’s ale. We took the liberty to ask him, “Friend, why do ye do thus?” He replied, “None of your business”; and we passed on, determined to report him to the Grahamites. A poem on Burns, by Halleck--perhaps reprinted from one of the author’s published volumes of verse--added literary tone to that morning’s _Sun_. In the next issue was some verse by Willis, beginning: Look not upon the wine when it Is red within the cup! Then, and for some years afterward, the _Sun_ exhibited a special aversion to alcohol in text and head-lines. “Cursed Effects of Rum!” was one of its favourite head-lines. The _Sun_ was a week old before it contained dramatic criticism, its first subject in that field being the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Wood at the Park Theatre 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.