ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL SPECULATION.
PEALE’S MUSEUM--MYSTERIOUS MESMERISM--YANKEE HILL--HENRY
BENNETT--THE RIVAL MUSEUMS--THE ORPHEAN AND ORPHAN FAMILIES--THE
FUDGEE MERMAID--BUYING OUT MY RIVAL--RUNNING OPPOSITION TO
MYSELF--ABOLISHING THEATRICAL NUISANCES--NO CHECKS AND NO BAR--THE
MUSEUM MY MANIA--MY FIRST INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES S.
STRATTON--GENERAL TOM THUMB IN NEW YORK--RE-ENGAGEMENT--AN APT
PUPIL--FREE FROM DEBT--THE PROFITS OF TWO YEARS--IN SEARCH OF A NEW
FIELD--STARTING FOR LIVERPOOL--THE GOOD SHIP “YORKSHIRE”--MY
PARTY--ESCORT TO SANDY HOOK--THE VOYAGE--A TOBACCO TRICK--A
BRAGGING JOHN BULL OUTWITTED--ARRIVAL AT LIVERPOOL--A GENTLEMAN
BEGGAR--MADAME CELESTE--CHEAP DWARFS--TWO-PENNY SHOWS--EXHIBITION
OF GENERAL TOM THUMB IN LIVERPOOL--FIRST-CLASS ENGAGEMENT FOR
LONDON.
The president and directors of the “New York Museum Company” not only
failed to buy the American Museum as they confidently expected to do,
but, after my newspaper squib war and my purchase of the Museum, they
found it utterly impossible to sell their stock. By some arrangement,
the particulars of which I do not remember, if, indeed, I ever cared to
know them, Mr. Peale was conducting Peale’s Museum which he claimed was
a more “scientific” establishment than mine, and he pretended to appeal
to a higher class of patrons. Mesmerism was one of his scientific
attractions, and he had a subject upon whom he operated at times with
the greatest seeming success, and fairly astonished his audiences. But
there were times when the subject was wholly unimpressible and then
those who had paid their money to see the woman put into the mesmeric
state cried out “humbug,” and the reputation of the establishment
seriously suffered.
It devolved upon me to open a rival mesmeric performance, and
accordingly I engaged a bright little girl who was exceedingly
susceptible to such mesmeric influences as I could induce. That is, she
learned her lesson thoroughly, and when I had apparently put her to
sleep with a few passes and stood behind her, she seemed to be duly
“impressed” as I desired; raised her hands as I willed; fell from her
chair to the floor; and if I put candy or tobacco into my mouth, she was
duly delighted or disgusted. She never failed in these routine
performances. Strange to say, believers in mesmerism used to witness her
performances with the greatest pleasure and adduce them as positive
proofs that there was something in mesmerism, and they applauded
tremendously--up to a certain point.
That point was reached, when leaving the girl “asleep,” I called up some
one in the audience, promising to put him “in the same state” within
five minutes, or forfeit fifty dollars. Of course, all my “passes” would
not put any man in the mesmeric state; at the end of three minutes he
was as wide awake as ever.
“Never mind,” I would say, looking at my watch; “I have two minutes
more, and meantime, to show that a person in this state is utterly
insensible to pain, I propose to cut off one of the fingers of the
little girl who is still asleep.” I would then take out my knife and
feel of the edge, and when I turned around to the girl whom I left on
the chair she had fled behind the scenes to the intense amusement of the
greater part of the audience and to the amazement of the mesmerists who
were present.
“Why! where’s my little girl?” I asked with feigned astonishment.
“Oh! she ran away when you began to talk about cutting off fingers.”
“Then she was wide awake, was she?”
“Of course she was, all the time.”
“I suppose so; 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.”
I kept up this performance for several weeks, till I quite killed
Peale’s “genuine” mesmerism in the rival establishment. After Peale,
“Yankee” Hill undertook the management of that Museum, but in a little
while he failed. It was then let to Henry Bennett, who reduced the
entrance price to one shilling,--a half price which led me to
characterize his concern as “cheap and nasty,”--and he began a serious
rivalry with my Museum. His main reliances were burlesques and
caricatures of whatever novelties I was exhibiting; thus, when I
advertised an able company of vocalists, well-known as the Orphean
Family, Bennett announced the “Orphan Family;” my Fejee Mermaid he
offset with a figure made of a monkey and codfish joined together and
called the “Fudg-ee Mermaid.” These things created some laughter at my
expense, but they also served to advertise my Museum.
When the novelty of this opposition died away, Bennett did a decidedly
losing business. I used to send a man with a shilling to his place every
night and I knew exactly how much he was doing and what were his
receipts. The holidays were coming and might tide him over a day or two,
but he was at the very bottom and I said to him, one day:
“Bennett, if you can keep open one week after New Year’s I will give you
a hundred dollars.”
He made every effort to win the money, and even went to the landlord and
offered him the entire receipts for a week if he would only let him stay
there; but he would not do it, and the day after New Year’s, January 2,
1843, Bennett shut up shop, having lost his last dollar and even failing
to secure the handsome premium I offered him.
The entire collection fell into the hands of the landlord for arrearages
of rent, and I privately purchased it for $7,000 cash, hired the
building, and secretly engaged Bennett as my agent. We ran a very
spirited opposition for a long time and abused each other terribly in
public. It was very amusing when actors and performers failed to make
terms with one of us and went to the other, carrying from one to the
other the price each was willing to pay for an engagement. We thus used
to hear extraordinary stories about each other’s “liberal terms,” but
between the two we managed to secure such persons as we wanted at about
the rates at which their services were really worth. While these people
were thus running from one manager to the other, supposing we were
rivals, Bennett said to me one day:
“You and I are like a pair of shears; we seem to cut each other, but we
only cut what comes between.”
I ran my opposition long enough to beat myself. It answered every
purpose, however, in awakening public attention to my Museum, and was an
advantage in preventing others from starting a genuine opposition. At
the end of six months, the whole establishment, including the splendid
gallery of American portraits, was removed to the American Museum and I
immediately advertised the great card of a “Double attraction” and “Two
Museums in One,” without extra charge.
A Museum proper obviously depends for patronage largely upon country
people who visit the city with a worthy curiosity to see the novelties
of the town. As I had opened a dramatic entertainment in connection with
my curiosities, it was clear that I must adapt my stage to the wants of
my country customers. While I was disposed to amuse my provincial
patrons, I was determined that there should be nothing in my
establishment, where many of my visitors would derive their first
impressions of city life, that could contaminate or corrupt them. At
this period, it was customary to tolerate very considerable license on
the stage. Things were said and done and permitted in theatres that
elsewhere would have been pronounced highly improper. The public seemed
to demand these things, and it is an axiom in political economy, that
the demand must regulate the supply. But I determined, at the start,
that, let the demand be what it might, the Museum dramatic
entertainments should be unexceptionable on the score of morality.
I have already mentioned some of the immediate reforms I made in the
abuses of the stage. I went farther, and, at the risk of some pecuniary
sacrifice, I abolished what was common enough in other theatres, even
the most “respectable,” and was generally known as the “third tier.” Nor
was a bar permitted on my premises. To be sure, I had no power to
prevent my patrons from going out between the acts and getting liquor if
they chose to do so, and I gave checks, as is done in other theatres,
and some of my city customers availed themselves of the opportunity to
go out for drinks and return again. Practically, then, it was much the
same as if I had kept a bar in the Museum, and so I abolished the check
business. There was great reason to apprehend that such a course would
rob me of the patronage of a considerable class of play-goers, but I
rigidly adhered to the new rule, and what I may have lost in money, I
more than gained in the greater decorum which characterized my
audiences.
The Museum became a mania with me and I made everything possible
subservient to it. On the eve of elections, rival politicians would ask
me for whom I was going to vote, and my answer invariably was, “I vote
for the American Museum.” In fact, at that time, I cared very little
about politics, and a great deal about my business. Meanwhile the Museum
prospered wonderfully, and everything I attempted or engaged in seemed
at the outset an assured success.
The giants whom I exhibited from time to time were always literally
great features in my establishment, and they oftentimes afforded me, as
well as my patrons, food for much amusement as well as wonder. The
Quaker giant, Hales, was quite a wag in his way. He went once to see the
new house of an acquaintance who had suddenly become rich, but who was a
very ignorant man. When he came back he described the wonders of the
mansion and said that the proud proprietor showed him everything from
basement to attic; “parlors, bed-rooms, dining room, and,” said Hales,
“what he called his ‘study’--meaning, I suppose, the place where he
intends to study his spelling-book!”
I had at one time two famous men, the French giant, M. Bihin, a very
slim man, and the Arabian giant, Colonel Goshen. These men generally got
on together very well, though, of course, each was jealous of the
other, and of the attention the rival received, or the notice he
attracted. One day they quarrelled, and a lively interchange of
compliments ensued, the Arabian calling the Frenchman a “Shanghai,” and
receiving in return the epithet of “Nigger.” From words both were eager
to proceed to blows, and both ran to my collection of arms, one seizing
the club with which Captain Cook or any other man might have been
killed, if it were judiciously wielded, and the other laying hands on a
sword of the terrific size which is supposed to have been conventional
in the days of the Crusades. The preparations for a deadly encounter,
and the high words of the contending parties brought a dozen of the
Museum _attaches_ to the spot, and these men threw themselves between
the gigantic combatants. Hearing the disturbance, I ran from my private
office to the duelling ground, and said:
“Look here! This is all right; if you want to fight each other, maiming
and perhaps killing one or both of you, that is your affair; but my
interest lies here--you are both under engagement to me, and if this
duel is to come off, I and the public have a right to participate. It
must be duly advertised, and must 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.”
This proposition, made in apparent earnest, so delighted the giants that
they at once burst into a laugh, shook hands, and quarrelled no more.
I now come to the details of one of the most interesting, as well as
successful, of all the show enterprises in which I have engaged--one
which not only taxed all my ingenuity and industry, but which gave
unqualified
[Illustration: _BATTLE OF THE GIANTS._]
delight to thousands of people on two continents and put enormous sums
of money into many pockets besides my own.
In November, 1842, I was in Albany on business, and as the Hudson River
was frozen over, I returned to New York by the Housatonic Railroad,
stopping one night at Bridgeport, Connecticut, with my brother, Philo F.
Barnum, who at that time kept the Franklin Hotel. I had heard of a
remarkably small child in Bridgeport, and, at my request, my brother
brought him to the hotel. He was not two feet high; he weighed less than
sixteen pounds, and was the smallest child I ever saw that could walk
alone; but he was a perfectly formed, bright-eyed little fellow, with
light hair and ruddy cheeks and he enjoyed the best of health. He was
exceedingly bashful, but after some coaxing he was induced to talk with
me, and he told me that he was the son of Sherwood E. Stratton, and that
his own name was Charles S. Stratton. After seeing him and talking with
him, I at once determined to secure his services from his parents and to
exhibit him in public.
But as he was only five years of age, to exhibit him as a “dwarf” might
provoke the inquiry “How do you know he is a dwarf?” Some liberty might
be taken with the facts, but even with this license, I felt that the
venture was only an experiment, and I engaged him for four weeks at
three dollars a week, with all travelling and boarding charges for
himself and his mother at my expense. They came to New York,
Thanksgiving day, December 8, 1842, and Mrs. Stratton was greatly
surprised to see her son announced on my Museum bills as “General Tom
Thumb.”
I took the greatest pains to educate and train my diminutive prodigy,
devoting many hours to the task by day and by night, and I was very
successful, for he was an apt pupil with a great deal of native talent,
and a keen sense of the ludicrous. He made rapid progress in preparing
himself for such performances as I wished him to undertake and he became
very much attached to his teacher.
When the four weeks expired, I re-engaged him for one year at seven
dollars a week, with a gratuity of fifty dollars at the end of the
engagement, and the privilege of exhibiting him anywhere in the United
States, in which event his parents were to accompany him and I was to
pay all travelling expenses. He speedily became a public favorite, and,
long before the year was out, I voluntarily increased his weekly salary
to twenty-five dollars, and he fairly earned it. Sometimes I exhibited
him for several weeks in succession at the Museum, and when I wished to
introduce other novelties I sent him to different towns and cities,
accompanied by my friend, Mr. Fordyce Hitchcock, and the fame of General
Tom Thumb soon spread throughout the country.
Two years had now elapsed since I bought the Museum and I had long since
paid for the entire establishment from the profits; I had bought out my
only rival; I was free from debt, and had a handsome surplus in the
treasury. The business had long ceased to be an experiment; it was an
established success and was in such perfect running order, that it could
safely be committed to the management of trustworthy and tried agents.
Accordingly, looking for a new field for my individual efforts, I
entered into an agreement for General Tom Thumb’s services for another
year, at fifty dollars a week and all expenses, with the privilege of
exhibiting him in Europe. I proposed to test the curiosity of men and
women on the other side of the Atlantic. Much as I hoped for success, in
my most sanguine moods, I could not anticipate the half of what was in
store for me; I did not foresee nor dream that I was shortly to be
brought in close contact with kings, queens, lords and illustrious
commoners, and that such association, by means of my exhibition, would
afterwards introduce me to the great public and the public’s money,
which was to fill my coffers. Or, if I saw some such future, it was
dreamily, dimly, and with half-opened eyes, as the man saw the “trees
walking.”
After arranging my business affairs for a long absence, and making every
preparation for an extended foreign tour, on Thursday, January 18, 1844,
I went on board the new and fine sailing ship “Yorkshire,” Captain D. G.
Bailey, bound for Liverpool. Our party included General Tom Thumb, his
parents, his tutor, and Professor Guillaudeu, the French naturalist. We
were accompanied by several personal friends, and the City Brass Band
kindly volunteered to escort us to Sandy Hook.
My name has been so long associated with mirthful incidents that I
presume many persons do not suppose I am susceptible of sorrowful, or
even sentimental emotions; but when the bell of the steamer that towed
our ship down the bay announced the hour of separation, and then
followed the hastily-spoken words of farewell, and the parting grasp of
friendly hands, I confess that I was very much in the “melting mood,”
and when the band played “Home, Sweet Home,” I was moved to tears.
A voyage to Liverpool is now an old, familiar story, and I abstain from
entering into details, though I have abundant material respecting my own
experiences of my first sea-voyage in the first two of a series of one
hundred letters which I wrote in Europe as correspondent of the New York
_Atlas_. But some of the incidents and adventures of my voyage on the
“Yorkshire” are worth transcribing in these pages of my personal
history.
Occasional calms and adverse winds protracted our passage to nineteen
days, but a better ship and a more competent captain never sailed. I was
entirely exempt from sea-sickness, and enjoyed the voyage very much.
Good fellowship prevailed among the passengers, the time passed rapidly,
and we had a good deal of fun on board.
Several of the passengers were English merchants from Canada and one of
the number, who reckoned himself “A, No. 1,” and often hinted that he
was too ‘cute for any Yankee, boasted so much of his shrewdness that a
Yankee friend of mine confederated with me to test it. I thought of an
old trick and arranged with my friend to try it on the boastful John
Bull. Coming out of my state-room, with my hand to my face, and
apparently in great pain, I asked my fellow passengers what was good for
the tooth-ache. My friend and confederate recommended heating tobacco,
and holding it to my face. I therefore borrowed a little tobacco, and
putting it in a paper of a peculiar color, placed it on the stove to
warm. I then retired for a few minutes, during which time the Yankee
proposed playing a trick on me by emptying the tobacco, and filling the
paper with ashes, which our smart Englishman thought would be a very
fine joke, and he himself made the substitution, putting ashes into the
paper and throwing the tobacco into the fire.
I soon reappeared and gravely placed the paper to my face to the great
amusement of the passengers and walked up and down the cabin as if I was
suffering terribly. At the further end of the cabin I slyly exchanged
the paper for another in my pocket of the same color and containing
tobacco and then walked back again a picture of misery. Whereupon, the
Merry Englishman cried out:
“Mr. Barnum, what have you got in that paper?”
“Tobacco,” I replied.
“What will you bet it is tobacco?” said the Englishman.
“Oh, don’t bother me,” said I; “my tooth pains me sadly; I know it is
tobacco, for I put it there myself.”
“I’ll bet you a dozen of champagne that it is not tobacco,” said the
Englishman.
“Nonsense,” I replied, “I will not bet, for it would not be fair; I know
it is tobacco.”
“I’ll bet you fifty dollars it is not,” said John Bull, and he counted
ten sovereigns upon the table.
“I’ll not bet the money,” I replied, “for I tell you I know it is
tobacco; I placed it there myself.”
“You dare not bet!” he rejoined.
At last, merely to accommodate him, I bet a dozen of champagne. The
Englishman fairly jumped with delight, and roared out:
“Open the paper! open the paper!”
The passengers crowded round the table in great glee to see me open the
paper, for all but the Yankee thought I was taken in. I quietly opened
the paper, and remarked:
“There, I told you it was tobacco--how foolish you were to suppose it
was not--for, as I told you, I put it there myself.”
The passengers, my confederate excepted, were amazed and the Englishman
was absolutely astounded. It was the biter bitten. But he told the
steward to bring the champagne, and turning to my confederate who had so
effectually assisted in “selling” him, he pronounced the affair “a
contemptible Yankee trick.” It was several days before he recovered his
good humor, but he joined at last with the rest of us in laughing at the
joke, and we heard no more about his extraordinary shrewdness.
On our arrival at Liverpool, quite a crowd had assembled at the dock to
see Tom Thumb, for it had been previously announced that he would arrive
in the “Yorkshire,” but his mother managed to smuggle him ashore
unnoticed, for she carried him, as if he was an infant, in her arms. We
went to the Waterloo Hotel, and, after an excellent dinner, walked out
to take a look at the town. While I was viewing the Nelson monument a
venerable looking, well-dressed old gentleman volunteered to explain to
me the different devices and inscriptions. I looked upon him as a
disinterested and attentive man of means who was anxious to assist a
stranger and to show his courtesy; but when I gave him a parting bow of
thanks, half ashamed that I had so trespassed on his kindness, he put
out the hand of a beggar and said that he would be thankful for any
remuneration I saw fit to bestow upon him for his trouble. I was
certainly astonished, and I thrust a shilling into his hand and walked
rapidly away.
In the evening of the same day, a tall, raw-boned man came to the hotel
and introduced himself to me as a brother Yankee, who would be happy in
pointing out the many wonders in Liverpool that a stranger would be
pleased to see.
I asked him how long he had been in Liverpool, and he replied, “Nearly a
week.” I declined his proffered services abruptly, remarking that if he
had been there only a week, I probably knew as much about England as he
did.
“Oh,” said he, “you are mistaken. I have been in England before, though
never till recently in Liverpool.”
“What part of England?” I inquired.
“Opposite Niagara Falls,” he replied; “I spent several days there with
the British soldiers.”
I laughed in his face, and reminded him that England did not lie
opposite Niagara Falls. The impudent fellow was confused for a moment,
and then triumphantly exclaimed:
“I didn’t mean England. I know what country it is as well as you do.”
“Well, what country is it?” I asked, quite assured that he did not know.
“Great Britain, of course,” he replied.
It is needless to add that the honor of his company as a guide in
Liverpool was declined, and he went off apparently in a huff because his
abilities were not appreciated.
Later in the evening, the proprietor of a cheap wax-works show, at three
ha’ pence admission, called upon me. He had heard of the arrival of the
great American curiosity, and he seized the earliest opportunity to make
the General and myself the magnificent offer of ten dollars a week if
we would join ourselves to his already remarkable and attractive
exhibition. I could not but think, that dwarfs must be literally at a
“low figure” in England, and my prospects were gloomy indeed. I was a
stranger in the land; my letters of introduction had not been delivered;
beyond my own little circle, I had not seen a friendly face, nor heard a
familiar voice. I was “blue,” homesick, almost in despair. Next morning,
there came a ray of sunshine in the following note:
“Madame CELESTE presents her compliments to Mr. Barnum, and begs to
say that her private box is quite at his service, any night, for
himself and friends.
“Theatre Royal, Williamson Square.”
This polite invitation was thankfully accepted, and we went to the
theatre that evening. Our party, including the General, who was partly
concealed by his tutor’s cloak, occupied Celeste’s box, and in the box
adjoining sat an English lady and gentleman whose appearance indicated
respectability, intelligence and wealth. The General’s interest in the
performance attracted their attention, and the lady remarked to me:
“What an intelligent-looking child you have! He appears to take quite an
interest in the stage.”
“Pardon me, madam,” said I, “this is not a child. This is General Tom
Thumb.”
“Indeed!” they exclaimed. They had seen the announcements of our visit
and were greatly gratified at an interview with the pigmy prodigy. They
at once advised me in the most complimentary and urgent manner to take
the General to Manchester, where they resided, assuring me that an
exhibition in that place would be highly remunerative. I thanked my new
friends for their counsel and encouragement, and ventured to ask them
what price they would recommend me to charge for admission.
“The General is so decidedly a curiosity,” said the lady, “that I think
you might put it as high as tuppence!” (two-pence.)
She was, however, promptly interrupted by her husband, who was evidently
the economist of the family: “I am sure you would not succeed at that
price,” said he; “you should put admission at one penny, for that is the
usual price for seeing giants and dwarfs in England.”
This was worse than the ten dollars a week offer of the wax-works
proprietor, but I promptly answered “Never shall the price be less than
one shilling sterling and some of the nobility and gentry of England
will yet pay gold to see General Tom Thumb.”
My letters of introduction speedily brought me into friendly relations
with many excellent families and I was induced to hire a hall and
present the General to the public, for a short season, in Liverpool. I
had intended to proceed directly to London and begin operations at
“head-quarters,” that is, in Buckingham Palace, if possible; but I had
been advised that the royal family was in mourning for the death of
Prince Albert’s father, and would not permit the approach of any
entertainments.
Meanwhile confidential letters from London informed me that Mr. Maddox,
Manager of Princess’s Theatre, was coming down to witness my exhibition,
with a view to making an engagement. He came privately, but I was fully
informed as to his presence and object. A friend pointed him out to me
in the hall, and when I stepped up to him, and called him by name, he
was “taken all aback,” and avowed his purpose in visiting Liverpool. An
interview resulted in an engagement of the General for three nights at
Princess’s Theatre. I was unwilling to contract for a longer period, and
even this short engagement, though on liberal terms, was acceded to only
as a means of advertisement. So soon, therefore, as I could bring my
short, but highly successful season in Liverpool to a close, we went to
London.