Mr. Phineas T. Barnum, the showman, died at Bridgeport, Connecticut,
on Tuesday, at the age of eighty-one. He very early discovered the modern secret that, so far as money- getting is concerned, notoriety is the equivalent of fame, and for sixty years he endeavoured successfully to make himself notorious, dying, after many pecuniary misfortunes, a. solidly rich man. He was the Prince of Advertisers, and though he had not the slightest scruple about deceiving the public for gain, he wrote so amusingly about his deceptions, that they were almost credited to him for righteousness. Nobody ever quite thinks that a merry-androw can be a scamp ; he has not gravity enough for people to expect him to be moral.. As a man who increased greatly the advertising tendency of modern life, Barnum is to us detestable ; but he was a kindly man, wonderfully liberal to his own townsmen, and, in a farcical way, genuinely witty. One of the best and most characteristic stories of him was his successful "sell" of a rival showman. He offered to join him in showing a wonderful beast, a fish which became an animal; and when he had worked up his greed and curiosity sufficiently, asked him to devise a taking name. "At present, unhappily," sighed Barnum, "they call it a tadpole."
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