OLD AGE
I
It was Bailey’s custom often to do things first and then consult
Barnum, or rather, tell him what had been done, so that in his last
years Barnum’s function at the circus was as a huge advertisement.
Whenever his carriage entered the arena at Madison Square Garden, he
received an ovation from the audience. The old man, whose curly white
hair surrounded a shiny bald dome, smiled complacently at the adults,
and sometimes stopped to shake the hands of the children and to ask
them if they were having a good time. “To me there is no picture so
beautiful,” wrote Barnum in his old age, “as ten thousand smiling,
bright-eyed, happy children; no music so sweet as their clear-ringing
laughter. That I have had power, year after year, by providing innocent
amusement for the little ones, to create such pictures, to evoke such
music, is my proudest and happiest reflection.”
One day in 1888 Bailey called Barnum to Madison Square Garden and
announced to him that the circus was going to England. “That’ll cost
a lot of money,” Barnum protested, but Bailey insisted that it would
make more. The circus went to England; and the achievement of its
transportation alone was worth much in advertising value. In 1889
the show opened at the Olympia in London, and Barnum, of course, was
present. He and the show were each received with tremendous enthusiasm
by both the élite and the populace.
Barnum was accepted in London as the jolly, veteran showman. A banquet
was held in his honor at the Victoria Hotel, where more than two
hundred politicians, noblemen and writers, with the Earl of Kilmorey
as chairman and George Augustus Sala as toastmaster, paid honor to the
personality whom they regarded as America’s most representative man. At
the show he was greeted with due homage. Every afternoon and evening
Barnum’s open carriage drove up to the entrance to the arena, drawn by
two fine horses, driven by a coachman and adorned with a footman in
luxurious livery. The performance stopped immediately, and there was a
feeling silence as the old man, tall and portly, but slightly bent with
age, dressed in a frock coat, a turn-down collar and a shirt with an
extraordinary number of ruffles and a big diamond stud in its center,
drove around the enormous arena. At intervals in his progress he would
stop the carriage, rise, remove his shining top hat and call out in his
squeaky, decaying voice, with its sharp Yankee accent: “I suppose you
all come to see Barnum. Wa-al, I’m Barnum.” Then he would make a deep
bow, and the carriage would proceed a little further, when the same
interesting demonstration would occur, until the circuit of the huge
arena was accomplished; the men removed their hats and the ladies waved
handkerchiefs to the ambassador of vast entertainment. In explaining
this daily incident to a reporter, after he had returned home, Barnum
said, “I felt that Barnum’s show with Barnum left out would be as bad
as Hamlet minus the famous Dane.”
The Prince of Wales visited the circus and congratulated Barnum
ostentatiously; the Princess of Wales saw the performance four times,
and when arrangements were made for the return to the United States,
she asked Barnum to delay the departure so that Queen Victoria, who
was at Windsor, might be present. “I said I was very sorry that we
couldn’t wait for the Queen, and that she [the Princess of Wales] had
better tell Her Majesty she was making a mistake in not changing her
plans and coming before we packed up.” The Princess of Wales promised
to convey Barnum’s message to her mother-in-law, and Barnum added,
“Tell her she is missing the greatest spectacle of her life.” When the
Prince of Wales said to Barnum, “It must have cost you a lot of money
to come here,” Barnum answered: “It cost upward of £100,000, your Royal
Highness.” In telling the story to reporters in the United States,
Barnum explained: “The Prince, of course, thought showmen always
speak the truth. As a matter of fact, it did cost half that much, and
I thought I treated Wales very fairly in placing the amount at so
moderate a figure.”
Barnum’s success with royalty was always great because of his
inoffensive familiarity. Familiarity was unusual, and what would have
been insulting and disrespectful in a native subject was accepted in an
American showman as quaint and amusing, the interesting entertainment
of a court fool with an international reputation; and it may be that
he was admired universally by those who enjoyed artificial attainments
because it was impossible for them to envy his achievements.
Barnum asked the young Prince George, now King George V, whether he
was going to stop until the end of the performance. He looked around
cautiously, paused for a moment, and leaning towards Barnum said: “Mr.
Barnum, I shall remain here until they sing God Save Grandmother!”
When Gladstone occupied the royal box one evening with a party of
distinguished guests, he delighted Barnum by requesting that the
showman remain seated by his side during the entire performance.
Barnum later said that the statesman was the best conversationalist he
had ever met, but from Barnum’s account of the meeting to newspaper
reporters one gathers that Mr. Gladstone did not do most of the
talking. After Gladstone had remarked pleasantly that they were both of
the same age, Barnum suggested boldly that Mr. Gladstone should emulate
his example, cross the Atlantic Ocean and visit the United States,
“where I can guarantee you the greatest ovation any man ever received.”
Gladstone straightened stiffly in his chair, pointed at one of the
gladiators in the great spectacle of “Nero, or the Burning of Rome,”
and asked, “What is that man doing?” It was Barnum’s impression from
this that Gladstone was immune from flattery, and averse to it; but it
is also possible that Mr. Gladstone feared that Mr. Barnum wanted him
for his museum.
While Barnum was in London, a representative of Mme. Tussaud’s
Wax Works called upon him to ask if he was willing to be put into
immortal wax. “Willing?” said Barnum. “Anxious! What’s a show without
notoriety!” He was asked for his dimensions, and instead he sent his
valet with samples of his socks, shoes, coat, waistcoat, trousers,
frilled shirt, necktie, and hat.
At last the time came to abandon this profitable notoriety and return
home to native enthusiasm. Barnum said his good-bys to royalty,
nobility, and clergy. The Bishop of London, bidding him farewell, said:
“Well, good-by, Mr. Barnum. I hope I shall see you in Heaven.” “You
will if you are there,” said Barnum to the Bishop.
Three ships took the large show back to New York. Just before the
departure Barnum gave the London reporters a luncheon on board the
_Furnessia_. As they arrived on board, an incoming Australian steamer,
loaded with dressed meat, ran into an outbound boat and was sunk. The
reporters neglected their host and watched this unexpected news event,
thus exasperating Barnum beyond words. A fine meal was ready for them,
with plenty of liquor, for Barnum never allowed temperance to interfere
with publicity. Finally, irritated beyond endurance, he shouted at the
reporters, “Come, come, boys! That’s nothing but mutton! Come on down
and have some wine and something to eat.”
II
The London triumph of the circus was utilized for all it was worth in
advertising when the show returned to this country in 1890. Barnum gave
innumerable interviews; in every city he visited he told reporters his
experiences as friend of the royal family and caterer to the British
public. Advertisements bellowed forth the praises of “The Princes of
the Royal Blood” at the spectacle of “Nero, or The Burning of Rome,
in which are included Religious Rites, Roman Orgies, Vestal Virgins,
Marriage Ceremonies.”
It was rumored in the United States that the circus had not made money
in England, that it was growing too large for its own financial good,
and when a Chicago reporter questioned Barnum about how the show was
doing financially he answered: “Badly, very badly, losing money every
day.” “Losing money? How?” asked the reporter. “Turning people away,”
said Barnum. It was said that Bailey sold $1,500,000 worth of stock in
the Barnum & Bailey Company after its return from Europe, and still
retained the controlling interest.
Although he was now eighty years old, Barnum still retained the use of
all his faculties, and one especially, publicity. One day he tripped
over a rope in Madison Square Garden. He was slightly scratched.
As he was helped to his feet by some workmen, he yelled, “Where’s
the press agent? Tell him I’ve been injured in an accident!” He
remained at his home all the next day, and the newspapers published
accounts of the “painful accident” in which “the veteran showman”
was “seriously injured.” Wherever he was, in railroad cars, on ferry
boats, on the streets, Barnum spoke to strangers, and he invariably
ended the conversation by telling them that they had been talking to
P. T. Barnum. His personal appearance was pleasantly obtrusive, the
face of a person who makes himself genial to others without effort,
and who can never understand that other people may not want to be
pleasant. But most people must have enjoyed his geniality, for there
was a readiness about the eyes to smile, and an expression of broad
cordiality on the large face. The fat, bulbous nose, which in his last
years was prominent and red, causing the men about the circus winter
quarters to say that “the old man had quite a snitch on him,” the firm,
set mouth and lips, the large head, and the broad, round chin make
their impression almost immediately that here was a man who would
introduce himself, and that one might not be altogether ungrateful for
the introduction. What in others might have signified determination,
in Barnum meant “nerve,” “cheek,” and a complete lack of embarrassment
in any kind of company. He was a man who always assumed that he was
welcome, and in nine cases out of every ten he was right. But there
was sometimes the tenth case. Barnum went to the steamer to greet his
wife, who was returning from Europe. The Duke of Argyll, who somebody
said “looked like a lucifer match just ignited,” because of his flaming
red hair and beard, was on the same steamer. Barnum clapped the Duke on
the back and said: “Well, how are you, Duke? Welcome, welcome, Duke, to
our glorious country!” The Duke looked straight ahead, as if a fly, not
worth brushing aside, had been so impertinent as to interrupt him.
Barnum’s senile efforts for publicity were not always judicious.
When Cleveland was nominated for President, Barnum wrote a letter to
the press, without consulting either his partner or his press agent.
He wrote that “should Cleveland be elected, I will sell all my real
estate at 25 cents on the dollar.” This statement cost the circus
many thousands of dollars, for Cleveland was very popular in the
South, and the circus that year was compelled to restrict its tour to
anti-Cleveland territory. Even a few years later rival showmen in the
South reproduced Barnum’s letter on Cleveland in the newspapers as
his show approached each town. On another occasion a woman approached
Barnum outside the Murray Hill Hotel, where he always stayed when the
circus was in New York, and asked him where was 125th Street. “Is it
too far to walk?” she asked in a tired voice. The wealthy old man
genially gave her five cents. The same day, a few hours later, the
same woman approached him with the same questions. He handed her over
to a policeman, and he forced the press agent of the circus against
his better judgment to send the story of this experience to all the
newspapers for its publicity value. In his account for the newspapers
Barnum wrote that “he had done the community a service.”
When he was at Chicago, after the return of the circus from Europe,
Barnum suggested to the newspapers that the World’s Fair should place
on exhibition the mummies of Pharaoh Rameses II and his family, and
also the mummy of the daughter of Pharaoh who had saved Moses from the
bulrushes. “Every Hebrew in the world,” said Barnum, “would go to see
them out of hatred. Every one in Christendom would go to see them out
of curiosity. I instructed one of my men to offer $100,000 for them for
a year.” But the offer was not accepted. Barnum also said that he liked
the idea of showing every man, woman, and child in the free country of
America, “the face of the despot,” but a thoughtful reporter pointed
out that if the face were shown, free from its casings and wrappings,
it would crumble into dust. The World’s Fair did not consider Barnum’s
suggestion worth attention.
When he was not traveling through the country getting personal
publicity and acting antics for his show’s advertisement, Barnum
spent his time tranquilly at Bridgeport, editing and re-editing his
autobiography, adding appendixes and entertaining distinguished
visitors. Matthew Arnold spent a night at “Waldemere,” after delivering
his lecture, “Numbers: or the Majority and the Remnant,” at Hartford,
Connecticut. He wrote to Mrs. Forster of his visit: “The night before
last I dined and slept at Barnum’s. He said my lecture was ‘grand,’
and that he was determined to belong to the remnant.” That was all
Matthew Arnold wrote in his published letters about Barnum. It seems
that Barnum never impressed his literary friends as worth mentioning,
even in their letters. Thackeray’s letters contain no reference to him,
although they were good friends, and Mark Twain, who often visited
Bridgeport, never wrote any comments on his host. It may be that after
Barnum finished talking there was nothing else to be said on the
subject.
Barnum in his last year also published another book, called _Dollars
and Sense, or How to Get On, The Whole Secret in a Nutshell_, By P. T.
Barnum, to which is added sketches of the “Lives of Successful Men who
‘Rose from the Ranks’ and from the most Humble Starting Point Achieved
Honorable Fame, By Henry M. Hunt, and an appendix containing, Money!
Where It Comes From and Where It Goes To, Being a Concise History of
Money, Banks and Banking, By Selden R. Hopkins.” The pages of this book
are edged all around with gold, and the cover design includes three
silver dollars, obverse and reverse, a man’s exposed brain, and a sprig
of laurel. The contents were nothing more than a collection of the
anecdotes contained in various editions of Barnum’s autobiography, and
added to them were the homely sentiments he delivered in his lectures
on “The Art of Money-Getting” and “The World and How to Live in It.”
It was designed to tell young men “How to Get On,” but its platitudes
are neither useful in their selection nor novel in their expression:
Barnum spent many years, so far as his written philosophy is concerned,
assuring the public that two and two really do make four, if one only
persists in working it out.
The strength of the Barnum legend did not diminish as Barnum’s own
powers began to decay. He still received letters from everywhere,
offering him services and curiosities, and it was a source of great
pride to him that some of these letters were addressed merely, “Barnum,
America.” A man from Orleans County, New York, wrote: “I can remove
the effulgence from the disk of the sun with the magic power that I
possess. If you want to see it done, if you will write me a line and
state the time, I will perform this feat ten times in half an hour.
From 5 to 6 is the best time. My own family don’t know I possess this
power. You will say this is a big humbug, but it is no humbug. If
you don’t want to put this on exhibition, you will do me a favor by
saying nothing about it.” Another correspondent offered himself “with
confidence as being the ugliest man beyond question in the United
States or Canada. I have resided many years in this State, and am
universally acknowledged by travelers and residents as the ugliest
man ever seen. Yet there is nothing repulsive in my appearance. I am
naturally lazy, and desire a job that does not require much exertion.”
A friend urged Barnum in a letter to open a permanent museum in New
York City, and though he admitted in his reply that it should be
successful because “there is really _no fit place for children_ to go
to be amused in N. Y. City, and adults will go where children do,”
he feared he was too old to start a new project. He preferred the
tranquillity of his Bridgeport home, where he could look upon his
thriving shade trees and the avenues he had laid out, realizing, as he
wrote, that “wherever art has beautified nature, it has but utilized
plans and carried out suggestions of my own.”