CHAPTER X
“THE ART OF MONEY-GETTING”
I
Upon his return to England Barnum was greeted cordially by those who had admired him in the days of his reputation. His autobiography, in spite of the few scathing reviews, had not damaged either his popularity or his esteem in England.
One of the first to greet Barnum in London was Albert Smith, playwright, dentist, literary hack and showman, who had admired Barnum and had studied his methods during the first English tour of General Tom Thumb. Smith at the time of Barnum’s return to England was exhibiting his panorama of Mont Blanc, which he had ascended the year before. He gave a descriptive lecture explaining his model. In the course of this lecture Smith referred several times to a character he had met on his trip, whom he called “Phineas Cutecraft,” a Yankee showman, who had visited Cologne Cathedral with him. According to Smith’s story, the sexton was telling them the sad tale of the ashes and bones of the eleven thousand virgins of Cologne, who had been sacrificed upon a certain black historical occasion. “Old fellow, what will you take for the hull lot of bones?” asked Phineas Cutecraft. “I want them for my Museum in America.” “Mine Gott! it is impossible,” the German was supposed to have answered. “We will never sell the Virgins’ bones!” “Never mind,” said Phineas Cutecraft, “I’ll send another lot of bones to my Museum, swear mine are the real bones of the Virgins of Cologne, and bust up your show!”
A celebrity who received Barnum cordially upon his return to England was Thackeray. When Thackeray visited the United States in 1853 to deliver his lectures on The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century, he had called upon Barnum at the Museum with a letter of introduction from Albert Smith, and he had asked Barnum’s advice on the management of his lecture tour. Barnum had given Thackeray valuable information concerning the cities he should visit, the lecture halls suitable in each city, and the proper admission charges, for which the novelist was grateful. When he returned to New York in 1855 to deliver his lectures on The Four Georges, he visited Barnum often. Therefore, in 1857, when Barnum returned to London, Thackeray hastened to offer him sympathy and financial aid. To Thackeray’s question whether he needed money, Barnum replied, “I need more money in order to get out of bankruptcy, and I intend to earn it; but so far as daily bread is concerned, I am quite at ease, for my wife is worth 30,000 or 40,000 pounds.” “Is it possible?” Thackeray said. “Well, now, you have lost all my sympathy. Why, that is more than I ever expect to be worth; I shall be sorry for you no more.”
It is difficult to reconcile this statement to Thackeray, which Barnum gives boldly in his autobiography, with the pose of a martyr to innocent misfortunes which Barnum adopted towards his Bridgeport friends, and with his statements in court,--which are not included in the autobiography--that he was supporting himself by keeping boarders and by boxes of meat from his son-in-law.
Thackeray took Barnum to one of his famous whitebait dinners at Greenwich, and they dined together at a Covent Garden cabaret, where music was furnished by a boy-choir. An entertainer dressed on one side in a woman’s long skirts, and on the other with a man’s side-whiskers, did a male and female duet, much to the disgust of Thackeray and to the delight of Barnum. Soon after his return to New York Barnum found a woman who could sing in two registers. He presented this hermaphroditic entertainment at the Museum under the name of Dora Dawron, who was popular with New York audiences for many years.
Otto Goldschmidt, who was in London, called upon Barnum and said that Jenny Lind, who was then living in Dresden, had asked him to find out if Barnum needed money and to beg him to accept her aid. Goldschmidt also advised Barnum to bring his family to Dresden because living was cheap there, and he added, “My wife will gladly look up a proper house for you to live in.” Barnum declined the kindness on the ground that Dresden was too far from his business opportunities. Julius Benedict and Giovanni Belletti also called and offered assistance. But Barnum needed none. General Tom Thumb was drawing crowded audiences wherever he went, and Cordelia Howard’s “Little Eva,” with her mother as “Topsy,” was a great success in London and the other large cities. That Barnum was in any way financially interested in these enterprises was not made public, for fear that his creditors would interfere with his plans for paying them off. But he remitted money from London continually, and it was used for paying some of his debts.
After a successful tour of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, as well as England, Barnum and General Tom Thumb went to Germany. They toured the spas, where General Tom Thumb drew huge crowds at large prices. Barnum made so much money at these resorts that he was able to send home thousands of dollars for the payment of debts and for the repurchase of Bridgeport real estate.
They visited Holland, which pleased Barnum more than any country in Europe, except Great Britain. He admired the Dutch most for those very virtues which counted against his own success in that country: frugality, industry, and thrift. The Dutch were not enthusiastic over General Tom Thumb, because they were not accustomed to spend money for such things. But Barnum enjoyed himself so much in this clean and busy little kingdom that he was compensated in pleasure for his expense, and he also found there the Albino Family, consisting of perfect Albino specimens, a man, his wife and son, whom he sent to America, where they were the most popular attraction at the Museum for a long period.
Barnum returned to England, where his wife and daughters had arrived. He settled them in a house in London, arranged for General Tom Thumb’s management by agents, and made a hurried trip to New York for the purpose of settling some of his debts. When he arrived in New York, he found that many of his friends avoided him on the streets, and in Bridgeport he was cut by a few of those he had known well before his bankruptcy.
“Iranistan” had been taken over by Barnum’s creditors, but they found it impossible to sell the weird residence, and they offered Barnum the use of it as a home. Painters and carpenters were putting the house in order; they were in the habit of eating their lunches in the dome room, where there was a circular cushioned seat. One of them left his lighted pipe on a stuffed cushion, and on December 18, 1857, Barnum, who was in New York, received a telegram from his brother announcing that “Iranistan” was burned to the ground. Barnum’s reflections on this disaster were: “My beautiful Iranistan was gone! This was not only a serious loss to my estate, for it had probably cost at least $150,000, but it was generally regarded as a public calamity.” No doubt; it was also a great loss to Barnum’s immortality, for, were it standing to-day, nothing could be so effective as a memorial to his unique personal traits. The insurance on “Iranistan” was only $28,000. Subsequently Barnum’s creditors sold the grounds and outhouses to Elias Howe, Jr., the inventor of the sewing-machine needle, who intended to build another resplendent mansion on the site, but death prevented him from carrying out his plans.
II
Barnum returned to England early in 1858 and took General Tom Thumb on another successful tour of the British Isles. Soon after beginning this tour he discovered that it did not require his personal attention--General Tom Thumb was now famous enough to require only routine exploitation--and he therefore placed his midget in the hands of assistants and devoted his own time to another activity. Some friends in England suggested that he lecture on “The Art of Money-Getting.” At first the paradox of the title amused him, and he tells us that he thought himself more competent to lecture on “The Art of Money-Losing.” But he came to the conclusion that in order to lose money, it was first necessary to have made it. However, the paradox remains, that Barnum helped to pay his debts incurred by careless handling of money by means of a lecture on “The Art of Money-Getting.”
In his lecture Barnum stated many bald platitudes, no longer honored even by time, and he added to them none of the humorous twists with which he sometimes enlivened truisms. It is difficult to realize from a reading of this printed lecture why it was so successful, unless many good anecdotes, which Barnum said were omitted in the printed version for the sake of brevity, alleviated the dullness of his commonplace ideas. He assured his readers of things they knew so well that they should have begun to doubt them. In simple terms he urged economy: he did not believe, he said, in saving extravagantly, but he was also opposed to lavish spending. Such expressions as “laying by a ‘nest-egg,’” “easy come, easy go,” are elaborated in great detail and with little novelty. “The old suit of clothes, and the old bonnet and dress will answer for another season; the Croton or spring water will taste better than champagne; a cold bath and a brisk walk will prove more exhilarating than a ride in the finest coach; a social chat, an evening’s reading in the family circle, or an hour’s play of ‘hunt the slipper’ and ‘blind man’s buff,’ will be far more pleasant than a fifty or a hundred dollar party, when the reflection on the difference in cost is indulged in by those who begin to know the pleasures of saving.” Sound health, and above all, abstention from intoxicating drinks, and from tobacco, “the noxious weed,” are indispensable to success. He said that he spoke from experience, for he used to smoke until he “trembled like an aspen leaf,” but on the advice of a physician he had given up tobacco entirely. But economy and abstemiousness were not the only attributes of Success: he assured his audiences that “unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed.” He did not tell them how a man was to determine such natural fitness for vocation, and he neglected to mention that for some years of his own early manhood he looked with little success for the vocation suited to his peculiar genius. “Avoid debt,” “go-aheaditiveness,” “whatever you do, do it with all your might,” are some of the mottoes Barnum offered his listeners as substantial, and they listened as to a man with a message. It does not profit a man to be too visionary, Barnum warned, and he cited the instance from a London newspaper of a “philosophic pauper who was kicked out of a cheap boarding-house because he could not pay his bill, but he had a roll of papers sticking out of his coat pocket, which, upon examination, proved to be his plan for paying off the national debt of England without the aid of a penny.”
Luck, in Barnum’s opinion, was for all practical purposes non-existent: “There never was a man who could go out in the morning and find a purse full of gold in the street to-day, and another to-morrow, and so on, day after day. He may do so once in his life; but so far as mere luck is concerned, he is as liable to lose it as find it.” He also hazarded the revolutionary belief that Providence was not absolutely dependable; he urged people to remember Cromwell’s, “Not only trust in Providence, but keep the powder dry,” and he added a story of Mahomet and a faithful follower, who remarked in the desert one night, “I will loose my camel, and trust it to God.” “No, no, not so,” said the prophet in consternation, “tie thy camel, and trust it to God.”
And above all, Barnum urged, Advertise: “But I say if a man has got goods for sale, and he don’t advertise them in some way, the chances are that some day the sheriff will do it for him.” To a man who told him that he had advertised three times and received no good, Barnum said he replied: “Sir, advertising is like learning--‘a little is a dangerous thing.’” He claimed that there was only one liquid a man could use in excessive quantities without being swallowed up by it, and that was printer’s ink.
“The Art of Money-Getting” was immediately successful in getting money for Barnum. In a half-column review of the lecture the _London Times_ paid tribute to the showman’s “fund of dry humor,” sonorous voice, and surprisingly respectable appearance, more like that of a man of business than a charlatan! The _Times_ reported that “hundreds of people pressed one after another into the large music-hall [St. James’s] for the purpose of seeing and hearing the most adventurous and least scrupulous of showmen.... The whole scene was, in fact, an apotheosis of notoriety.” “Whether a huge multitude,” reflected the _Times_, “applauding an orator for a deliberate panegyric of ‘humbug’ may be considered as a sign of the high moral state of a nation is a point that we will not here discuss.” But before taking credit for the achievements of a Prince of Humbugs, Barnum had taken a precaution: “... he had so defined the word ‘humbug’ as to render it comparatively harmless.” “Had he satisfactorily demonstrated,” said the _Times_, “that he was John Howard or Alfred the Great or any other immortal benefactor of his race, he couldn’t have been honored with more encouraging cheers than when, with marvelous effrontery, he declared that he himself was considered the greatest humbug in the whole world.... And we may assert, with equal truth, that notoriety puts itself out at compound interest. If Mr. Barnum has got nothing else by the admiring throng he has at least got a new chapter for a second edition of his autobiography. Having already related how he drew together a mob of Yankees to see a few tame bulls, he can now describe the eagerness of John Bull to see the most enterprising of Yankees.”
Barnum’s lecture was proportionately as popular in the provinces as it was in London. He delivered it more than one hundred times during 1859 and repeated it several times with success in London. At Oxford and Cambridge the undergraduates received his wisdom with enthusiasm, but it was not always serious applause. At Oxford, after he was interrupted several times, he added this remark to the lecture: “I am an old showman, and I like to please my patrons. Now, it is quite immaterial to me; you may furnish the entertainment for the hour, or I will endeavor to do so, or we will take portions of the time by turns--you supplying a part of the amusement and I a part--as we say sometimes in America, ‘you pays your money, and you takes your choice.’” The students decided on a compromise: Barnum to supply half the entertainment, and they would supply the other half, and after fifteen minutes of the lecture, some one suggested singing “Yankee Doodle.” But Barnum was pleased with their jocularity and happy with the receipts, for that night at Oxford brought him £169. A London publisher offered $6,000 for the copyright to “The Art of Money-Getting,” but, wisely, Barnum declined, for he intended to deliver the lecture in the United States and again in England, and he also wanted it for that second edition of the autobiography, where, he agreed with the _Times_, it would form an interesting new chapter of the chronicle of his conquests.
III
Barnum returned to the United States in 1859 with enough money to pay all but $20,000 of his debts. His family had boarded and lived cheaply, and all their money was devoted to taking up Barnum’s notes and buying in East Bridgeport real estate at assignees’ sales.
On March 17, 1860, Butler and Greenwood, who had purchased the Museum collection, sold it to Barnum again. Although during their management a newspaper reported that “there is no pleasanter temple for the vacant hour,” and that in the Museum might be seen “parsons, poets, publishers, and other public characters looking at the curiosities and studying the fishes,” the Museum had not prospered during Barnum’s absence. Barnum renovated the building and decorated it with brilliant flags and streamers. Flaming posters announcing, “Barnum’s on his feet again,” were plastered throughout the city. A large audience greeted him on March 24, 1860, when he made a speech about his decline, fall, and rise again. An advertisement in the _Herald_ of March 24 read: “Between the first and second acts Mr. P. T. Barnum will appear, and give a brief history of his Adventures as a Clock Maker, showing how the clock ran down and how it was wound up; shadowing forth in the same the future of the Museum.”
Barnum, remantled in the esteem of Success, was received by the large audience of his fellow citizens with an enthusiasm that caused him to experience deep emotion. He told them the sad story of his clock debts, and how, with admirable foresight, he had in the days of his prosperity made over to his wife some of his property, including the lease to the Museum. Concerning this piece of sagacity, Barnum added the following footnote when he reprinted his speech in the autobiography: “I was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars when as a matter of love I transferred a portion to my wife, little dreaming that it would be needed during my lifetime.” Mr. Barnum did for love what so many men do as a precautionary measure of business.
He told his audiences how his family had lived frugally, although the value of the Museum lease was more than $80,000, so that his debts could be paid and his real estate repurchased. “The Christian name of my wife,” he said, “is Charity. I may well acknowledge, therefore, that I am not only a proper ‘subject of charity,’ but that ‘without Charity I am nothing.’ But, ladies and gentlemen, while Charity thus labored in my behalf, Faith and Hope were not idle. I have been anything but indolent during the last four years.” Then he told of his accomplishments in Europe.
“Many people,” said Barnum, “have wondered that a man considered so acute as myself should have been deluded into embarrassments like mine, and not a few have declared, in short meter, that ‘Barnum was a fool.’ I can only reply that I never made pretensions to the sharpness of a pawnbroker, and I hope I shall never so entirely lose confidence in human nature as to consider every man a scamp by instinct, or a rogue by necessity. ‘It is better to be deceived sometimes than to distrust always,’ says Lord Bacon, and I agree with him.” Assuredly, all was for the best, said Barnum. The very factory which he had built for his defunct clock company was now a thriving sewing-machine manufactory “filled with intelligent New England mechanics.”
Barnum’s speech concluded with a reiteration of the Museum policy, which, he assured his audience, would remain the same as it always had been under his management: “The dramas introduced in the Lecture Room will never contain a profane expression or a vulgar allusion; on the contrary, their tendency will always be to encourage virtue and frown upon vice.” He sent free tickets to clergymen and editors, assuring them in a circular letter of the same policy, and asking that after an inspection of the Museum they would kindly recommend it to their friends, for he desired “to enlist the influence of the intelligent and educated.”
Much verse commemorated the return of Barnum, including one woman’s “A Health to Barnum,” which ended:
“Here’s health and luck to Barnum! An _Elba_ he has seen, And never may his map of life Display a _St. Helene_!”
But there was not much danger of a _St. Helene_, for Barnum was once more in his element, and he worked with all the verve he had formerly exhibited in the exploitation of Museum attractions. About one month after his renewed management began, he was visited by James C. Adams, known as “Grizzly” Adams, who had traveled from San Francisco by boat with his collection of California animals, consisting mostly of vicious bears. He had twenty grizzly bears, several wolves and buffaloes, California lions, tigers, and elk. One of his stars was “Old Neptune,” the great sea-lion of the Pacific. Most of these animals “Grizzly” Adams had captured himself during his long career as a hunter and trapper in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains.
“Grizzly” Adams was as much a show as his beasts. He wore a hunter’s buckskin suit, trimmed with the tails of Rocky Mountain animals. For a cap he used a wolf’s head, trimmed with tails; his own stiff, bushy, gray hair grew long. His beard was white, long and grizzly, and after a voyage of three and a half months around Cape Horn with constant care and attention to his wild animals, who were trained to obey him but recognized no other master, “Grizzly” Adams was not natty when he presented himself to Barnum. During their conversation the hunter removed his hat out of deference to his prospective employer, and exposed the top of his skull, which was smashed in; he explained to Barnum that one of his pet bears, “General Frémont,” had laid open his master’s brain in a moment of playfulness. Barnum remarked anxiously that the wound looked dangerous. “Yes,” said Adams, “that will fix me out. It had nearly healed; but Old Frémont opened it for me the third or fourth time before I left California, and he did his business so thoroughly, I’m a used-up man. But I reckon I may live six months or a year yet.” Later he said: “Mr. Barnum, I am not the man I was five years ago. Then I felt able to stand the hug of any grizzly living, and was always glad to encounter, single-handed, any sort of an animal that dared present himself. But I have been beaten to a jelly, torn almost limb from limb, and nearly chawed up and spit out by these treacherous grizzly bears. But I am good for a few months yet, and by that time I hope we shall gain enough to make my old woman comfortable, for I have been absent from her some years.”
[Illustration: CASTLE GARDEN IN 1850
From a contemporary color print]
[Illustration: CHARITY BARNUM, P. T. BARNUM’S FIRST WIFE
From 1888 edition of his Autobiography]
[Illustration: JAMES ANTHONY BAILEY
_Harvard Theatre Collection_ ]
Barnum and “Grizzly” Adams formed a partnership and exhibited his animals in a tent at the corner of Broadway and Thirteenth Street. On the opening day a brass band preceded the animals down Broadway and up the Bowery, the first forerunner of the Barnum street parade which became such a popular feature of the circus in later years. Adams, mounted on his favorite bear, “General Frémont,” who was docile for the occasion, rode on a float with three bears. He, in his strange costume, and his uncaged bears attracted great attention in the crowded streets of New York’s business section.
“Grizzly” Adams’s wife came from Massachusetts to nurse him. His dangerous wound was dressed daily, but the doctor assured Barnum that his partner could not live longer than a few weeks, and he also told Adams that his wound was incurable. But this information did not seem to interest him; for six weeks he continued to perform with his animals at Broadway and Thirteenth Street, and then the doctor insisted that he must take a rest. Barnum bought out his partner, and Adams, instead of retiring, asked Barnum to employ him as trainer in a tour of Connecticut and Massachusetts during the hot summer months. For sixty dollars a week and his traveling expenses “Grizzly” Adams traveled with the animals, and when Barnum urged him to retire before he died in one of the cages, he replied that he would guarantee to travel with the bears for ten weeks longer if Barnum would pay him five hundred dollars as a bonus for his physical endurance at the end of that period. Adams was interested in getting as much money as he could for his wife, whom, he considered, he had neglected long enough. After five weeks of this endurance test, Barnum took pity on the hunter and asked him to accept half the bonus and retire to die. But Adams refused to die until his ten weeks’ engagement was finished, and during the hottest days of August he continued his vigorous work with the animals, while his wound became worse and his physical condition weaker. At the end of the stipulated tenth week Adams collected his five hundred dollars, traveled to his wife’s home in Massachusetts, went to bed and never got up again, for five days later he died. After the death of “Grizzly” Adams, his animals were added to the Museum collection and later sold to a menagerie, except the famous Sea-Lion of the Pacific, who lived in a tank in the Museum and was supplied daily with fresh sea water by the deck hands of the Fall River steamboats.
At the time of his partnership with “Grizzly” Adams, Barnum planned a large wild west show, with real Indians and western animals, something in the nature of the Buffalo Bill exhibition which was organized many years later. He never carried out this plan, although he was always confident that a show of this character, touring the United States and Europe, would yield large profits. Several years later, in 1864, ten Indian chiefs, the most distinguished in the country, visited President Lincoln at the White House to pay their homage. Barnum bribed their interpreter to bring them to the American Museum in New York. They were proud chiefs, and they were under the impression that this New York reception at Barnum’s American Museum was an honor; they had no suspicion that they were exhibiting themselves in a theater for the benefit of the proprietor.
Barnum personally introduced his guests from the platform of the Moral Lecture Room, and they considered that they were receiving treatment worthy of their position in the country. After two public receptions at the Museum, Barnum took the Indians in carriages to visit the Mayor of New York, who made a speech of welcome at the City Hall. At a public school the children gave an entertainment in their honor, and they were delighted. Barnum drove with them in Central Park and through the crowded city streets, always returning to the Museum in time for the public receptions, admission twenty-five cents, children half-price.
Barnum paid nothing but the original bribe for these unique curiosities, but his position was made embarrassing by the interest which the Indian chiefs took in the other curiosities of the Museum. Whenever they saw a glittering shell or sparkling ornament, one of the chiefs would remove his coat or his shirt and insist that Barnum exchange the article for the garment. Of course, Barnum presented the chief with the coveted object, and as soon as they realized the extent of this generosity the chiefs begged for everything portable in the Museum.
Among the Indian chiefs was Yellow Bear, who, in his belligerent days, had a reputation as one of the most successful enemies of the white men. Barnum introduced the chiefs individually and with great ceremony from the stage of the Lecture Room, and when Yellow Bear’s turn came, Barnum would always pat him familiarly on the head, place his arm about the chief, and say in unctuous, flattering tones: “This little Indian, ladies and gentlemen, is Yellow Bear, chief of the Kiowas. He has killed, no doubt, scores of white persons, and he is probably the meanest, black-hearted rascal that lives in the Far West.” A pause followed, during which Barnum patted Yellow Bear affectionately on the head; the Indian would respond with smiles and bows of pleasure and gratitude. “If the blood-thirsty little villain,” Barnum continued, “understood what I was saying, he would kill me in a moment; but, as he thinks I am complimenting him, I can safely state the truth to you, that he is a lying, thieving, treacherous, murderous monster. He has tortured to death poor, unprotected women, murdered their husbands, brained their helpless little ones; and he would gladly do the same to you or to me if he thought he would escape punishment. This is but a faint description of the character of Yellow Bear.” Then Barnum gave his pet another pat on the head, and the introduction was finished, with grateful bows from Yellow Bear and roars of laughter from the audience.
After a week at the Museum the Indians discovered that people were paying for admission. They were insulted and left the next day for Washington, feeling a tremendous loss of dignity. Barnum felt relieved when he saw them depart without any attempts to wreck the Museum.
The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, visited Barnum’s American Museum on October 13, 1860. The Prince was touring the United States, and Barnum felt that it would be a pity if he were to go back home without seeing one of the national institutions, so he sent an invitation. Just an hour before the royal party intended to visit the Museum, the manager was informed that Barnum’s invitation was accepted. Barnum was in Bridgeport, and the Prince of Wales was therefore received by Greenwood, the manager, instead of by the Prince of Humbugs. With great interest Albert Edward examined The Siamese Twins and the “What Is It?” According to the _Herald_, this was a deformed, idiotic negro boy, whom Barnum exhibited as the connecting link between man and the ape. After looking over the curiosities in the cases, the Prince of Wales said that he supposed he had seen all, and almost in the same breath he asked for Mr. Barnum. When told that he was in Bridgeport, the Prince said, “We have missed the most interesting feature of the establishment.” The Prince undoubtedly remembered the jovial gentleman who had brought his General Tom Thumb to Buckingham Palace for the entertainment of the Queen and her children. Barnum felt complimented at the Prince’s visit and the royal statement concerning him, and he was pleased especially because all the newspapers printed accounts of the visit and the Prince’s words. He also made much of the fact that the Museum was the only place of public amusement visited by the Prince in this country. A few days before the Prince’s arrival Barnum had prepared for the possible visit by having removed to the cellar a frightful wax figure of Queen Victoria, which had delighted Museum patrons for nineteen years. It bore the placard, “An exact likeness of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, taken from life,” but Barnum feared the Prince might not recognize his mother in the dirty wax which was supposed to represent her regality.
Barnum called upon the Prince of Wales in Boston and was received cordially. He reminded the royal visitor that he knew him when he was a boy in short pants. The streets of Boston were crowded on this occasion, and Barnum would have had great difficulty getting to the Revere House if a policeman had not mistaken his appearance for that of Stephen A. Douglas and shouted with much spectacular respect, “Make way there for Judge Douglas’s carriage.” The crowd opened a passageway, and hurrahs for Douglas were shouted all along the route. Barnum took off his hat, bowed to right and to left, and received the borrowed cheers with gratitude and pleasure. When Douglas was a candidate for President in 1860, several newspapers remarked that he looked the image of P. T. Barnum.
Barnum’s renewed enterprise and the publicity which came to him by reason of his past reputation contributed largely to the rejuvenation of the Museum, until as a source of profit it was as valuable as it had ever been. Sometimes Barnum was lucky enough to gain publicity from deceptions practised upon him as well as by means of his own deceptions. His famous Cherry-Colored Cat was an example of both forms of deception in one. A farmer visited the Museum one day and informed Greenwood that he had a cherry-colored cat, which he would sell for twenty-five dollars. Greenwood agreed in writing to pay that amount, providing the cat was not artificially colored. The farmer returned with a handsome black cat, and told Greenwood calmly that his cat was the color of black cherries. Greenwood refused to pay for this deception, but as soon as Barnum heard about it he was delighted at a joke he might have perpetrated himself and insisted that the practical joker was worthy of his hire. He got back his twenty-five dollars by exhibiting the cat in a paper bag as a mysterious novelty, a Cherry-Colored Cat. He fooled his patrons precisely as the farmer had fooled his manager.
In 1861 Barnum created a sensation with whales. He learned that fishermen had caught a white whale at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, and he hurried to Canada to arrange for the capture alive of a pair of white whales for his Museum. Barnum witnessed the capture and arranged for the transportation of his whales, and then he started back to New York. On the way he informed telegraph operators that they might take from the wire any news about whales addressed to P. T. Barnum and give it out to their townspeople. The result was a triumphal procession seven hundred miles long, with plenty of attendant publicity, when the white whales started on their journey. People gathered at all the railroad stations to catch a glimpse of the white whales in their long boxes, filled with sea weed and salt water. Before he left Quebec, Barnum wrote accounts of the capture and shipment of the whales for the Quebec and Montreal newspapers, and these were copied in other papers. Despatches telling the progress of the trip were posted on bulletin boards outside the Museum in New York, and the excitement in the city was great. When the whales were finally deposited in their tank, built specially for their reception in the basement of the Museum, thousands rushed to see them.
But neither Barnum nor any of his assistants knew the daily diet of a whale, and they had neglected to provide salt water in the tanks. The Museum cellar was badly ventilated, and all these factors caused the sudden death of the notorious animals. A _Tribune_ editorial expressed the mock hope, “May both whales meet again in the open seas of immortality.” Barnum was not discouraged by this unforeseen catastrophe, and the publicity he had aroused was too valuable to waste. He ordered pipes laid between the Museum and New York Bay so that sea water could be pumped into the new tank he ordered for the second floor, where new whales could get plenty of fresh air. This tank, according to Barnum’s own estimates, was twenty-four feet square and lined with slate and French plate glass at a cost of $4,000. Two whales were soon on their way to New York, and soon they died. Barnum ordered two more. The public was now excited, and the necessary controversy was created by the statement in some of the newspapers that Barnum’s whales were mere porpoises. Professor Agassiz, of Harvard, visited the animals and gave Barnum a certificate that they were genuine white whales. The publication of this authoritative statement silenced all comment by amateur newspaper naturalists.
It was Barnum’s contention that more persons are humbugged by believing too little than by believing too much. “Many persons,” he wrote, “have such a horror of being taken in, or such an elevated opinion of their own acutness, that they believe everything to be a sham, and in this way are continually humbugging themselves.” In illustration he gave the instance of a Yankee lady who visited the Museum to see the whales. Barnum knew her personally, and after she had watched the whales she called at Barnum’s office. “Mr. B., it’s astonishing to what a number of purposes the ingenuity of us Yankees has applied india-rubber,” she said. The whales, in her opinion, were constructed by Barnum of india-rubber and compelled to rise to the surface at regular intervals by means of a bellows puffing air into their bodies. Barnum realized that it would be useless to argue against such an ingenious conviction, and he therefore begged his friend to keep the secret to herself, assuring her that she had been the only person acute enough to discover it. Whenever he met the lady in later years, she assured him that she never had revealed his secret, and never would so long as she lived.
Barnum advertised his whales in screaming captions daily. The following is a sample:
BARNUM’S AMERICAN MUSEUM
After months of unwearied labor, and spending
NEARLY TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS NEARLY TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS NEARLY TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS
in capturing and transporting them from that part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence nearest Labrador, the Manager is enabled to offer his visitors
TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES,
a male and a female. Everybody has heard of WHALES
IN NURSERY TALES AND “SAILOR’S YARNS,” IN NURSERY TALES AND “SAILOR’S YARNS,”
everybody has read of WHALES in story, song, and history, and everybody
WANTS TO SEE A WHALE, WANTS TO SEE A WHALE, WANTS TO SEE A WHALE, WANTS TO SEE A WHALE,
and now they have the opportunity. Barnum has
CAPTURED TWO OF THE LEVIATHANS, CAPTURED TWO OF THE LEVIATHANS, CAPTURED TWO OF THE LEVIATHANS,
has built a small ocean in his Museum, filled it from the briny deep, and there
THE TWO LIVING WHALES, THE TWO LIVING WHALES, THE TWO LIVING WHALES, THE TWO LIVING WHALES,
measuring respectively fifteen and twenty feet in length, may be seen at all hours sporting in their native element. Who will miss the opportunity of seeing them? Another may not offer in a lifetime. Embrace this ere it be too late.
LAST TWO DAYS OF WILLIAM TILLMAN AND WILLIAM STEDDING, The Colored Steward and German Sailor of the SCHOONER S. J. WARING,
Who slew three of the piratical crew, and rescued themselves and the vessel from their power.
WHAT IS IT? OR, MAN MONKEY. MADAGASCAR ALBINOS, PURE WHITE NEGROES, OR MOORS. SEA LION, MAMMOTH BEAR SAMSON, with a variety of other living Bears; MONSTER SNAKES, AQUARIA, HAPPY FAMILY, LIVING SEAL, WAX FIGURES, &c.
In the Lecture-Room, a great Dramatic Novelty is offered, EMBRACING FARCE, VAUDEVILLE, and BURLETTA, with a brilliant and talented company, including LITTLE LOLA, THE INFANT WONDER, MR. and MRS. C. B. REYNOLDS, MISS DORA DAWRON, DOUBLE-VOICED SINGER, LA PETITE ADDIE LE BRUN, The favorite Juvenile Danseuse, always popular. MARIE; THE CHILD OF SORROW, With a laughable farce, every day at 3 and 7¾ o’clock. Admission to all, 25 cents; Children under 10, 15 cents.
When his last pair of white whales died Barnum utilized his tank for the abode of a still greater wonder. He obtained for an engagement of several weeks at the Museum the first and only hippopotamus that had ever been exhibited in America. He advertised his hippopotamus as “The Great Behemoth of the Scriptures,” and as such the animal was visited by clergymen, naturalists, theological students, and devotees of the Bible, as well as by the common people, whose curiosity was aroused by the controversy created by the theologists and scientists. Barnum’s advertisements were a great factor in the popularity of the animal; the following will serve to show his style of sonorous statement and ecstatic hyperbole, which later developed into the roaring phrases of the circus press agent:
BARNUM’S AMERICAN MUSEUM
SECOND WEEK OF THAT WONDERFUL LIVING HIPPOPOTAMUS, FROM THE RIVER NILE IN EGYPT, THE GREAT BEHEMOTH OF THE SCRIPTURES, AND THE MARVEL OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
The history of this animal is full of interest, and to every class, especially the educated and intelligent, but above all to the biblical student, who has read with interest the glowing description of
THE GREAT BEHEMOTH
in the Book of Job. He is strictly an
AMPHIBIOUS ANIMAL,
living in the water and out of it; under the water, or on the top of it; floats on its surface with perfect ease, or beneath the surface, midway between the top and the bottom. In their natural state these animals are wild and ferocious; though on the land, they are not very formidable, but when pursued they fly to the rivers,
DESCEND TO THE BOTTOM AND WALK ACROSS,
frequently appearing on the opposite side without the least indication of their course on the surface of the stream. If exasperated by assaults, in the water they are the most
FRIGHTFUL ANTAGONISTS,
their gigantic proportions and herculean strength giving them power over every opposing force, frequently destroying whole boat-loads of men and their boats, crushing with their huge jaws everything that comes in their way.
In the Museum the specimen here exhibited has an
ARTIFICIAL OCEAN OR RIVER,
where he is to be seen in all his natural peculiarities, floating on, and swimming beneath the surface, walking on the bottom several feet beneath, exhibiting, in short, all the peculiarities of his nature; and to perfect the scene a native
ARABIAN KEEPER, SALAAMA,
who is himself a curiosity as a specimen of that historic tribe of men, who exhibits all the stolidity and Arabian dignity of that Oriental race; the only man who can control or exhibit his Hippopotamiship, is in constant attendance. They are both to be seen at all hours, DAY and EVENING.
This is the
FIRST AND ONLY REAL HIPPOPOTAMUS
ever seen in America. He is engaged at a cost of many thousands of dollars, and will remain
A SHORT TIME ONLY. A SHORT TIME ONLY.
Also just obtained at great expense, and now to be seen swimming in the large tank in the Aquarial Hall,
A LIVING SHARK,
besides a great variety of other living Fish, Turtles, &c., &c.
WHAT IS IT? OR, MAN MONKEY. SEA LION, MAMMOTH BEAR SAMSON, MONSTER SNAKES, AQUARIA, HAPPY FAMILY, LIVING SEAL, &c. The Lecture-Room Entertainments embrace PETITE DRAMA, VAUDEVILLE, BURLETTA, and FARCE. By a company of rare musical and dramatic talent. MISS DAWRON, DOUBLE-VOICED VOCALIST, MLLE. MATILDA E. TOEDT, The Talented Young Violinist, &c.
Admission to all, 25 cents; Children under 10, 15 cents.
The description of the behemoth in the Book of Job and Barnum’s description of the hippopotamus as given above do not tally exactly. And a comparison of the two leaves the impression that the author of the Book of Job was the better press agent:
“Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.
He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.
He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.
Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of reed and fens.
The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.
Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.”
JOB xl., 15–24.
Barnum advertised his behemoth “for a short time only,” then added another week “by special request,” and continued a “farewell week” through many months of public curiosity.
By such enterprises and expedients as the Indian chiefs, the whales, and the behemoth, “The Art of Money-Getting” and the Prince of Wales, Barnum recovered his fortune and redeemed his reputation for success and cunning. He was once more a venerated Prince of Humbugs because he was able to maintain a palace, and many of those who had seen in his downfall a subject of righteous retribution saw in his revival the happy achievement of deserving merit.
Before the reopening of the Lecture Room in 1864 with a dramatization of Dickens’s _Great Expectations_ Barnum delivered the following rhymed speech, which in bare outline sums up some of the characters and oddities Barnum had introduced to the public until 1864, when he was fifty-four years old:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
“That Prince of Humbugs, Barnum,” so it appears Some folks have designated me for several years. Well, I don’t murmur; indeed, when they embellish it, To tell the truth, my friends, I rather relish it, Since your true humbug’s he, who as a host, For the least money entertains you most. In this sense I’m a “humbug,” I succumb! Who as a “General” thing brought out Tom Thumb? Who introduced (you can’t say there I sinned) The Swedish Nightingale, sweet Jenny Lind? Who brought you Living Whales from Labrador? The Hippopotamus from Nilus’s shore, The Bearded Lady with her (h)airs and graces, The Aztec Children with their normal faces, The Twins of Siam--rarest of dualities-- Two ever separate, ne’er apart realities? The Family of Albinos? the Giraffe? The famous Baby Show that made you laugh? The Happy Family--cats, rats, doves, hawks, harmonious? Their voices blend in tones euphonious. The great Sea Lion from Pacific’s coast, The “Monarch of the Ocean,” no empty boast; Old Adam’s Bears, cutest of brute performers, In modern “peace meetings” models for reformers. That living miracle, the Lightning Calculator, Those figures confound Hermann the “Prestidigitator.” The Grand Aquaria, an official story Of life beneath the waves in all its glory; The curious “What Is It?” which you, though spunky, Won’t call a man and cannot call a monkey. These things and many more time forbids to state, I first introduced, if I did not originate; “The World’s Seven Wonders,” pooh! let them invite you, Here “seven” saloons all wonder-full delight you. To call this “humbug” admits of no defense, For all is shown for five and twenty cents. And now, good friends, to use less rhyme than reason, To-day re-opens our dramatic season; Therefore I welcome you! And though we’re certain To raise “Great Expectations” with the curtain, And “play the Dickens” afternoon and nightly, I bid you welcome none the less politely To these my “quarters,” merry and reliable, That yours are always welcome ’tis undeniable! And Patrick Henry like I say, I boast of it, If that be “humbug,” gentlemen, “make the most of it.”