CHAPTER III

BARNUM’S AMERICAN MUSEUM

I

When, in his thirty-second year, Barnum was “at the foot of fortune’s ladder,”--his own description of his position as a writer of advertisements and newspaper articles--he learned that Scudder’s American Museum was for sale. Scudder’s American Museum had been founded in 1810, and it had gradually risen in the estimation of the population, so that in 1840 it was New York’s greatest storehouse of curiosities, natural, theatrical, and unnatural. Scudder, its founder, had spent more than $50,000 on the collection, and for many years the profits had kept him comfortable. When he died he left a considerable fortune and the Museum to his daughters; but ladies in 1840 were neither permitted by custom nor fitted by education to manage a museum, and the Scudder establishment had been losing money since the death of its founder, because of lack of proper administration. Barnum had visited the American Museum many times, and he coveted the opportunity to exercise his energy in such a fertile field, so suited to his talents and previous experience. The price asked for the Museum, however, was $15,000, and Barnum was forced to admit to himself that his dreams were presumptuous. But he never admitted that to himself for long; he preferred to act on the assumption that anything was within his grasp, materially and intellectually, and to consider difficulties later. When he discussed his intentions with a friend who knew his circumstances, the friend said, “You _buy_ the American Museum? What do you intend to buy it with?” “_Brass_,” said Barnum, “for silver and gold I have none.”

The building of the American Museum at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street was owned by Francis W. Olmsted, a retired merchant, and the Museum collection was owned by the estate of Scudder, administered for Scudder’s daughters by John Heath. Barnum’s first step was to approach Mr. Olmsted, but he did not know that gentleman, and he knew no one who did. He dared not visit this important person, who had a suite of rooms in Park Place. In a letter he told Mr. Olmsted that he wished to buy the Museum collection, and though he had no money, he knew that by devotion to business, and because of his past experience as a showman, he would be able to make it successful, if it could be purchased on reasonable credit. In his letter Barnum asked Mr. Olmsted to purchase the Museum collection in his own name from the Scudder estate, and to give him twelve dollars and a half per week out of the profits to support his family. All the rest of the profits were to be Olmsted’s until the cost of the collection and the rent of the Museum building were paid. Barnum only asked in addition for an agreement in writing that the Museum would be his property as soon as he had made all the payments to Mr. Olmsted. If Barnum failed to meet any instalments, the property reverted to Mr. Olmsted, Barnum would forfeit all his payments to date, and withdraw from the management. His letter ended with this earnest appeal: “In fact, Mr. Olmsted, you may bind me in any way, and as tightly as you please--only give me a chance to dig out, or scratch out, and I will either do so or forfeit all the labor and trouble which I may have incurred.” Barnum added that by means of his plan Mr. Olmsted would have a permanent tenant for his Museum building, while the present indications were that the Museum would fail and the building would become vacant.

Barnum did not trust the mail. He took his letter personally to Mr. Olmsted’s door and left it with the servant. Soon he received an appointment for an interview, in the course of which he persuasively explained to Mr. Olmsted his past experience with Vauxhall Garden, the traveling circus, and Joice Heth, and gave as references William Niblo, Aaron Turner, Moses Y. Beach, of _The Sun_, and many other showmen and newspaper men. He made arrangements for some of these men to call on Mr. Olmsted the next day, and when Barnum saw his prospective landlord again, Mr. Olmsted said, “I don’t like your references, Mr. Barnum. They all speak too well of you. In fact, they all talk as if they were partners of yours and intended to share the profits.” Barnum was delighted. Mr. Olmsted then said that he was thinking of carrying out Barnum’s scheme, and insisted that he must have the right to appoint, at Barnum’s expense, a ticket-seller and accountant. It was also agreed that Barnum should take an apartment for his wife and children in the building adjoining the Museum for an additional rent of $500 a year, making his total rent $3,000 each year, on a lease of ten years. Mr. Olmsted was about ready to conclude the agreement. There was only one small matter to settle; did Mr. Barnum own any small piece of unencumbered real estate which he could offer as security? Barnum thought of all his small holdings in Connecticut, but every one that was worth anything was mortgaged to the extent of its value. He saw his dream slipping away; and then he thought of Ivy Island. He hesitated; Ivy Island was surrounded and largely covered with water, and its main product was stunted ivies. The temptation was great. Mr. Olmsted was already amply secured, in Barnum’s opinion, for Barnum was confident of his ability to make the Museum a great success; why shouldn’t he offer Ivy Island as security? He told Mr. Olmsted that he had five acres of land in Connecticut free from all mortgages, but he omitted to mention that no one would have given a mortgage on them. Mr. Olmsted asked how much Barnum had paid for his land. It was a present from his grandfather, Phineas Taylor, for taking his name. Mr. Olmsted supposed that Barnum would be reluctant to part with such a piece of property, because of its fond associations, and Barnum replied that he did not expect to part with it, for he intended to make his payments punctually. The security was accepted.

Barnum’s next step was to interview John Heath, the administrator of the Scudder estate, and make him an offer for the Museum collection in the name of Mr. Olmsted. Twelve thousand dollars was agreed upon as the price, and Barnum was to take possession of the American Museum on November 15, 1841. A day was appointed to draw up the agreements with Mr. Olmsted, and on that day Heath appeared and informed Barnum that he must decline his offer, since he had meanwhile sold the collection to the New York Museum Company for $15,000 and had accepted an advance payment of $1,000. Barnum appealed to Heath’s honor, but Heath replied that he had not put it in writing, and that he was obliged to do the best he could for Scudder’s orphan daughters. Mr. Olmsted was perfectly satisfied with the new arrangements, for he would now have a permanent tenant for his Museum building, and Barnum was disregarded and forgotten.

But he was not inactive. He gathered information about the company known as the New York Museum Company. The chairman of the board of directors, he learned, was the ex-president of an unsuccessful bank, and the other directors were stock speculators. Barnum discovered that their scheme was to purchase the American Museum, join it to Peale’s Museum, which the chairman of the board of directors of the New York Museum Company already owned, and to issue stock to the public to the amount of $50,000. Then the directors planned to appropriate $30,000 and allow the stockholders to take care of themselves on the principle of _caveat emptor_. Barnum visited his newspaper friends, Moses Y. Beach, Major M. M. Noah, and several other newspaper owners. He told them his troubles and explained the plans of the New York Museum Company. He asked for the use of their columns “to blow that speculation sky-high,” and they agreed with him that it was a public duty as well as a personal favor. Barnum wrote daily editorial notes for almost every newspaper in New York warning the public not to buy stock in the New York Museum Company. He described the board of directors as broken-down bank directors engaged in the exhibition of stuffed monkey and gander skins, and he cited the instance of the Zoölogical Institute, which had failed because of just such a financial plan as that proposed by the New York Museum Company. He branded the Peale speculation as more fantastic than Dickens’s “Grand United Metropolitan Hot Muffin and Crumpet-Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.”

After planning his press campaign against the New York Museum Company, Barnum called upon Heath and asked when the company of speculators was to pay the additional $14,000 and take over the Museum. He was told that December 26 was the day agreed upon, and he assured Heath that the stock speculators would never pay the $14,000 on that day. With a disinterested air, he announced his intention of traveling in the South with his circus, and said that unless he could purchase the Museum on December 27, if the New York Museum Company should forfeit its option, he would never buy the Museum at any price, because of his other interests. He agreed to postpone his trip to the South until December 27, but not a day later, and this time the agreement of sale was put in writing. This agreement, Barnum insisted, must be kept strictly confidential, and he told all his friends who inquired that he had lost the chance to buy the Museum.

Meanwhile Barnum kept up his stream of publicity against the bogus stock company. On December 1 he was asked to call upon the board of directors of the New York Museum Company, in order to learn something to his advantage. The directors offered Barnum the position as manager of the new combined museums at his own price of $3,000 a year. He stipulated that his duties and salary were not to commence until January 1, 1842. As he was leaving the directors’ room, the chairman remarked with a smile that, of course, the newspaper paragraphs would now cease. Barnum replied that he always tried to serve the interests of his employers; Barnum loved ambiguity and a pun. In order that the public might forget Barnum’s paragraphs, the directors determined to withdraw their stock-selling advertisements until after January 1. They forgot completely about December 26 and their promised payment in full, knowing that no one but Barnum wanted to purchase the Museum; and did they not have him in their employ? On the morning of December 27 Barnum and his lawyer met Heath and Mr. Olmsted at Mr. Olmsted’s suite in Park Place. At two o’clock in the afternoon he was in possession of the American Museum, and his first official act was the dispatch of the following letter:

“AMERICAN MUSEUM, New York, Dec. 27, 1841.

“_To the President and Directors of the New York Museum_:

“Gentlemen:--It gives me great pleasure to inform you that you are placed upon the Free List of this establishment until further notice.

P. T. BARNUM, Proprietor.”

II

The amusements of New York were somewhat limited in their number and rather crude in their character when Barnum bought the American Museum. New York had its native favorites and its imported celebrities in the persons of Edmund Kean, Junius Booth, Edwin Forrest, Tyrone Power, William Macready, and Charlotte Cushman, but the opportunities offered to see these and their less talented contemporaries were not many, for the God-fearing section of the population were certain that the theater was under the management of the devil, and there was an even larger number who did not care whether it was or not, so that between indifference and straight-laced morality theatrical property suffered from a general depression.

There were only three theaters in New York that were recognized by those who guarded their human contacts carefully, so that they might always be fit to associate with each other. These theaters were the Park, the Bowery, and Mitchell’s Olympic. The Park Theater was the theater of fashion, and the Bowery was just a grade lower, although the circumspectly critical Mrs. Trollope called it “as pretty a theater as I ever entered.” At the Park during the season of 1841 Fanny Elssler began an engagement in “The petite comedy of ‘The Dumb Belle.’” Edwin Forrest was playing at the Bowery Theater one night in “Metamora! The Last of the Wampanaogs,” an Indian play, and the next night, October 13, in “Damon and Pythias.” The Chatham Theater, which was out of bounds for fashionable society, offered “The Six Degrees of Crime, or Wine, Women, Gaming, Theft, Murder, the Scaffold.” It was in this theater, where she went in spite of the warnings and pleas of her New York society friends, that Mrs. Trollope saw a woman in one of the boxes “performing the most maternal office possible” during the intermission. Mitchell’s Olympic presented on Friday evening, December 17, 1841, “Why Did You Die, after which Tableaux Vivans.” (The spelling of _vivants_ is Mitchell’s.) “Jonah, or a Trip to Whales,” ran for several nights at the Bowery Theater, and Niblo’s Garden, adhering to its policy as a summer garden, offered during the summer of 1841 “Godenski, or The Skaters of Wilna, a pantomimic ballet.” The attraction in the hall of the American Museum just before Barnum took charge was “Love and Physic.” Dickens described the Bowery and Park theaters as “large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and are, I grieve to write it, generally deserted.”

While the theater generally suffered from a bad reputation among classes of the community that adhered sternly to conventions and propriety, many of the establishments catered to those classes which did not. The gallery of each theater was reserved almost exclusively for prostitutes and negroes, and was known familiarly as “the third tier.” No woman without an escort was allowed in either the orchestra or the balcony seats, and the gallery readily became a place of assignation for the young bloods and their accompanists. Those who frequented the theaters were not usually scrupulous in their efforts to impress their neighbors by their manners, and in her _Domestic Manners of the Americans_ Mrs. Trollope referred to the practice of the men in the balcony, who were in the habit of placing their feet on the brass rail in front of the first row, slouching into their seats, and exposing their hind quarters to the patrons of the orchestra. For some years after the publication of Mrs. Trollope’s book, this practice was greeted with shouts from orchestra audiences of “Trollope! Trollope!”

Barnum’s American Museum, on Broadway at Ann Street, was in the heart of the New York of its day. Opposite was the hotel of best repute, the Astor House; four blocks north was the city’s best restaurant, Delmonico’s; between the two was The Park, that is, City Hall Park. St. Paul’s Church was across the street, and Trinity Church was five minutes’ walk from the Museum. The _Tribune_ and _Herald_ offices were near by, and the other newspapers were published in the same district. No Metropolitan Museum of Art offered free exhibitions of pictures, and no American Museum of Natural History educated the public in real natural life; Barnum’s Museum was therefore patronized by those who to-day would patronize the Zoölogical Gardens and the American Museum of Natural History for satisfaction of their generic curiosity, as well as by those who enjoyed freaks. The curiosities in the Museum when Barnum purchased the collection included relics sent in from all over this country by those who found them, and curiosities brought in by sea captains who had made voyages to China, Siam, and other distant places. Among its main attractions under Scudder’s management were the stuffed animals, a live anaconda, a tame alligator, and the gallery of paintings, supposed to be national portraits.

III

One of Barnum’s first acquisitions was a model of that object of national pride, Niagara Falls. The falls were eighteen inches high, and everything else in the model was in proportion. Into this model Barnum arranged to have water pumped, and he advertised widely “The Great Model of Niagara Falls, With Real Water,” and many couples who could not afford a honeymoon visited the Museum instead, attracted by Barnum’s promise of real water. Soon after his advertisements appeared in the newspapers Barnum was ordered to come before the Croton Board of Water Commissioners. In that year, 1842, water first flowed through the Croton Reservoir, for after the great fire of 1835 the citizens were aroused to the necessity for a sufficient supply of water, and the Croton Reservoir was the result. It was opened on the Fourth of July, 1842, and a seven-mile parade, with red-shirt firemen, torch lights and the other paraphernalia of a monster procession commemorated the occasion. The president of the Board of Water Commissioners informed Barnum that the city could not furnish him with water for a Niagara Falls at twenty-five dollars a year. Barnum asked the president not to believe all he read in the newspapers and showbills and offered to pay one dollar a drop for all the water he used more than one barrelful for his Niagara Falls; he explained the operation of the pump behind the scenes, and the water commissioners enjoyed the deception. In his autobiography Barnum thought it necessary to excuse himself by means of the argument that if visitors found his Niagara Falls “small potatoes” they had the rest of the magnificent Museum for twenty-five cents admission. It was always his opinion that any misrepresentation was justified if he gave patrons what they had not come for after they entered his Museum. Another of Barnum’s early improvements of such a nature was what he advertised as an “aerial garden,” which consisted of two cedar plants, ten pots of wilted flowers, and several small tables, located on the roof of the Museum building, where ice cream was served.

But Barnum’s activities were not confined to such minor improvements. He opened the Museum on January 1, 1842, under his own management, and on July 4, 1842, Bennett’s _Herald_ referred to him as “the Napoleon of public caterers.” Besides the experiments in animal magnetism, which were popular before Barnum became proprietor, he introduced a classic scene by Mr. Bennie, entitled “Il Studio or Living Statues.” A splendid attraction for one week only was the family of Industrious Fleas. “These insects,” Barnum advertised, “have been taught by a gentleman from Germany, and rendered so docile as to be harnessed to carriages and other vehicles of several thousand times their own weight, which they will draw with as much precision as a cart horse.” Jugglers, albinos, educated dogs, automatons, rope-dancers, dioramas of The Creation, The Deluge, and A Storm at Sea, fat boys, giants, gipsies, ventriloquists, knitting machines, models of Dublin, Paris, and Jerusalem, and examples of fancy glass-blowing were a few of the attractions at the Museum for twenty-five cents admission, children half-price. The first Punch and Judy Show ever exhibited in this country was one of Barnum’s early attractions.

Barnum’s aim was to make the Museum the talk of New York, and he used for this purpose every available means of advertising, creating means when they were not available. A man came to the box-office of the Museum one morning and asked for money. Barnum inquired why he did not work, and, after buying him a breakfast, employed him at $1.50 for the day. The man’s job was to place a brick at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street, another brick at the corner of Broadway and Vesey Street, another in front of the Astor House, and another in front of St. Paul’s Church. This brick-layer was to hold a fifth brick in his hand, and he was to continue from brick to brick, exchanging the brick in his hand for the brick on the walk, without talking to any one en route. At the end of every hour of this work, he was to present a ticket at the Museum, walk through the building and pass out to continue solemnly his brick work. Half an hour after the man began his rounds five hundred men and women were watching him, and trying by conjecture and questions to solve the mystery of his purpose. Solemn and taciturn, he went from brick to brick, ignoring the comments and questions of the crowd, and at the end of the first hour the streets surrounding the Museum were filled with people. Whenever he entered the Museum, people bought tickets and followed him, hoping that inside was the solution to the riddle of his strange actions. After several days of this walking advertisement, the police interfered and insisted that Barnum must withdraw his man because of the congestion of traffic he caused, for the crowds practically closed all streets near the Museum. But Barnum’s bricks were discussed for several weeks and received due newspaper notice.

The ordinary devices of showmen were used by Barnum on his own exaggerated scale. Huge posters outside announced the contents of the Museum, and long descriptive advertisements in the newspapers heralded new attractions. On a balcony which circled the outside of the Museum building, a band of music played all day long, and a huge poster announced, “Free Music for the Million!” Barnum took care, he confessed, to choose the worst band he could find, on the chance that the discordant notes would drive the crowd into the Museum. This appears a far-fetched method of advertising, but he assured the readers of his autobiography that it was profitable. Powerful Drummond lights, the first New York saw, shone from the top of the Museum and lighted Broadway from the Battery to Niblo’s Garden. Barnum planned in advance to dispose of the entire profit of the first year in advertising, and the profits came in so fast that he had difficulty devising enough media. Paintings of strange animals were made for Barnum in panels and attached to the entire outside surface of the Museum. The work of putting up the paintings was performed in one night without advance notice, and the next morning when New York saw its popular landmark, it looked as if it had broken out into a huge rash. The changed appearance caused people to hurry inside to see if corresponding changes had been made there. Barnum estimated that these gaudy pictures increased his profits by one hundred dollars a day, and they never fell back after the novelty had become a tradition; it may be that it was impossible to grow accustomed to Barnum’s animals, and undoubtedly they always attracted the streams of immigrants and Western visitors ever flowing into New York City.

It was the world’s way, Barnum wrote, “to promise everything for next to nothing,” and he confessed that he fell rapidly into that way and excelled in it. This, he insisted, was not because he was less scrupulous, but because he was more ingenious and energetic than his competitors. However, there were instances of deception in which Barnum allowed the association of ideas to work to his advantage. He promised nothing, but allowed an innocent observer to jump to his own conclusions, contributing by his advertisements a slight shove in the wrong direction. The best of these was Barnum’s exploitation of a negro violinist. He engaged this negro artist, who had a foreign musical education and a reputation in musical circles, to play at the Museum, and he advertised the negro widely, but the public did not appear to be interested. The receipts did not increase, and Barnum issued instructions for the large colored posters, showing the negro violinist in action, to be posted on the boards upside down. This was no sooner carried out than the Museum was crowded, on the assumption that the negro violinist played the violin while standing on his head. It was a source of great disappointment to many when they only heard him play the violin right side up, but, said Barnum, never mind, they had the Industrious Fleas and the Albinos for their money.

Barnum’s first object was publicity for the Museum and for the name of P. T. Barnum, and he went to any lengths to carry out those purposes. He soon succeeded in making his Museum and his personality the talk of New York, and it was then his ambition to make them national institutions. In his use of the newspapers, which seemed in those days to be naïve in the extreme, he was indefatigable. Many years later Barnum told a reporter for the _Indianapolis Journal_: “In the old Museum days ... night after night at the midnight hour, and later, I crawled up these several newspaper staircases to put in these journals some fresh and startling announcement about my business. I even did this after the editor had gone home, but the foreman in the composing room had some authority then and would often put the matter I offered in type or make an announcement for me.” Barnum added, “If I am ever profoundly thankful for any instrumentalities, it is for the editor and his paper. They furnish the wind for my sails.” Barnum owed this debt of gratitude, but he must be given credit as the inventor of steam navigation in the seas of publicity.[4] The editors of the day were not philanthropists, and Barnum worked in devious ways for his notoriety. It was his genius that he realized the value in dollars and cents of his name and his activities and at the same time attached no estimable value to the character he might establish in the world. Charlatan, humbug, mountebank, and impostor were names he delighted in and conjured with, and it was possible for him to do so because his character was a composite of Baron Munchausen and Pecksniff, with an intensely practical turn of mind. He was the father of publicity in a country where it may be said to have grown to be a monster akin to Frankenstein’s, and his child supported him in luxury for many years. He combined with a genial temperament that would not allow him to worry about details a rhinoceros hide that refused to allow the slings and arrows of outraged editors and citizens to penetrate to his heart; his disposition was such that it was inevitable that he should succeed as an exploiter of monstrous hoaxes or legitimate extravaganzas.

IV

The greatest of Barnum’s early curiosities, if we are to judge from the controversy caused by its exhibition, was The Fejee Mermaid. In the summer of 1842 the proprietor of the Boston Museum, Moses Kimball, brought to Barnum a figure supposed to be a preserved mermaid. Kimball had purchased it from a sailor, whose father, the captain of an American ship, bought it in Calcutta and honestly believed it to be a preserved mermaid found by Japanese sailors off the coast of Japan. The captain thought so highly of this mermaid that he appropriated $6,000 of the ship’s funds in order to purchase it. His employers did not think so highly of his purchase, and the captain was forced to serve on his ship without pay until he had made up the misappropriation. He died in that service, leaving to his son nothing but the mermaid.

Barnum wrote that he was much impressed with the genuineness of this article of his commerce, but he did not trust his own judgment alone. He consulted his favorite naturalist, who had advised him on other phenomena. The naturalist, after a careful examination, admitted that he could find no sign of joining or other traces of artificial manufacture, but he shook his head dubiously and said that he had never seen a monkey with such strange arms and teeth, nor a fish with such queer fins. Barnum asked why he should assume that it was manufactured. “Because,” answered the naturalist, “I don’t believe in mermaids.” Barnum thought that was bad logic; he preferred for the purposes of the occasion to believe in mermaids, and he hired this one. But to believe in mermaids yourself, and to make the public believe in mermaids, are not synonymous. However, Barnum’s confidence in the general credulity of his patrons was not unfounded upon both precedent and his own experience. He had learned much from Joice Heth, and this same mermaid had been exhibited in London twenty years before by the sea captain who owned it, and according to the London _Times_ of the period every day three hundred persons paid a shilling each to see it.

Soon after the mermaid came into Barnum’s possession, a news letter appeared in the _New York Herald_ from Montgomery, Alabama. It told of the state of trade, the condition of the crops, the political situation, and mentioned near the end that a Dr. Griffin, of the Lyceum of Natural History, London, who had but recently returned from Pernambuco, had in his trunk a most remarkable curiosity, a real mermaid, found by Chinese in the Fiji Islands, preserved by them, and purchased by Dr. Griffin for the London Lyceum of Natural History. One week later another news letter, this time from Charleston, South Carolina, telling the same story, was published in another New York newspaper. A third letter, mailed from Washington to another New York newspaper one week after the second news letter, announced the mermaid and mentioned that Dr. Griffin was soon to visit New York en route to London, and expressed the hope that New Yorkers would have the opportunity to see this extraordinary curiosity. Several days after the Washington letter, Levi Lyman, Barnum’s assistant in the business of Joice Heth, registered at a Philadelphia hotel as Dr. Griffin, of Pernambuco and London. He remained there several days, and, just after paying his bill, he thanked the landlord for his constant courtesy and attention, and offered to show him, in gratitude for the excellent treatment he had received at the hostelry, a unique curiosity. The landlord gazed in wonderment at a real mermaid, and asked for permission to invite a few friends to see it. The doctor said that he did not suppose that it would do the Lyceum of Natural History of London much harm if a few of the landlord’s best friends saw the mermaid; the Philadelphia newspapers for the next day and several days later commented at length on the great natural phenomenon.

[Illustration: THE MERMAID IN HER NATURAL ELEMENT

From _The Sunday Mercury_]

Finally Dr. Griffin arrived in New York and registered at the Pacific Hotel. Reporters soon learned that the mermaid was in town, and the polite and genial agent of the Lyceum of Natural History allowed them to look at his curiosity. Barnum had meanwhile prepared illustrations of the mermaid and printed 10,000 copies of a pamphlet describing it. These were stored in the Museum until the time came to use them publicly. Barnum, of course, had written the three news letters and sent them to friends in Montgomery, Charleston, and Washington, who could be trusted to mail them from those cities; the newspapers of the day were not particular about the source of their news, if it was news. Barnum called upon the editors of the _Herald_, the _Mercury_, and the _Atlas_, with his engravings of the mermaid. He told them that he had hoped to use these engravings when he exhibited the mermaid at the Museum, but that Dr. Griffin had decided that as agent for the Lyceum of Natural History it would be quite impossible for him to exhibit his curiosity in public anywhere except in London. Therefore, Barnum magnanimously offered his engravings, now worthless to him, for the editors to print. They thanked him, and the following Sunday each newspaper printed a different picture of the mermaid, and each editor realized Barnum’s deception only when he saw the rival newspapers.

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF THE FEJEE MERMAID

Inserted by Barnum in _The Sunday Atlas_]

The public was now interested in the mermaid. Most newspaper readers had seen at least one illustration or one of Barnum’s out-of-town letters. The 10,000 pamphlets were turned over to newsboys to sell at a penny each in all the hotels, stores, and public places. Then Barnum hired, through an agent, Concert Hall on Broadway, and the newspapers printed advertisements which announced that Dr. Griffin, because of the solicitations of gentlemen of science, had consented to exhibit his mermaid for one week only at Concert Hall. Dr. Griffin would also show, for one week only, the other scientific specimens he had collected for the London Lyceum of Natural History, including the Ornithorhinchus, or the connecting link between the seal and the duck; two distinct species of flying fish, one from the Gulf Stream and one from the West Indies, which undoubtedly connected the bird and the fish; the Paddle Tail Snake of South America; the Siren, or Mud Iguana, a connecting link between reptiles and fish; the Proteus Sanguihus, a subterraneous animal from Australia; “with other animals forming connecting links in the great chain of Animated Nature.” Darwin did not publish _The Origin of Species_ until seventeen years after Barnum’s unique natural specimens were exhibited in New York.

[Illustration: THE CORRECT LIKENESS OF THE FEJEE MERMAID

From _The Sunday Herald_]

There was no indication in the Fejee Mermaid of a junction between the fish body and the monkey head. The spine extended unbroken to the base of the skull. The shoulders were covered with animal hair, and under a microscope fish scales were visible beneath the hair. The face was of a monstrous ugliness, and the whole specimen, which was three feet long, was dried up and black. The misshapen arms, with their hideous long fingers on the ends of distorted hands, were turned up, and the right hand covered the right side of the face. The mouth was wide open, revealing bestial teeth, and the whole expression of the face gave the vivid impression that the animal had died in an extreme agony, which had been carefully preserved by its embalmers. It was Barnum’s private opinion, which he did not express until many years later, that The Fejee Mermaid, as he spelled it, was made in Japan, China, or India, and that it was probably an object of worship in one of those countries. Profoundly religious himself, in a Christian way, Barnum always enjoyed attributing hideousness to so-called pagan faiths. He found in Dr. Ph. Fr. von Siebold’s _Manners and Customs of the Japanese in the Nineteenth Century_ an account of a Japanese fisherman who joined the upper half of a monkey to the lower half of a fish so deftly that the joint could not be detected. The Japanese then announced to his fellow-countrymen that he had caught the object in his net, and that it had died soon after its capture. The mermaid was exhibited in Japan, and its Japanese owner maintained that it had spoken a few words before it died, in which it had predicted some years of fertility, to be followed by years of a fatal epidemic, the only remedy against which would be the possession of the prophet’s likeness. The sale in Japan of crude pictures of the animal was great, and the figure itself was finally sold to Dutch traders, who carried it to Batavia, “where,” according to Dr. von Siebold, “it fell into the hands of a shrewd American, who brought it to Europe, and there, in the years 1822–23, exhibited his purchase as a real mermaid, at every capital, to the admiration of the ignorant, the perplexity of the learned, and the filling of his own purse.” Barnum was convinced that this was his mermaid, and this its origin, and he hailed the Japanese fisherman as one of his brothers under the skin, who by his scheme for selling pictures and attracting crowds to the mermaid was entitled to occupy a throne along with Barnum as a Prince of Humbugs.

Concert Hall was crowded as soon as The Fejee Mermaid moved in. Levi Lyman, as Dr. Griffin, told the audiences of his travels and adventures in far-off places in search of unnatural curiosities. Barnum was afraid that some of those who visited Concert Hall might recognize Dr. Griffin as the Levi Lyman who had accompanied Joice Heth, but Joice Heth had been dead six years, and no one doubted Dr. Griffin; he looked scientific. He was dignified and polite, and he explained with great pains and patience the science and natural history of the connecting links by which he was surrounded. After one week at Concert Hall, Barnum announced that at last, after much trouble and expense, he had induced Dr. Griffin to exhibit The Fejee Mermaid at Barnum’s American Museum, where it could be seen daily, along with the other curiosities, without extra charge. Barnum designed an enormous flag, representing a mermaid eighteen feet long, which, when it was unfurled, covered the front of the Museum. This was too much, even for Lyman, who protested against such a colossal deception: The Fejee Mermaid was only three feet long. Lyman indignantly told Barnum that the public would not swallow such a difference between its expectations and the reality, and he insisted that the flag be taken down. Barnum answered that he had paid seventy dollars for that flag, and it must remain in front of the Museum. “Well, Mr. Barnum,” Lyman answered, “if you like to fight under that flag, you can do so, but _I_ won’t.” Barnum could not dispense with Professor Griffin, and the flag was hauled in. It is strange that Lyman should choose this flag as an issue, and Barnum does not explain it, but it was likely that Lyman was having considerable difficulty satisfying many disappointed visitors with his wizened mermaid, and could endure no further difficulties. Lyman later went to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he became an influential Mormon.

In later years, and in the last editions of his autobiography, Barnum did not give the details of The Fejee Mermaid with so much pride in his own ingenuity. He wrote in the 1888 edition of his autobiography, published three years before his death: “I used it mainly to advertise the regular business of the Museum, and this effective indirect advertising is the only feature I can commend, in a special show of which, I confess, I am not proud. Newspapers throughout the country copied the mermaid notices, for they were novel and caught the attention of readers. Thus was the fame of the Museum, as well as the mermaid, wafted from one end of the land to the other. I was careful to keep up the excitement, for I knew that every dollar sown in advertising would return in tens, and perhaps hundreds, in a future harvest, and after obtaining all the notoriety possible by advertising and by exhibiting the mermaid at the Museum, I sent the curiosity throughout the country, directing my agent to everywhere advertise it as ‘From Barnum’s Great American Museum, New York.’ The effect was immediately felt; money flowed in rapidly, and was readily expended in more advertising.”

While The Fejee Mermaid was on exhibition at the Museum, one of the visitors said to Barnum, “I lived two years on the Fiji Islands, and I never heard of any such thing as a mermaid.” “There’s no accounting for some men’s ignorance,” was Barnum’s answer. But most of the public seemed satisfied, and apparently sent their friends, for during the first four weeks of the mermaid’s exhibition at the Museum the receipts were $3,341.93. During the four weeks preceding its arrival the receipts had been only $1,272.

The Museum was now well on its way to financial success. Barnum and his family had lived on the $600 a year allowed him out of the profits until the Museum was paid for. Six months after he had purchased the Museum, Mr. Olmsted found him in the ticket office one day eating his dinner of corned beef and bread. “Is that the way you eat your dinner?” he asked. “I have not eaten a warm dinner since I bought the Museum, except on the Sabbath,” Barnum answered, “and I intend never to eat another on a week day until I am out of debt.” Mr. Olmsted was much pleased, clapped Barnum on the shoulder, and assured him that he was a safe investment. The assertion that he ate only one hot dinner a week is possibly a Barnumization of the truth, for it is this type of statement Barnum was most likely to exaggerate in his autobiography, and which in some instances can be proved untrue. But in less than one year after he arranged for its purchase, Barnum owned the American Museum in his own name and had paid his rent out of the profits. The profits for the year 1842, according to Barnum’s account books, were $27,912.62. For the year before he became its proprietor, the profits had been $10,862.

The bogus New York Museum Company sold Peale’s Museum to Henry Bennett, who created publicity by parodying Barnum’s attractions. When Barnum exhibited The Fejee Mermaid, Bennett advertised a “Fudg-ee Mermaid,” and when Barnum advertised a family of singers as the “Orphean Family,” Bennett presented the “Orphan Family.” The novelty of this opposition, however, did not pay expenses, and Barnum soon bought out Bennett, but he hired Bennett as manager of his own museum and instructed him to continue the opposition and the parodies, which created publicity for the American Museum. At the end of six months the collections were combined.

Within a year, by means of ingenious, and sometimes unscrupulous, advertising, Barnum’s American Museum became New York’s most popular place of amusement. For New Yorkers it was a place of regular resort, and families brought their lunches and ate them in the Museum rooms so that they might spend the whole day among the curiosities. The Museum was known throughout the country, and visitors to New York, who arrived early in the morning, often visited Barnum’s before they went to their hotels or to their breakfast, for the Museum was opened every morning at sunrise. Barnum once compared the number of visitors to his Museum with those of the British Museum, which, of course, was free of charge, and found that his patrons were more numerous.

V

Besides his notorious curiosities, Barnum enlarged the Lecture Room of the Museum, and presented regular dramatic performances there. He felt that what he called the “Moral Drama” would pay better than anything that was attractively immoral; and the “Moral Drama” was more palatable to his own conscience, for from childhood until his last year he had a sincere religious fear of impropriety in public presentation. The greatest manifestation of Barnum’s genius for theatrical management in this country was his instinctive realization that the largest part of the community is eminently respectable in public, and it was what, more than anything else, contributed to his financial success, that Barnum catered to the reputable who still retained vestiges of curiosity. Many persons who would not be seen in a theater visited regularly the Museum Lecture Room--Barnum would never consent to calling it a theater--where the moral dramas of “Joseph and His Brethren,” “Moses,” and “The Drunkard” were performed. One afternoon a New England lady walked into Barnum’s office and sat down on the sofa. She examined Barnum curiously for a minute, and then remarked that he looked “much like other common folks, after all.” “Mr. Barnum,” she said “I never went to any Museum before, nor to any place of amusement or public entertainment, except our school exhibitions; and I have sometimes felt that they even may be wicked, because some parts of the dialogue seemed frivolous; but I have heard so much of your ‘moral dramas,’ and the great good you are doing for the rising generation, that I thought I must come here and see for myself.” At that moment the gong announcing the beginning of the show in the Lecture Room rang. The lady jumped from the sofa. “Are the services about to commence?” she asked anxiously. There was the noise of shuffling feet as the crowd hurried to the seats. “Yes,” said Barnum, “the congregation is now going up.” Barnum wrote concerning his moral performances: “I resolved, as far as possible, to elevate and refine such amusements as I dispensed. Even Shakespeare’s dramas were shorn of their objectionable features when placed upon my stage.”

E. A. Sothern, Tony Pastor, and Barney Williams received their first stage training on the stage of Barnum’s Lecture Room. On holidays performances were given every hour throughout the afternoon and evening, and Barnum is given credit in histories of the theater for originating the continuous performance, which has since proved so popular in vaudeville.

These continuous programs on holidays were very popular, and on the first Fourth of July of Barnum’s management of the Museum so many people visited the building that the sale of tickets was stopped. This Barnum described as “exceedingly harrowing to my feelings.” He noted sadly that thousands were waiting outside to purchase tickets, and that those inside did not seem in a hurry to leave. Barnum ordered his carpenter to build a temporary flight of stairs at the rear of the building, which opened out into Ann Street. At three o’clock that afternoon this exit was opened, but much money had been lost. When, on the next St. Patrick’s Day, Barnum was informed in advance that the Irish population intended to visit the Museum in large numbers, he opened the rear exit again. Before noon the Museum was crowded, and the sale of tickets had to be stopped. Barnum rushed to the rear exit and asked how many hundreds had passed out that way. He was told that three persons had used it during the whole morning, for the visitors had brought their dinners and intended to remain in the Museum all day and night. Barnum hurriedly called his sign painter and ordered a sign in large letters

☞ TO THE EGRESS.

This was nailed over the rear door. Some of the Irish visitors spelled out the sign, “To the Aigress,” and many remarked, “Sure, that’s an animal we haven’t seen,” and found themselves on Ann Street, with no chance of re-entering the Museum.

It was on his first Fourth of July in the Museum that Barnum exhibited another instance of his ingenuity in the face of a difficulty. In order to make the most of the holiday by utilizing the publicity value of the American flag, Barnum fastened a string of large flags across Broadway, tying one end to the Museum and the other to a tree in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Several days before Independence Day Barnum had visited the vestrymen of St. Paul’s and requested permission to use the tree in the churchyard, but they called his request insulting and talked of sacrilege. On the Fourth of July he gave orders for the flags to be attached, as he had originally planned. The flags attracted huge crowds, and at half-past nine in the morning two indignant vestrymen entered Barnum’s office and demanded that they be detached from their church immediately. Barnum answered pleasantly that he would go into the street with them and see what could be done. He looked at the flags and remarked solemnly that they were a beautiful sight. He argued with the vestrymen that he always had stopped his Free Music for the Million when they held their services, and he merely requested this favor in return. One of the vestrymen lost patience and shouted that unless Barnum took down the flags within ten minutes he would _cut_ them down. The crowd was attracted by the angry gestures. Barnum suddenly took off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and shouted in his sonorous voice, tinged with anger, loudly enough for all in the crowd to overhear, “I should like to see you dare to cut down the American flag on the Fourth of July; you must be a Britisher to make such a threat, but I’ll show you a thousand pairs of Yankee hands in two minutes, if you dare to take down the stars and stripes on this great birthday of American freedom.” In a moment the vestrymen were surrounded by several heavy, angry men, who threatened varied punishment. The poor bewildered vestrymen disappeared quietly from the crowd, and Barnum with obsequious smiles enjoyed his triumph.

Barnum was apparently indefatigable in his personal interest in the Museum and in his personal efforts to make it ever more popular. He often appeared before his audiences with stunts or speeches, because he knew he could entertain them, and because he liked to think that they were interested in him. When Peale, of Peale’s Museum, presented an actor who pretended to conduct experiments in Mesmerism, Barnum personally conducted his own experiments in Animal Magnetism from the stage of the Moral Lecture Room. A young girl, carefully trained in advance, sat on the stage. Barnum made a few passes with his hand in front of her, and she was then under his control; she raised her hands when he requested her to do so, grimaced when he put tobacco in his mouth, and smiled when he ate candy. Then it was his practice to turn to the audience and offer to forfeit fifty dollars if he could not put any member of the audience in the same state within five minutes. At the end of three minutes the volunteer was, of course, wide awake. Barnum would look at his watch, remark that he had two minutes, which was plenty of time, and offer to demonstrate to the audience that a person mesmerized was a person insensible to pain, by cutting off one of the fingers of the small girl, who was still asleep. He would take out his knife, feel the sharp edge, and turn towards the girl, who had meanwhile fled behind the scenes in a fright that delighted the audience. Barnum would say in an astonished tone of voice, “Then she was wide awake, was she?” His volunteer from the audience usually answered, “Of course she was, she was wide awake all the time.” “I suppose so,” was Barnum’s answer, “and, my dear sir, I promised that you should be ‘in the same state’ at the end of five minutes, and as I believe you are so, I do not forfeit fifty dollars.” This type of trick never seemed to anger, rather than to amuse, the audiences.

No such trickery was too much for Barnum, and he carried out a similar deception on a public scale with no harm to his reputation and no qualms of conscience. In June of 1843 he attended the Bunker Hill celebration, where Daniel Webster delivered a stirring oration, but Barnum was just as interested in an old canvas tent near the Bunker Hill Monument as he was in the ceremonies of the day. He found in that tent a herd of fifteen one-year-old calf buffaloes, which he immediately purchased for $700; a scheme by which he could utilize these buffaloes had hatched in his mind almost as soon as he saw them. The animals were docile and tired, for they had been driven east from the western plains. At Barnum’s order they were brought to New York and then transported to a New Jersey barn near Hoboken. Barnum hired their former owner, C. D. French, to take care of the animals for thirty dollars per month, because French understood the lasso. The newspapers shortly afterwards announced that a herd of wild buffaloes, captured in the Rocky Mountains, was passing through New York soon on its way to Europe, in charge of the very men who had captured the animals, and during the next few days suggestions appeared in the newspapers that it would be a fine thing for New York if the owners of these buffaloes could be induced to present a buffalo chase on a race course near New York, demonstrating to the eastern population the use of the lasso and the ferocity of the buffalo. One of the correspondents expressed it as his sincere opinion that it would be worth a dollar to see such a sight, and that he for one would be willing to pay that amount. Another estimated that no less than fifty thousand persons would be interested in a buffalo chase without the danger but with the thrills, and other obliging correspondents suggested places for the hunt, including the race course at Hoboken, New Jersey. Before long advertisements appeared in all the newspapers, and handbills were circulated throughout New York announcing that there would be a “Grand Buffalo Hunt, Free of Charge--At Hoboken, on Thursday, August 31, at 3, 4, and 5 o’clock p. m. Mr. C. D. French, one of the most daring and experienced hunters of the West, has arrived thus far on his way to Europe with a Herd of Buffaloes, captured by himself, near Santa Fé. He will exhibit a method of hunting the Wild Buffaloes, and throwing the lasso, by which the animals were captured in their most wild and untamed state. This is perhaps one of the most exciting and difficult feats that can be performed, requiring at the same time the most expert horsemanship and the greatest skill and dexterity. Every man, woman, and child can here witness _the wild sports of the Western Prairies_, as the exhibition is to be free to all, and will take place on the extensive grounds and Race Course of Messrs. Stevens, within a few rods of the Hoboken Ferry.” The public was further assured that, “No possible danger need be apprehended, as a double railing has been put around the whole course, to prevent the possibility of the Buffaloes approaching the multitude.”

These announcements mystified and delighted New York. Who was the city’s anonymous benefactor? Who supplied such entertainment free of charge and kept modestly in the background? Barnum meanwhile had purchased the rights to the receipts of all the ferry boats which crossed between New York and Hoboken on August 31, 1843, and extra ferry boats were provided for the day. The weather was clear, and the boats, under the administration of Captain Barnum, were crowded to the railings with adventurers. Twenty-four thousand people went to Hoboken that day. They stood on the railings and clutched the awnings to support themselves, and each paid six and a quarter cents going and the same to return.

When the crowds arrived in Hoboken, they waited in the arena for the wild buffaloes, who finally appeared in reluctant and tame parade of their alleged ferocity. The animals were thin and pale from lack of nourishment during their first master’s patronage, and although they had been crammed with extra rations of oats for several days they refused at the outset to be wild. C. D. French, “one of the most daring and experienced hunters of the West,” dressed and painted as an Indian, poked his wild buffaloes with a goad, but the most they would do for the twenty-four thousand interested spectators was to trot. There was much laughter and shouting at their recalcitrance, and the noise made by the crowd frightened the nervous buffaloes so much that they galloped from the enclosure in terror and threw the spectators, who believed that they had actually grown wild, into a panic. The buffaloes took refuge from their oppressors in a near-by swamp, and all that C. D. French could do would not persuade them to return to the Race Course. He finally lassoed one of them, and entertained the crowd with this beast, and with exhibitions of lassoing on horses and horsemen. No one suspected the ferry boat arrangement, and no one suspected Barnum. It was after midnight when the last of the crowds succeeded in getting home from Hoboken, but, apparently, a good time was had by all, for there were no riots, and the receipts of the ferry boats turned over to Barnum amounted to $3,500. After the exhibition Barnum sent his buffaloes to Camden, New Jersey, where they attracted Philadelphia crowds in the same manner. Some of the herd then went to England and were sold, while the others were fattened on a farm and sold for buffalo steak in Fulton Market at fifty cents per pound. In order that the Museum might profit by the advertisement, Barnum made public his responsibility for the Great Buffalo Hunt.

Some time after his success with the buffaloes, Barnum presented the first Wild West Show New York had seen. He engaged a band of Indians from Iowa, among whom were impressive men, beautiful squaws, and two or three papooses. The Indians appeared on the stage of the Moral Lecture Room in real war dances, which they performed with all the vigor and realistic interpretation of their savage origin. In fact, it was necessary to rope them in, for fear that in their frenzy towards the end of a dance they might forget that they were merely players, and make for members of the audience; for Barnum’s Indians had never before seen a railroad or a steamboat, and scalps were not yet obsolete in their minds. They seemed thoroughly under the impression that they were not acting but living, which in one particular caused the proprietor of the American Museum some expense. After a week of war dances, Barnum suggested a change of program, including an Indian wedding dance. The interpreter explained, and the chief agreed. On Monday afternoon when the first change to the wedding dance was to take place, Barnum was informed by the chief that he must supply a red woolen blanket as a wedding present for the bridegroom to give to the father of the bride, an inviolable Indian custom. After each performance the chief insisted that he must have another new blanket for the next performance, and when Barnum attempted to explain that the wedding was only “make believe,” the chief gave forth an ugly “Ugh!” terrifying Barnum into spending $120 for twelve red woolen blankets for the rest of the week.

These special exhibitions were supplemented by flower shows, dog shows, and poultry shows at the Museum, and Barnum, soon after he became manager, decided that he must have a baby show. He organized such an exhibition with graduated scales of prizes for triplets, the fattest baby, the most beautiful baby, and the handsomest twins. The main prize of $100 for the most perfect baby was a source of considerable difficulty. Barnum thought that it would be a fine thing for him to award this prize himself, a fine thing in publicity for himself, and also for the baby, who could say in later years that he had been personally selected as unique by P. T. Barnum. In later years he did meet many men and women who claimed that honor, but at the time of the awards the defeated mothers stormed about Barnum, and their indignation could not be appeased until he announced that he would award a second prize of $100 to the baby selected by a committee of mothers. Whereupon each mother became the enemy of every other, and Barnum’s $100 was safe. In deciding future baby contests, however, he sent in written reports and was not to be disturbed for the rest of the day.

VI

In November, 1842, Barnum stopped one night at the Franklin Hotel in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which was kept by his brother, Philo F. Barnum. His brother mentioned that there was a dwarf in Bridgeport, who played daily in the streets, and was accepted by the rest of the population as a natural curiosity. Barnum asked his brother to bring the child to the Franklin Hotel, and as soon as he saw this dwarf he realized that here was a natural curiosity who could be transformed by instruction and publicity into a unique and profitable one. The child was the smallest Barnum had ever seen, and was in excellent health, without any deformities. He was two feet, one inch in height and weighed fifteen pounds. His hair was flaxen, and his eyes dark; his cheeks were pink and his whole appearance gave the impression of health, symmetry, and whimsical charm on a lovely, diminutive scale. He was very bashful, and Barnum only learned after difficulty that his name was Charles S. Stratton, and that he was five years old. Barnum visited Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood E. Stratton, the child’s parents, and after some persuasion they consented to exhibit their son at Barnum’s Museum for three dollars per week and board for himself and his mother. Barnum hired him for four weeks only, because at the time he was doubtful whether a five-year-old child who was only two feet in height might not grow before long to a normality that would make him mediocre.

The dwarf and his mother arrived in New York on Thanksgiving Day, 1842, and Barnum had something to be thankful for that day. Mrs. Stratton was astonished and somewhat annoyed when she noticed that her son was announced in large handbills as “General Tom Thumb, a dwarf eleven years of age, just arrived from England.” The “just arrived from England” was the first instance of a method Barnum often repeated. He realized early in his career the love of the American mind for an importation, and he never advertised anything as domestic if he could possibly deceive his patrons into believing that he had incurred much trouble and expense by importing it from abroad, where its popularity was always stupendous. He hoped, patriotically, in his autobiography that such deception might check “our disgraceful preference for foreigners.”

Barnum made his dwarf eleven years old for fear that the public might not believe that a child five years old would not grow beyond his present height. In the various pamphlets concerning the life of General Tom Thumb, which were sold at his exhibitions, it is recorded that when he was born he weighed nine pounds, two ounces, more than the average weight of a new-born baby, and that at five months he had ceased to grow and weighed only fifteen pounds. His weight of fifteen pounds and his height of two feet, one inch, were said to have remained unchanged from the age of five months until the age of five years and for many years thereafter.

The change of name from Charles S. Stratton to General Tom Thumb was a stroke of Barnum’s inspiration, and it contributed largely to the General’s subsequent success. Tom Thumb is the most appropriate name a dwarf ever had, and besides it possessed the advantage of some familiarity from the story of the legendary Tom Thumb, of whom it will be remembered:

“In Arthur’s court Tom Thumbe did live, A man of mickle might, The best of all the table round, And eke a doughty knight; His stature but an inch in height, Or quarter of a span; Then think you not this little knight Was prov’d a valiant man?”

According to nursery lore, the legendary Tom Thumbe was swallowed by a cow when he crossed the cow’s blade of grass but was soon delivered up again from the cow’s stomach, only to meet his death by a bumble bee after a series of valiant adventures. Barnum’s addition of “General” to Tom Thumb enriched the name by a pompous mockery that was more valuable because of its incongruity.

General Tom Thumb was soon domesticated to the ways of public exhibition. Barnum taught his pupil day and night new jokes and old rôles, which he learned quickly, for the child, according to Barnum, had a love of the ludicrous and a humorous charm. When he was ready to make his début, Barnum took General Tom Thumb first on a tour of the newspaper offices, and even invaded the home of one newspaper editor, who happened to be eating dinner. Tom Thumb danced between the tumblers and hopped over the roast. James Gordon Bennett wrote in the _Herald_ on December 15, 1842: “We were visited yesterday by the comical little gentleman who is at present holding nightly levees at the American Museum. He is certainly the smallest specimen of a man we have ever seen.”

The General’s popularity was immediate, and after the first four-weeks’ engagement was finished, Barnum reëngaged him for one year at seven dollars a week, with a bonus of fifty dollars at the end of the engagement. It is clear that neither General Tom Thumb nor his father had any idea of the value of a dwarf, and Barnum took advantage of the age of the boy and the ignorance of his father. Barnum also retained the privilege of sending the General on a tour of the country. Before the end of the year Barnum increased Tom Thumb’s salary to twenty-five dollars per week, and he assures us that the General deserved the raise. Besides exhibiting frequently at the Museum, where he sang songs, danced, and told stories in the pert and saucy manner of people who are too small to be slapped, General Tom Thumb was sent to other cities, where he made money for Barnum and advertised the American Museum.

At the same time as the exhibition of General Tom Thumb in New York, Barnum presented at the Museum two famous giants, M. Bihin, the tall, thin French giant, and Colonel Goshen, a portly Arab. The giants were amiable enough, but jealous of each other’s success, and quarreled furiously one day when the Arab called M. Bihin “a Shanghai” and M. Bihin called the Arab “a nigger.” They seized clubs and medieval swords on exhibition in cases, and made for each other, until Barnum interfered. He informed them that he had no objection to their fighting, maiming or killing each other, but they were both under engagement to him, and if there was to be a duel, it must be duly advertised and take place on the stage of the Lecture Room. “No performance of yours would be a greater attraction, and if you kill each other, our engagement can end with your duel,” Barnum assured them. The giants enjoyed the humor of the situation, and lived in peace until the end of their engagement.

After the contract with General Tom Thumb expired, Barnum engaged him for another year at fifty dollars per week and all his expenses, with the right to exhibit him in Europe. The Museum was so successful and operating with so little friction after less than three years that Barnum was looking for new worlds to conquer, and he took his General under his arm and went to Europe. Passage was booked on the packet ship _Yorkshire_ for Liverpool, and General Tom Thumb, his father and mother, the General’s tutor, Professor Guillaudeu, and Barnum made ready to sail on January 18, 1844. Barnum made use of the General at the Museum until the last moment before sailing. Advertisements appeared in the newspapers of the day announcing that the opportunity to see General Tom Thumb was rapidly slipping away. When the boat was delayed by adverse winds and tides, the General remained another day at the Museum, and thousands of people visited him in a desperate attempt to get a last look. _The Evening Post_ announced as an item of news on January 16, 1844: “A few hours more remain for General Tom Thumb to be seen at the American Museum, as the packet in which he has engaged passage to England does not sail to-day, in consequence of the easterly winds now prevailing. He may be seen throughout the entire day and evening; and at three and seven o’clock p. m. there will be grand performances; at each of which the General appears on the stage in the same characters which have excited so much admiration and applause of late.” The next day the weather was still bad, and people stormed the Museum. On the day of sailing, January 19, General Tom Thumb was on exhibition until eleven o’clock in the morning; the boat sailed at noon. He was escorted to the dock by the municipal brass band, and more than 10,000 persons saw him off. It was estimated that more than 80,000 persons had visited General Tom Thumb at the Museum.