Nearly two thousand guests were present at the reception given by the Union League Club to President Arthur on January 23, 1884.  With the Chief Executive, who arrived about nine o’clock, were Secretaries Teller and Folger, of his Cabinet.  After shaking hands with the reception committee the President was escorted upstairs by William M. Evarts.  About the President were the Cabinet officers, Mr. and Mrs. Evarts, Jesse Seligman, and Salem H. Wales, and Attorney General and Mrs. Brewster.  In the distinguished gathering were Mayor Edson, Dr. Lyman Abbott, General and Mrs. George B. McClellan, Whitelaw Reid, Henry Ward Beecher, Parke Godwin, Elihu Root, Cyrus W. Field, Mr. and Mrs. John Bigelow, and Lionel Sackville-West, the British Minister.

At the supper, which was served at midnight, one of the features was the striking pieces of confectionery.  In gleaming white sugar was a model of the Capitol, and a tall monument supported statuettes of the President and his Cabinet.  Also there was a twenty-four-foot model of the Brooklyn Bridge with the President and troops crossing it.

At the banquet to Lieutenant Greely of Arctic fame, at the Lotos Club, on January 16, 1886, Vice-President General Horace Porter was in the chair, in the absence of President Whitelaw Reid.  Besides Lieutenant Greely, Chief Engineer Melville, and Commander Schley, who headed the expedition to relieve Greely, were guests of the club, and among others at the table were Chief Justice Daly, Colonel C. McK.  Leoser, Robert Kirby, Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, Dr. Pardee, Frank Robinson, Herman Oelrichs, C.H.  Webb, Colonel Thomas W. Knot, George Masset, J. O’Sullivan, Douglas Taylor, James Bates, and Chandos Fulton.  In his speech the guest of the evening told the story of his expedition to the Far North and explained the reason for every action.  Arctic exploration, he declared, could not be futile when eleven nations were offering the lives of their men in the cause of science.  He told the story of the splendid spirit of his own men during the dreary months at Cape Sabine and lauded American courage and achievement in all the corners of the earth.  There were speeches by Judge Daly and Commander Schley, and then two fun-makers were introduced in the persons of Thorne and Billington, Poo-bah and Ko-Ko, from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera, “The Mikado,” that was then playing in New York.

Late in November of the same year the Lotos Club honoured another explorer, Henry M. Stanley, who had just returned to New York after many years’ absence, completing Livingstone’s work in Central Africa.  Stanley sat between Mr. Reid, the Club’s president, and Chauncey M. Depew.  Others at the guest’s table were Lieutenant Greely, General Porter, General Winslow, Colonel Knox, Major Pond, General Townsend, Lieutenant Hickey, Commissioner Andrews, G.F.  Rowe, Bruce Crane, Henry Gillig, and Daniel E. Bandmann.  The speakers, besides Mr. Stanley, were Lieutenant Greely, Mr. Depew, and Horace Porter.