IN ENGLAND AGAIN.
LEVEES IN EGYPTIAN HALL--UNDIMINISHED SUCCESS--OTHER
ENGAGEMENTS--“UP IN A BALLOON”--PROVINCIAL TOUR--TRAVELLING BY
POST--GOING TO AMERICA--A. T. STEWART--SAMUEL ROGERS--AN EXTRA
TRAIN--AN ASTONISHED RAILWAY SUPERINTENDENT--LEFT BEHIND AND LOCKED
UP--SUNDAYS IN LONDON--BUSINESS AND PLEASURE--ALBERT SMITH--A DAY
WITH HIM AT WARWICK--STRATFORD ON AVON--A POETICAL BARBER--WARWICK
CASTLE--OLD GUY’S TRAPS--OFFER TO BUY THE LOT--THREAT TO BURST THE
SHOW--ALBERT SMITH AS A SHOWMAN--LEARNING THE BUSINESS FROM
BARNUM--THE WARWICK RACES--RIVAL DWARFS--MANUFACTURED
GIANTESSES--THE HAPPY FAMILY--THE ROAD FROM WARWICK TO
COVENTRY--PEEPING TOM--THE YANKEE GO-AHEAD PRINCIPLE--ALBERT
SMITH’S ACCOUNT OF A DAY WITH BARNUM.
In London the General again opened his levees in Egyptian Hall with
undiminished success. His unbounded popularity on the Continent and his
receptions by King Louis Philippe, of France, and King Leopold, of
Belgium, had added greatly to his prestige and fame. Those who had seen
him when he was in London months before came to see him again, and new
visitors crowded by thousands to the General’s levees.
Besides giving these daily entertainments, the General appeared
occasionally for an hour, during the intermissions, at some place in the
suburbs; and for a long time he appeared every day at the Surrey
Zoölogical Gardens, under the direction of the proprietor, my particular
friend Mr. W. Tyler. This place subsequently became celebrated for its
great music hall, in which Spurgeon, the sensational preacher, first
attained his notoriety. The place was always crowded, and when the
General had gone through with his performances on the little stage, in
order that all might see him he was put into a balloon which, secured by
ropes, was then passed around the ground just above the people’s heads.
Some forty men managed the ropes and prevented the balloon from rising;
but, one day, a sudden gust of wind took the balloon fairly out of the
hands of half the men who had hold of the ropes, while others were
lifted from the ground, and had not an alarm been instantly given which
called at least two hundred to the rescue the little General would have
been lost.
In addition to other engagements, the General frequently performed in
Douglass’s Standard Theatre, in the city, in the play “Hop o’ my Thumb,”
which was written for him by my friend, Albert Smith, whom I met soon
after my first arrival in London and with whom I became very intimate.
After my arrival in Paris, seeing the decided success of “Petit Poucet,”
it occurred to me that I should want such a play when I returned to
England and the United States. So I wrote to Mr. Albert Smith, inviting
him to make me a visit in Paris, intending to have him see this play and
either translate or adapt it, or write a new one in English. He came and
stayed with me a week, visiting the Vaudeville Theatre to see “Petit
Poucet” nearly every night, and we compared notes and settled upon a
plan for “Hop o’ my Thumb.” He went back to London and wrote the play
and it was very popular indeed.
During our stay of three months, at this time, in Egyptian Hall, we made
occasional excursions and gave exhibitions at Brighton, Bath,
Cheltenham, Leamington and other watering places and fashionable
resorts. It was at the height of the season in these places, and our
houses were very large and our profits in proportion.
In October, 1844, I made my first return visit to the United States,
leaving General Tom Thumb in England, in the hands of an accomplished
and faithful agent, who continued the exhibitions during my absence. One
of the principal reasons for my return at this time, was my anxiety to
renew the Museum building lease, although my first lease of five years
had still three years longer to run. I told Mr. Olmsted that if he would
not renew my lease on the same terms, for at least five years more, I
would immediately put up a new building, remove my Museum, close his
building during the last year of my lease, and cover it from top to
bottom with placards, stating where my new Museum was to be found.
Pending an arrangement, I went to Mr. A. T. Stewart, who had just
purchased the Washington Hall property, at the corner of Broadway and
Chambers Street, intending to erect a store on the site, and proposed to
join him in building, he to take the lower floor of the new store for
his business, and I to own and occupy the upper stories for my Museum.
He said he would give me an answer in the course of a week. Meanwhile,
Mr. Olmsted gave me the additional five years lease I asked, and I so
notified Mr. Stewart. Seeing the kind of building that Mr. Stewart
erected on his lots, I do not know if he seriously entertained my
proposition to join him in the enterprise; but he was by no means the
great merchant then he afterwards became, and neither of us then
thought, probably, of the gigantic enterprises we were subsequently to
undertake, and the great things we were to accomplish. Having completed
my business arrangements in New York, I returned to England with my wife
and daughters, and hired a house in London. My house was the scene of
constant hospitality which I extended to my numerous friends in return
for the many attentions shown to me. It seemed then as if I had more and
stronger friends in London than in New York. I had met and had been
introduced to “almost everybody who was anybody,” and among them all,
some of the best soon became to me much more than mere acquaintances.
Among the distinguished people whom I met, I was introduced to the
poet-banker, Samuel Rogers. I saw him at a dinner party at the residence
of the American Minister, the Honorable Edward Everett. The old banker
was very feeble, but careful nursing and all the appliances that
unbounded wealth could bring, still kept the life in him and he managed,
not only to continue to give his own celebrated breakfasts, but to go
out frequently to enjoy the hospitality of others. As we were going in
to dinner, I stepped aside, so that Mr. Rogers who was tottering along
leaning on the arm of a friend, could go in before me, when Mr. Rogers
said:
“Pass in, Mr. Barnum, pass in; I always consider it an honor to follow
an American.”
When our three months’ engagement at Egyptian Hall had expired, I
arranged for a protracted provincial tour through Great Britain. I had
made a flying visit to Scotland before we went to Paris--mainly to
procure the beautiful Scotch costumes, daggers, etc., which were
carefully made for the General at Edinburgh, and to teach the General
the Scotch dances, with a bit of the Scotch dialect, which added so much
to the interest of his exhibitions in Paris and elsewhere. My second
visit to Scotland, for the purpose of giving exhibitions, extended as
far as Aberdeen.
In England we went to Manchester, Birmingham, and to almost every city,
town, and even village of importance. We travelled by post much of the
time--that is, I had a suitable carriage made for my party, and a van
which conveyed the General’s carriage, ponies, and such other “property”
as was needed for our levees,--and we never had the slightest difficulty
in finding good post horses at every station where we wanted them. This
mode of travelling was not only very comfortable and independent, but it
enabled us to visit many out of the way places, off from the great lines
of travel, and in such places we gave some of our most successful
exhibitions. We also used the railway lines freely, leaving our
carriages at any station, and taking them up again when we returned.
I remember once making an extraordinary effort to reach a branch-line
station, where I meant to leave my teams and take the rail for Rugby. I
had a time-table, and knew at what hour exactly I could hit the train;
but unfortunately the axle to my carriage broke, and as an hour was lost
in repairing it, I lost exactly an hour in reaching the station. The
train had long been gone, and I must be in Rugby, where we had
advertised a performance. I stormed around till I found the
superintendent, and told him “I must instantly have an extra train to
Rugby.”
“Extra train!” said he, with surprise and a half sneer, “extra train!
why you can’t have an extra train to Rugby for less than sixty pounds.”
“Is that all?” I asked; “well, get up your train immediately and here
are your sixty pounds. What in the world are sixty pounds to me, when I
wish to go to Rugby, or elsewhere, in a hurry!”
The astonished superintendent took the money, bustled about, and the
train was soon ready. He was greatly puzzled to know what distinguished
person--he thought he must be dealing with some prince, or, at least, a
duke--was willing to give so much money to save a few hours of time, and
he hesitatingly asked whom he had the honor of serving.
“General Tom Thumb.”
We reached Rugby in time to give our performance, as announced, and our
receipts were £160, which quite covered the expense of our extra train
and left a handsome margin for profit.
When we were in Oxford, a dozen or more of the students came to the
conclusion that as the General was a little fellow, the admission fee to
his entertainments should be paid in the smallest kind of money. They
accordingly provided themselves with farthings, and as each man entered,
instead of handing in a shilling for his ticket, he laid down
forty-eight farthings. The counting of these small coins was a great
annoyance to Mr. Stratton, the General’s father, who was ticket seller,
and after counting two or three handsful, vexed at the delay which was
preventing a crowd of ladies and gentlemen from buying tickets, Mr.
Stratton lost his temper and cried out:
“Blast your quarter pennies! I am not going to count them! you chaps who
haven’t bigger money can chuck your copper into my hat and walk in.”
At Cambridge, some of the under-graduates pretended to take offence
because our check-taker would not permit them to smoke in the exhibition
hall, and one of them managed to involve him in a quarrel which ended
with a challenge from the student to the check-taker, who was sure he
must fight a duel at sunrise the next morning, and as he expected to be
shot, he suffered the greatest mental agony. About midnight, however,
after he had been sufficiently scared, I brought him the gratifying
intelligence that I had succeeded in settling the dispute. His gratitude
at the relief thus afforded, knew no bounds.
Mr. Stratton was a genuine Yankee, and thoroughly conversant with the
Yankee vernacular, which he used freely. In exhibiting the General, I
often said to visitors, that Tom Thumb’s parents and the rest of the
family were persons of the ordinary size, and that the gentleman who
presided in the ticket-office was the General’s father. This made poor
Stratton an object of no little curiosity, and he was pestered with all
sorts of questions; on one occasion an old dowager said to him:
“Are you really the father of General Tom Thumb?”
“Wa’al,” replied Stratton, “I have to support him!”
This evasive method of answering is common enough in New England, but
the literal dowager had her doubts, and promptly rejoined:
“I rather think he supports you!”
In my journeyings through England, I always tried to get back to London
Saturday night, so as to pass Sunday with my family, and to meet the
friends whom we invited to dine with us on the only day in the week when
I could be at home. The railway facilities are so excellent in England,
that, no matter how far I might be from London, I could generally reach
that city by Sunday morning, and yet do a full week’s work in the
provinces. This, however, necessitated travel Saturday night, and while
I travelled I must sleep. Sleeping cars were, and, I believe, still are
unknown in that country; but I travelled so much, and was, by this time,
so well known to the guards on the leading lines, that I could
generally secure one of the compartments in a first-class “coach” to
myself, and my method for obtaining a good night’s sleep, was to lay the
seat-cushions on the floor of the car, thus, with my blanket to cover
me, making a tolerable bed.
On one of these Saturday night excursions, I lay down on my extemporized
couch, with the expectation of arriving at London at five o’clock in the
morning. When I awoke the car was standing still, and the sun was well
up in the heavens. Thinking we were very much behind time, and wondering
why the train did not go on, at last I got up and looked out of the
window, and, to my utter amazement, I found my car locked up in a yard,
surrounded by a high fence. Espying a man who seemed to have charge of
the premises, I shouted to him to come and let me out of the car, which
was also locked. It instantly flashed across my mind that at this
station, the guard, seeing no person sitting on the seats in the car,
and concluding that it was empty, had detached it from the train, and
switched it off into the yard. The astonished man whom I summoned to my
assistance, informed me that I was sixty miles from London, and that
there would not be another train to the city till evening. It was ten
o’clock, and I was to have been home at five. I raised a great row, and
demanded as my right an extra train to carry me to London, to meet the
friends whom it was all-important I should see that day. I had to wait,
however, till evening, and I arrived home at seven or eight o’clock,
long after my friends had gone, though to the great gratification of my
family, who thought some serious accident must have happened to me.
It must not be supposed that during my protracted stay abroad I confined
myself wholly to business or limited my circle of observation with a
golden rim. To be sure, I ever had “an eye to business,” but I had also
two eyes for observation and these were busily employed in leisure
hours. I made the most of my opportunities and saw, hurriedly, it is
true, nearly everything worth seeing in the various places which I
visited. All Europe was a great curiosity shop to me and I willingly
paid my money for the show.
While in London, my friend Albert Smith, a jolly companion, as well as a
witty and sensible author, promised that when I reached Birmingham he
would come and spend a day with me in “sight-seeing,” including a visit
to the house in which Shakespeare was born.
Early one morning in the autumn of 1844, my friend Smith and myself took
the box-seat of an English mail-coach, and were soon whirling at the
rate of twelve miles an hour over the magnificent road leading from
Birmingham to Stratford. The distance is thirty miles. At a little
village four miles from Stratford, we found that the fame of the bard of
Avon had travelled thus far, for we noticed a sign over a miserable
barber’s shop, “Shakespeare hair-dressing--a good shave for a penny.” In
twenty minutes more we were set down at the door of the Red Horse Hotel,
in Stratford. The coachman and guard were each paid half a crown as
their perquisites.
While breakfast was preparing, we called for a guide-book to the town,
and the waiter brought in a book, saying that we should find in it the
best description extant of the birth and burial place of Shakespeare. I
was not a little proud to find this volume to be no other than the
“Sketch-Book” of our illustrious countryman, Washington Irving; and in
glancing over his humorous description of the place, I discovered that
he had stopped at the same hotel where we were then awaiting breakfast.
After examining the Shakespeare House, as well as the tomb and the
church in which all that is mortal of the great poet rests, we ordered a
post-chaise for Warwick Castle. While the horses were harnessing, a
stage-coach stopped at the hotel, and two gentlemen alighted. One was a
sedate, sensible-looking man; the other an addle-headed fop. The former
was mild and unassuming in his manners; the latter was all talk, without
sense or meaning--in fact, a regular Charles Chatterbox. He evidently
had a high opinion of himself, and was determined that all within
hearing should understand that he was--somebody. Presently the sedate
gentleman said:
“Edward, this is Stratford. Let us go and see the house where
Shakespeare was born.”
“Who the devil is Shakespeare?” asked the sensible young gentleman.
Our post-chaise was at the door; we leaped into it, and were off,
leaving the “nice young man” to enjoy a visit to the birth-place of an
individual of whom he had never before heard. The distance to Warwick is
fourteen miles. We went to the Castle, and approaching the door of the
Great Hall, were informed by a well-dressed porter that the Earl of
Warwick and family were absent, and that he was permitted to show the
apartments to visitors. He introduced us successively into the “Red
Drawing-Room,” “The Cedar Drawing-Room,” “The Gilt Room,” “The State
Bed-Room,” “Lady Warwick’s Boudoir,” “The Compass Room,” “The Chapel,”
and “The Great Dining-Room.” As we passed out of the Castle, the polite
porter touched his head (he of course had no hat on it) in a style which
spoke plainer than words, “Half a crown each, if you please, gentlemen.”
We responded to the call, and were then placed in charge of another
guide, who took us to the top of “Guy’s Tower,” at the bottom of which
he touched his hat a shilling’s worth; and placing ourselves in charge
of a third conductor, an old man of seventy, we proceeded to the
Greenhouse to see the Warwick Vase--each guide announcing at the end of
his short tour: “Gentlemen, I go no farther,” and indicating that the
bill for his services was to be paid. The old gentleman mounted a
rostrum at the side of the vase, and commenced a set speech, which we
began to fear was interminable; so tossing him the usual fee, we left
him in the middle of his oration.
Passing through the porter’s lodge on our way out, under the impression
that we had seen all that was interesting, the old porter informed us
that the most curious things connected with the Castle were to be seen
in his lodge. Feeling for our coin, we bade him produce his relics, and
he showed us a lot of trumpery, which, he gravely informed us, belonged
to that hero of antiquity, Guy, Earl of Warwick. Among these were his
sword, shield, helmet, breast-plate, walking-staff, and tilting-pole,
each of enormous size--the horse armor nearly large enough for an
elephant, a large pot which would hold seventy gallons, called “Guy’s
Porridge Pot,” his flesh-fork, the size of a farmer’s hay-fork, his
lady’s stirrups, the rib of a mastodon which the porter pretended
belonged to the great “Dun Cow,” which, according to tradition, haunted
a ditch near Coventry, and after doing injury to many persons, was slain
by the valiant Guy. The sword weighed nearly 200 pounds, and the armor
400 pounds.
I told the old porter he was entitled to great credit for having
concentrated more lies than I had ever before heard in so small a
compass. He smiled, and evidently felt gratified by the compliment.
“I suppose,” I continued, “that you have told these marvellous stories
so often, that you believe them yourself?”
“Almost!” replied the porter, with a grin of satisfaction that showed he
was “up to snuff,” and had really earned two shillings.
“Come now, old fellow,” said I, “what will you take for the entire lot
of those traps? I want them for my Museum in America.”
“No money would buy these valuable historical mementos of a by-gone
age,” replied the old porter with a leer.
“Never mind,” I exclaimed; “I’ll have them duplicated for my Museum, so
that Americans can see them and avoid the necessity of coming here, and
in that way I’ll burst up your show.”
Albert Smith laughed immoderately at the astonishment of the porter when
I made this threat, and I was greatly amused, some years afterwards,
when Albert Smith became a successful showman and was exhibiting his
“Mont Blanc” to delighted audiences in London, to discover that he had
introduced this very incident into his lecture, of course, changing the
names and locality. He often confessed that he derived his very first
idea of becoming a showman from my talk about the business and my
doings, on this charming day when we visited Warwick.
The “Warwick races” were coming off that day, within half a mile of the
village, and we therefore went down and spent an hour with the
multitude. There was very little excitement regarding the races, and we
concluded to take a tour through the “penny shows,” the vans of which
lined one side of the course for the distance of a quarter of a mile. On
applying to enter one van, which had a large pictorial sign of
giantesses, white negro, Albino girls, learned pig, big snakes, etc.,
the keeper exclaimed:
“Come, Mister, you is the man what hired Randall, the giant, for
‘Merika, and you shows Tom Thumb; now can you think of paying less than
sixpence for going in here?”
The appeal was irresistible; so, satisfying his demands, we entered.
Upon coming out, a whole bevy of showmen from that and neighboring vans
surrounded me, and began descanting on the merits and demerits of
General Tom Thumb.
“Oh,” says one, “I knows two dwarfs what is better ten times as Tom
Thumb.”
“Yes,” says another, “there’s no use to talk about Tom Thumb while Melia
Patton is above the ground.”
“Now, I’ve seen Tom Thumb,” added a third, “and he is a fine little
squab, but the only ‘vantage he’s got is he can chaff so well. He chaffs
like a man; but I can learn Dick Swift in two months, so that he can
chaff Tom Thumb crazy.”
“Never mind,” added a fourth, “I’ve got a chap training what you none on
you knows, what’ll beat all the ‘thumbs’ on your grapplers.”
“No, he can’t,” exclaimed a fifth, “for Tom Thumb has got the name, and
you all know the name’s everything. Tom Thumb couldn’t never shine, even
in my van, ‘long side of a dozen dwarfs I knows, if this Yankee hadn’t
bamboozled our Queen,--God bless her--by getting him afore her half a
dozen times.”
“Yes, yes,--that’s the ticket,” exclaimed another; “our Queen patronizes
everything foreign, and yet she wouldn’t visit my beautiful wax-works to
save the crown of Hingland.”
“Your beautiful wax-works!” they all exclaimed, with a hearty laugh.
“Yes, and who says they haint beautiful?” retorted the other; “they was
made by the best Hitalian hartist in this country.”
“They was made by Jim Caul, and showed all over the country twenty years
ago,” rejoined another; “and arter that they laid five years in pawn in
old Moll Wiggin’s cellar, covered with mould and dust.”
“Well, that’s a good ’un, that is!” replied the proprietor of the
beautiful wax-works, with a look of disdain.
I made a move to depart, when one of the head showmen exclaimed, “Come,
Mister, don’t be shabby; can you think of going without standing treat
all round?”
“Why should I stand treat?” I asked.
“‘Cause ’tain’t every day you can meet such a bloody lot of jolly
brother-showmen,” replied Mr. Wax-works.
I handed out a crown, and left them to drink bad luck to the “foreign
wagabonds what would bamboozle their Queen with inferior dwarfs,
possessing no advantage over the ‘natyves’ but the power of chaffing.”
While in the showmen’s vans seeking for acquisitions to my Museum in
America, I was struck with the tall appearance of a couple of females
who exhibited as the “Canadian giantesses, each seven feet in height.”
Suspecting that a cheat was hidden under their unfashionably long
dresses, which reached to the floor and thus rendered their feet
invisible, I attempted to solve the mystery by raising a foot or two of
the superfluous covering. The strapping young lady, not relishing such
liberties from a stranger, laid me flat upon the floor with a blow from
her brawny hand. I was on my feet again in tolerably quick time, but not
until I had discovered that she stood upon a pedestal at least eighteen
inches high.
We returned to the hotel, took a post-chaise, and drove through
decidedly the most lovely country I ever beheld. Since taking that tour,
I have heard that two gentlemen once made a bet, each, that he could
name the most delightful drive in England. Many persons were present,
and the two gentlemen wrote on separate slips of paper the scene which
he most admired. One gentleman wrote, “The road from Warwick to
Coventry;” the other had written, “The road from Coventry to Warwick.”
In less than an hour we were set down at the outer walls of Kenilworth
Castle, which Scott has greatly aided to immortalize in his celebrated
novel of that name. This once noble and magnificent castle is now a
stupendous ruin, which has been so often described that I think it
unnecessary to say anything about it here. We spent half an hour in
examining the interesting ruins, and then proceeded by post-chaise to
Coventry, a distance of six or eight miles. Here we remained four hours,
during which time we visited St. Mary’s Hall, which has attracted the
notice of many antiquaries. We also took our own “peep” at the effigy
of the celebrated “Peeping Tom,” after which we visited an exhibition
called the “Happy Family,” consisting of about two hundred birds and
animals of opposite natures and propensities, all living in harmony
together in one cage. This exhibition was so remarkable that I bought it
and hired the proprietor to accompany it to New York, and it became an
attractive feature in my Museum.
We took the cars the same evening for Birmingham, where we arrived at
ten o’clock, Albert Smith remarking, that never before in his life had
he accomplished a day’s journey on the Yankee go-ahead principle. He
afterwards published a chapter in _Bentley’s Magazine_ entitled “A Day
with Barnum,” in which he said we accomplished business with such
rapidity, that when he attempted to write out the accounts of the day,
he found the whole thing so confused in his brain that he came near
locating “Peeping Tom” in the house of Shakespeare, while Guy of Warwick
_would_ stick his head above the ruins of Kenilworth, and the Warwick
Vase appeared in Coventry.