January 1 Wednesday – At noon, Sam, Livy and Clara Clemens with Carlyle G. Smythe sailed from Adelaide for Ceylon on the P&O’s liner, Oceana [Shillingsburg, “Down Under” 34]. Once underway, Sam wrote a short letter to H.H. Rogers:

There is nothing to write, but we want to send New Year greetings to the Rogerses and the Benjamins and the Broughtons….We have touched at Adelaide and are now just leaving for Ceylon. We shan’t hear any more war-talk for 14 days to come [MTHHR 189-90].

Note: On Jan.1, 1896 President Cleveland appointed a commission to look into the boundary dispute in Venezuela, which put England and the US at odds and even threatened war. Urban H. Broughton married Rogers’ daughter Cara Leland (Duff); William Evarts Benjamin married Rogers’ daughter Anne Engle Rogers.

Sam also wrote a short note to Charles Dudley Warner:

Just a line to holler Happy New Years!…We got back from New Zealand ten days ago & talked a couple of times in Sydney and Melbourne…We reach Ceylon 14 days hence (no war-news till then, thank goodness) and change there for Calcutta….I think this browsing around is good for Livy & Clara [MTP: Swann Galleries catalog, Oct. 26, 1944 Item 580].

Sam’s notebook entry:

Truth, Nov. 14 ’95, contains a clear statement of the unfair treatment of Surgeon Lea of the Navy by the Admiralty [Gribben 717; NB 36 TS 14]. Note: Truth, A Weekly Journal (London).