IN HOLLAND.
THE FINEST AND FLATTEST COUNTRY IN THE
WORLD--SUPER-CLEANLINESS--HABITS AND CUSTOMS--“KREMIS”--THE ALBINO
FAMILY--THE HAGUE--AUGUST BELMONT--JAPANESE MUSEUM--MANUFACTURED
FABULOUS ANIMALS--A GENEROUS OFFER--VALUABLE PICTURES--AN
ASTONISHED SUPERINTENDENT--BACK TO ENGLAND--EXHIBITIONS IN
MANCHESTER--I RETURN AGAIN TO AMERICA--FUN ON THE VOYAGE--MOCK
TRIALS--BARNUM AS A PROSECUTOR AND AS A PRISONER--COLD SHOULDERS IN
NEW YORK--PREPARING TO MOVE INTO MY OLD HOME--CARELESS PAINTERS AND
CARPENTERS--IRANISTAN BURNED TO THE GROUND--NEXT TO NO
INSURANCE--SALE OF THE PROPERTY--ELIAS HOWE, JR.
Holland gave me more genuine satisfaction than any other foreign country
I have ever visited, if I except Great Britain. Redeemed as a large
portion of the whole surface of the land has been from the bottom of the
sea by the wonderful dykes, which are monuments of the industry of whole
generations of human beavers, Holland seems to me the most curious as
well as interesting country in the world. The people, too, with their
quaint costumes, their extraordinary cleanliness, their thrift, industry
and frugality, pleased me very much. It is the universal testimony of
all travellers that the Hollanders are the neatest and most economical
people among all nations. So far as cleanliness is concerned, in Holland
it is evidently not next to, but far ahead of godliness. It is rare,
indeed, to meet a ragged, dirty, or drunken person. The people are very
temperate and economical in their habits; and even the very rich,--and
there is a vast amount of wealth in the country--live with great
frugality, though all of the people live well.
As for the scenery I cannot say much for it, since it is only
diversified by thousands of windmills, which are made to do all kinds of
work, from grinding grain to pumping water from the inside of the dykes
back to the sea again. As I exhibited the General only in Rotterdam and
Amsterdam, and to no great profit in either city, we spent most of our
time in rambling about to see what was to be seen. In the country
villages it seemed as if every house was scrubbed twice and white-washed
once every day in the week, excepting Sunday. Some places were almost
painfully pure, and I was in one village where horses and cattle were
not allowed to go through the streets, and no one was permitted to wear
their boots or shoes in the houses. There is a general and constant
exercise of brooms, pails, floor brushes and mops all over Holland, and
in some places even, this kind of thing is carried so far, I am told,
that the only trees set out are scrub-oaks.
The reason, I think, why our exhibitions were not more successful in
Rotterdam and Amsterdam, is that the people are too frugal to spend much
money for amusement, but they and their habits and ways afforded us so
much amusement, that we were quite willing they should give our
entertainment the “go by,” as they generally did. We were in Amsterdam
at the season of “Kremis,” or the annual Fair which is held in all the
principal towns, and where shows of all descriptions are open, at prices
for admission ranging from one to five pennies, and are attended by
nearly the whole population. For the people generally, this one great
holiday seems all-sufficient for the whole year. I went through scores
of booths, where curiosities and monstrosities of all kinds were
exhibited, and was able to make some purchases and engagements for the
American Museum. Among these, was the Albino family, consisting of a
man, his wife, and son, who were by far the most interesting and
attractive specimens of their class I had ever seen.
We visited the Hague, the capital and the finest city in Holland. It is
handsomely and regularly laid out, and contains a beautiful theatre, a
public picture-gallery, which contains some of the best works of
Vandyke, Paul Potter, and other Dutch masters, while the museum is
especially rich in rarities from China and Japan. When we arrived at the
Hague, Mr. August Belmont, who had been the United States Minister at
that court, had just gone home; but I heard many encomiums passed upon
him and his family, and I was told some pretty good stories of his
familiarity with the king, and of the “jolly times” these two personages
frequently enjoyed together. I did not miss visiting the great
government museum, as I wished particularly to see the rich collection
of Japan ware and arms, made during the many years when the Dutch
carried on almost exclusively the entire foreign trade with the
Japanese. I spent several days in minutely examining these curious
manufactures of a people, who were then almost as little known to
nations generally as are the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter.
On the first day of my visit to this museum, I stood for an hour before
a large case containing a most unique and extraordinary collection of
fabulous animals, made from paper and other materials, and looking as
natural and genuine as the stuffed skins of any animals in the American
Museum. There were serpents two yards long, with a head and pair of feet
at each end; frogs as large as a man, with human hands and feet; turtles
with three heads; monkeys with two heads and six legs; scores of equally
curious monstrosities; and at least two dozen mermaids, of all sorts and
sizes. Looking at these “sirens” I easily divined from whence the Fejee
mermaid originated.
While I was standing near this remarkable cabinet the superintendent of
the Museum came, and, introducing himself to me, asked me from what
country I came and how I liked the Museum. I told him that I was an
American and that the collection was interesting and remarkable, adding:
“You seem to have a great variety of mermaids here.”
“Yes,” he replied; “the Japanese exercise great ingenuity in
manufacturing fabulous animals, especially mermaids; and by the way,” he
added, “your great showman, Barnum, is said to have succeeded in
humbugging the Americans to a very considerable extent, by means of what
he claimed to be a veritable mermaid.”
I said that such was the story, though I believed that Barnum only used
the mermaid as an advertisement for his Museum.
“Perhaps so,” responded the superintendent, “but he is a shrewd and
industrious manager. We have had frequent applications from his European
agents for duplicates from our collection and have occasionally sold
some to them to be sent to America.”
The superintendent then politely asked me to go into his office, as he
had something to offer me, which, as an American gentleman, he was sure
I would prize highly; but the business was of a strictly confidential
character. He asked me to be seated, and cautiously locking the door and
drawing his chair near to mine, he informed me in a tone scarcely above
a whisper that he was the executor of the estate of a wealthy gentleman,
recently deceased, with power to dispose of the property, which included
a large number of exceedingly valuable ancient and modern paintings.
“You must be well aware,” he continued, “that my countrymen would be
extremely unwilling to permit these precious specimens of art to leave
Holland, but,” and here he gave my hand a slight but most friendly
squeeze, “I have such a high respect, I might almost say reverence for
your great republic that I am only too happy in the opportunity now
afforded me of allowing you to take a very few of these fine paintings
to America at an unprecedentedly low price.”
I thought he was a little too generous, and I gave him what the Irishman
called an “evasive answer;” but this only seemed to stimulate him to
further efforts to effect a sale,--so he turned to his memorandum book
and pointed out the names of gentlemen from Boston, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and New Orleans, who had ordered one or more cases from this
large gallery of paintings. This exhibition was conclusive, and I at
once said that I would not decide to purchase till I returned from
Amsterdam. I quite understood the whole thing; but not to leave my
anxious friend too long in suspense I quietly handed my card to him,
remarking, “Perhaps you have heard of that name before.”
His cheeks were fairly crimson; “surely,” said he, “you are not Mr.
Barnum, of the New York Museum?”
“Nobody else,” I replied with a laugh.
He stammered out an apology for his mermaid remarks, but I patted him on
the shoulder in a friendly way, telling him it was “all right,” and that
I considered it a capital joke. This re-assured him and we then had a
very pleasant half-hour’s conversation, in which he gave me several
valuable hints of curiosities to be procured at the Hague and elsewhere
in Holland, and we parted good friends.
A week afterwards, a young gentleman from Boston introduced himself to
me at Amsterdam and remarked that he knew I was there for he had been so
informed by the museum superintendent at the Hague. “And, by the by,” he
added, “as soon as this superintendent discovered I was from America, he
told me if I would go into his office he would show me the greatest
curiosity in the Museum. I went, and he pointed to the card of ‘P. T.
Barnum’ which he had conspicuously nailed up over his desk; he then told
me about your visit to the museum last week.”
“Did he sell you any paintings?” I asked.
“No,” was the reply; “but he informed me that as executor of an estate,
including a fine gallery, he could sell me a few cases at a very low
price, mainly on account of his high regard for the great republic to
which I belonged.”
I have no doubt that this estate is still unsettled, and that a few of
the valuable paintings, if cheap Dutch artists keep up the supply, are
still for sale to the public generally, and to representatives of the
revered republic especially. Undoubtedly this kind of business will
continue so long as Waterloo relics are manufactured at Birmingham, and
are sent to be plowed in and dug up again on the memorable field where
Wellington met Napoleon. And how many very worthy persons there are,
like the superintendent of the Hague Museum, who have been terribly
shocked at the story of the Fejee Mermaid and the Woolly Horse!
After a truly delightful visit in Holland, we went back to England; and,
proceeding to Manchester, opened our exhibition. For several days the
hall was crowded to overflowing at each of the three, and sometimes
four, entertainments we gave every day. By this time, my wife and two
youngest daughters had come over to London, and I hired furnished
lodgings in the suburbs where they could live within the strictest
limits of economy. It was necessary now for me to return for a few weeks
to America, to assist personally in forwarding a settlement of the clock
difficulties. So leaving the little General in the hands of trusty and
competent agents to carry on the exhibitions in my absence, I set my
face once more towards home and the west, and took steamer at Liverpool
for New York.
The trip, like most of the passages which I have made across the
Atlantic, was an exceedingly pleasant one. These frequent voyages were
to me the rests, the reliefs from almost unremitting industry, anxiety,
and care, and I always managed to have more or less fun on board ship
every time I crossed the ocean. During the present trip, for amusement
and to pass away the time, the passengers got up a number of mock trials
which afforded a vast deal of fun. A judge was selected, jurymen drawn,
prisoners arraigned, counsel employed, and all the formalities of a
court established. I have the vanity to think that if my good fortune
had directed me to that profession I should have made a very fair
lawyer, for I have always had a great fondness for debate and especially
for the cross-examination of witnesses, unless that witness was P. T.
Barnum in examination under supplementary proceedings at the instance of
some note-shaver who had bought a clock note at a discount of thirty-six
per cent. In this mock court, I was unanimously chosen as prosecuting
attorney, and as the court was established expressly to convict, I had
no difficulty in carrying the jury and securing the punishment of the
prisoner. A small fine was generally imposed, and the fund thus
collected was given to a poor sailor boy who had fallen from the mast
and broken his leg.
After several of these trials had been held, a dozen or more of the
passengers secretly put their heads together and resolved to place the
“showman” on trial for his life. An indictment covering twenty pages was
drawn up by several legal gentlemen among the passengers, charging him
with being the Prince of Humbugs, and enumerating a dozen special
counts, containing charges of the most absurd and ridiculous
description. Witnesses were then brought together, and privately
instructed what to say and do. Two or three days were devoted to
arranging this mighty prosecution. When everything was ready, I was
arrested, and the formidable indictment read to me. I saw at a glance
that time and talent had been brought into requisition, and that my
trial was to be more elaborate than any that had preceded it. I asked
for half an hour to prepare for my defence, which was granted.
Meanwhile, seats were arranged to accommodate the court and spectators,
and extra settees were placed for the ladies on the upper deck, where
they could look down, see and hear all that transpired. Curiosity was on
tip-toe, for it was evident that this was to be a long, exciting and
laughable trial. At the end of half an hour the judge was on the bench,
the jury had taken their places; the witnesses were ready; the counsel
for the prosecution, four in number, with pens, ink, and paper in
profusion, were seated and everything seemed ready. I was brought in by
a special constable, the indictment read, and I was asked to plead
guilty, or not guilty. I rose, and in a most solemn manner stated that I
could not conscientiously plead guilty or not guilty; that I had in fact
committed many of the acts charged in the indictment, but these acts I
was ready to show were not criminal, but on the contrary, worthy of
praise. My plea was received and the first witness called.
He testified to having visited the prisoner’s Museum, and of being
humbugged by the Fejee Mermaid; the nurse of Washington; and by other
curiosities, natural and unnatural. The questions and answers having
been all arranged in advance, everything worked smoothly. Acting as my
own counsel, I cross-examined the witness by simply asking whether he
saw anything else in the Museum besides what he had mentioned.
“Oh! yes, I saw thousands of other things.”
“Were they curious?”
“Certainly; many of them very astonishing.”
“Did you witness a dramatic representation in the Museum?”
“Yes, sir, a very good one.”
“What did you pay for all this?”
“Twenty-five cents.”
“That will do, sir; you can step down.”
A second, third and fourth witness were called, and the examination was
similar to the foregoing. Another witness then appeared to testify in
regard to another count in the indictment. He stated that for several
weeks he was the guest of the prisoner at his country residence,
Iranistan, and he gave a most amusing description of the various schemes
and contrivances which were there originated for the purpose of being
carried out at some future day in the Museum.
“How did you live there?” asked one of the counsel for the prosecution.
“Very well, indeed, in the daytime,” was the reply; “plenty of the best
to eat and drink, except liquors. In bed, however, it was impossible to
sleep. I rose the first night, struck a light, and on examination found
myself covered with myriads of little bugs, so small as to be almost
imperceptible. By using my microscope I discovered them to be infantile
bedbugs. After the first night I was obliged to sleep in the coach-house
in order to escape this annoyance.”
Of course this elicited much mirth. The first question put on the
cross-examination was this:
“Are you a naturalist, sir?”
The witness hesitated. In all the drilling that had taken place before
the trial, neither the counsel nor witnesses had thought of what
questions might come up in the cross-examination, and now, not seeing
the drift of question, the witness seemed a little bewildered, and the
counsel for the prosecution looked puzzled.
The question was repeated with some emphasis.
“No, sir!” replied the witness, hesitatingly, “I am not a naturalist.”
“Then, sir, not being a naturalist, dare you affirm that those
microscopic insects were not humbugs instead of bedbugs”--(here the
prisoner was interrupted by a universal shout of laughter, in which the
solemn judge himself joined)--“and if they were humbugs, I suppose that
even the learned counsel opposed to me, will not claim that they were
out of place?”
“They may have been humbugs,” replied the witness.
“That will do, sir--you may go,” said I; and at the same time turning to
the array of counsel, I remarked, with a smile, “You had better have a
naturalist for your next witness, gentlemen.”
“Don’t be alarmed, sir, we have got one, and we will now introduce him,”
replied the counsel.
The next witness testified that he was a planter from Georgia, that some
years since the prisoner visited his plantation with a show, and that
while there he discovered an old worthless donkey belonging to the
planter, and bought him for five dollars--the next year the witness
visited Iranistan, the country seat of the prisoner, and, while walking
about the grounds, his old donkey, recognizing his former master,
brayed; “whereupon,” continued the witness, “I walked up to the animal
and found that two men were engaged in sticking wool upon him, and this
animal was afterwards exhibited by the prisoner as the woolly horse.”
The whole court--spectators, and even the “prisoner” himself were
convulsed with laughter at the gravity with which the planter gave his
very ludicrous testimony.
“What evidence have you,” I inquired, “that this was the same donkey
which you sold to me?”
“The fact that the animal recognized me, as was evident from his braying
as soon as he saw me.”
“Are you a naturalist, sir?”
“Yes, I am,” replied the planter, with firm emphasis, as much as to say,
you can’t catch me as you did the other witness.
“Oh! you are a naturalist, are you? Then, sir, I ask you, as a
naturalist, do you not know it to be a fact in natural history that one
jackass always brays as soon as he sees another?”
This question was received with shouts of laughter, in the midst of
which the nonplussed witness backed out of court, and all the efforts of
special constables, and even the high sheriff himself, were unavailing
in getting him again on the witness stand.
This trial lasted two days, to the great delight of all on board. After
my success with the “naturalist” not one half of the witnesses would
appear against me. In my final argument I sifted the testimony, analyzed
its bearings, ruffled the learned counsel, disconcerted the witnesses,
flattered the judge and jury, and when the judge had delivered his
charge, the jury acquitted me without leaving their seats. The judge
received the verdict, and then announced that he should fine the
naturalist for the mistake he made, as to the cause of the donkey’s
braying, and he should also fine the several witnesses, who, through
fear of the cross-fire, had refused to testify.
The trial afforded a pleasant topic of conversation for the rest of the
voyage; and the morning before arriving in port, a vote of thanks was
passed to me, in consideration of the amusement I had intentionally and
unintentionally furnished to the passengers during the voyage.
After my arrival in New York, oftentimes in passing up and down
Broadway I saw old and prosperous friends coming, but before I came
anywhere near them, if they espied me they would dodge into a store, or
across the street, or opportunely meet some one with whom they had
pressing business, or they would be very much interested in something
that was going on over the way or on top of the City Hall. I was
delighted at this, for it gave me at once a new sensation and a new
experience. “Ah, ha!” I said to myself; “my butterfly friends, I know
you now; and what is more to the point, if ever I get out of this
bewilderment of broken clock-wheels, I shall not forget you”; and I
heartily thanked the old clock concern for giving me the opportunity to
learn this sad but most needful lesson. I had a very few of the same
sort of experiences in Bridgeport, and they proved valuable to me.
Mr. James D. Johnson, of Bridgeport, one of my assignees, who had
written to me that my personal presence might facilitate a settlement of
my affairs, told me soon after my arrival that there was no probability
of disposing of Iranistan at present, and that I might as well move my
family into the house. I had arrived in August and my family followed me
from London in September, and October 20, 1857, my second daughter,
Helen, was married in the house of her elder sister, Mrs. D. W.
Thompson, in Bridgeport, to Mr. Samuel H. Hurd.
Meanwhile, Iranistan which had been closed and unoccupied for more than
two years, was once more opened to the carpenters and painters whom Mr.
Johnson sent there to put the house in order. He agreed with me that it
was best to keep the property as long as possible, and in the interval,
till a purchaser for the estate appeared, or till it was forced to
auction, to take up the clock notes whenever they were offered. The
workmen who were employed in the house were specially instructed not to
smoke there, but nevertheless it was subsequently discovered that some
of the men were in the habit occasionally of going into the main dome to
eat their dinners which they brought with them, and that they stayed
there awhile after dinner to smoke their pipes. In all probability, one
of these lighted pipes was left on the cushion which covered the
circular seat in the dome and ignited the tow with which the cushion was
stuffed. It may have been days and even weeks before this smouldering
tow fire burst into flame.
I was staying at the Astor House, in New York, when, on the morning of
December 18, 1857, I received a telegram from my brother Philo F.
Barnum, dated at Bridgeport and informing me that Iranistan was burned
to the ground that morning. The alarm was given at eleven o’clock on the
night of the 17th, and the fire burned till one o’clock on the morning
of the 18th. My beautiful Iranistan was gone! This was not only a
serious loss to my estate, for it had probably cost at least $150,000,
but it was generally regarded as a public calamity. It was the only
building in its peculiar style of architecture, of any pretension, in
America, and many persons visited Bridgeport every year expressly to see
Iranistan. The insurance on the mansion had usually been about $62,000,
but I had let some of the policies expire without renewing them, so that
at the time of the fire there was only $28,000 insurance on the
property. Most of the furniture and pictures were saved, generally in a
damaged state.
Subsequently, my assignees sold the grounds and out-houses of Iranistan
to the late Elias Howe, Jr., the celebrated inventor of the needle for
sewing-machines. The property brought $50,000, which, with the $28,000
insurance, went into my assets to satisfy clock creditors. It was Mr.
Howe’s intention to erect a splendid mansion on the estate, but his
untimely and lamented death prevented the fulfilment of the plan. The
estate (in 1869) was to be divided among Mr. Howe’s three children and
in all probability three houses will be built upon the beautiful
grounds.