BARN UM'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.*
THE successful showman who has made his name typical of his profession, and who has so often boasted of being a humbug that what would otherwise be an insult is accepted as a compliment, gives us here a story which professes to be his autobiography. We accept it with some reservation, scarcely knowing whether this is a new trick or not. A few years ago a book was published under the title of the Humbugs of the World, professing to be written by Barnum, and that work was in itself an important contribution to the science which it professed to illustrate, for Barnum was not its author. There is nothing to show that the present work is at all more genuine. Indeed it is the question of genuineness that involves the whole difficulty, when we take into account the character of the autobiographer. Any genuine product of Barnum's must be a hoax. The more genuine it is, the greater hoax. And thus we are placed in an awkward dilemma, from which there is no means of escaping.
Without further testing the authenticity of the book, we may, however, accept much of it as highly probable. The accounts of Barnum's tour in Europe with General Tom Thumb and of his speculation with Jenny Lind in America, of the way in which he attracted mobs to his Museum and gave his lecture on the art of money-getting to crowded audiences, have in them a strong savour of reality. There is an imperturbable air in every page that suits the character of the hero. The practical jokes that rebounded harmlessly from his seasoned frame, and were then taken up and applied with such deadly effect against those who
• Struggles and Triumphs; or, Forty Years Recollections of P. T. Barnum. Written by Himself London : Low, Son, and Marston.
originated them, bear witness to a readiness and smartness seldom equalled and never exceeded even by Americans. According to this autobiography, Barnum began to deal at a very early age. "I was always ready for a trade," he says confidingly, "and by the time I was twelve years old, besides other pro- perty, I was the owner of a sheep and a calf, and should soon, no doubt, have become a small CrCe3119, had not my father kindly permitted me to purchase my own clothing, which somewhat reduced my little store." To tell the truth, Barnum's father was rather too sharp for him. After bringing five sons into the world, and one of them such a promising youth, he had the impudence to die in a state of insolvency. The son complains p:teously that "the few dollars I had accumulated and loaned to my father, holding his note therefor, were decided to be the pro- perty of a minor belonging to the father, and so to the estate, and my small claim was ruled out." This was adding insult to injury. We can imagine the quiet chuckle with which the father accepted the loan, knowing that it would never be paid, and adding to the satisfaction of outrunning his creditors the keener zest of taking in his own children. Of course, the creditors were no real gainers by the transaction. A few dollars more or less were a drop in the ocean. But the smart son, who had been owner of a sheep and a calf at the age of twelve, and whose acquisitiveness had only been kept down by his being allowed the privilege of buying his own clothing, was worthy to exercise the parental wits. With such a father, and such early experience, Barnum could not fail to go far. The Woolly Horse, the real Niagara, the club that killed Captain Cook, the Feejee mermaid, and all the other attractions of the Museum, were mere reflections from the superior genius of Barnum's father. Barnum himself humbugged the world, but the father humbugged Barnum.
We do not say that if the two had met on equal terms, after the son had thrown off the shackles of boyhood, the victory would have remained with the elder. But the fact that he died before that time showed the extent of his calculations. The probability is that if father and son had lived together, they would have been too much engrossed in taking each other in to give the world the full benefit of their sharpness. Had they combined, of course the consequences would have been awful. The human imagination is powerless to conceive the universal crash which must have been felt throughout all the regions of simplicity, and the rise of triumphant smartness to unlimited empire. Let us be thankful that we have only one Barnum at a time. His efforts are quite sufficient to occupy us. We do not speak so much of the greater enterprises by which he earned his name and his fortune. Most of us remember the story of Tom Thumb's progress through Europe, his interview with crowned heads and the Duke of Wellington, his levdes in the Egyptian Hall, and the other adven- tures which culminated in his marriage. Barnum's description of all these incidents adds little to our knowledge, though it enables him to puff himself and his charge, and to give one or two instances of his own cleverness. How he escaped having to pay a large per- centage of his profits at Bordeaux, how he entered into familiar con- versation with the Queen in spite of the warning he had received from a lord-in-waiting, are perhaps the most notable events in this part of his life. When he was going through America with Jenny Lind, he distinguished himself most by the way in which he saved the Swedish Nightingale from being mobbed. When their steamer reached New Orleans the wharf was crowded with people, and Jenny Lind grew nervous. Barnum took his daughter on his arm, and walked ceremoniously to a carriage, the people thronging round, and all the more excited by the call from the ship's side, " Open the way, please, for Mr. Barnum and Miss Lind." With some difficulty Barnum and his daughter got into a carriage, and while the crowd followed them to the hotel, Jenny Lind had the whole street to herself. The trick succeeded once, but of course it was noised abroad, and at Cincinnati there was as great a crowd, and no chance of deceiving them in the same way. Barnum quietly gave his arm to Jenny Lind, and escorted her on shore, an agent of his calling out as he did so, "That's no go, Mr. Barnum, you can't pass your daughter off for Jenny Lind this time." It is just these tricks that are characteristic of Barnum. He succeeds more by per- suading people that they are too clever for him than by coming over them directly. Those which are, on the whole, his most amusing jokes owe their success to this manoeuvre. Thus, he got a friend to put up some one else to make a bet that he (Barnum) bad not a whole shirt on his back. The catch consists in the fact that only half a man's shirt is on his back, and against this Barnum had provided by folding a whole shirt on his back and securing it under his braces. Of course the bet was offered very readily, and
company was bursting with laughter at the thought that he had been tricked, he calmly turned the tables. These tricks were apparently played for the mere fun of the .NA valuable from its leading to the sale of tickets. When Barnum attracted to their performances. This was perhaps an extreme case, and Barnum's own business jokes were more innocent. Ilis idea of yoking an elephant to the plough with a keeper in Oriental of these advertising hoaxes. An old farmer came amongst others the elephant drew more than forty yoke of oxen ; it drew twenty millions of American citizens to Barnum's Museum.
another, and go on repeating this process in perfect silence for an This second volume comprises the whole of the early Muham- hour, at the end of which time he was to walk solemnly into the madan period, from the conquests of Malunud of Ghazni to the Museum. Before the first hour had elapsed the walks all round assassination of the last Gaurian prince in 1289. In it, therefore, the Museum were crowded with curious gazers ; a great many most of the difficulties which beset an ancient time are encountered; persons accosted the man, but could get no answer, and every time the number of narrators is few, and they diverge conspicuously he walked into the Museum after completing his hour's work, a from one another. The succession of rulers is by no means dozen or more would follow him in. At a later period of Barnum's certain ; and the evidence obtained from coins often proves life, when he was president of an agricultural society, he showed to be rather a hindrance than a help, from their apparent himself versed in the art of turning roguery to honest profit. A pick- deviation from the writers and intrinsic difficulty of read- pocket having been caught at a fair given by the Society, Barnum ing. Hence the apace devoted to discussions of this sort is issued handbills announcing that as it was the last day of the fair, large ; but it is most important to have all the matter of this kind the managers had secured extra attractions, and would accordingly brought together, to bear immediately on the period described. exhibit, without any further charge, a live pickpocket, caught the The historians from whom extracts are given are nine, of whom dayprevious. The crowd was immense, some mothers bringing their Baihakf, Muhammad 'Ufi, 'Utbi, and Minhtiju-s Siraj are the chief. children ten miles to have a look at such a wonderful specimen. Pos- An historical introduction to each historian is prefixed to the siblythe idea may have been suggested to Barnum by a bit of his own extracts from his work, and the proper foot-notes are given ; experience. A man came to the Museum and bought a ticket of ad- besides which, questions too long to be treated there are discussed mission. "Is Mr. Barnum in the Museum?" he asked. Barnum was in an appendix of 175 pages.
pointed out to him. He took a good look at the famous show- The historians write sometimes in Arabic, sometimes in Persian ; man, and then threw down his ticket, saying, " It's all right, I and often mix the two. There are the greatest differences in have got the worth of my money." accuracy or looseness of style, some writing a plain easy style, We might fairly close our notice with this significant story, but others inclining to the pompous, sententious, wordy, half-poetical the most novel feature of Barnum's character remains. He conies out style which the Arabs, usually such fine judges of taste, consider on more than one occasion as a preacher of the Gospel. Not only effective. The works are sometimes only extant in manuscript, was he a regular attendant at church, but when travelling with a sometimes printed ; but in the East the most important works circus he constantly reatithe Bible or a printed sermon to his corn- sometimes never get printed, though their value be well known. pany on Sunday, and once he addressed a congregation of about We need not look far to discover'the difference in character between three hundred " in a beautiful grove." " I told them," lie says, the Mohammedan invaders and the Hindus. Al Biruni, who was " that I was not a preacher, and had very little experience iu public contemporary with the first invasion, and a voluminous and speaking ; but I felt a deep interest in matters of morality and scientific writer, observes :—" The Indians attach little importance religion, and would attempt in a plain way to set before them the to the sequence of events, and neglect to record the dates of the duties and privileges of man." In this strain he proceeded for reigns of their kings. When they are embarrassed they are silent." three-quarters of an hour, "with some Scriptural quotations and The truth of this will be acknowledged by any one who reflects on familiar illustrations," and at the end of his discourse several per- the enormous exaggeration of numbers to be met with everywhere sons expressed themselves as greatly pleased, and wished to know in Sanskrit literature,—where they seem to be inserted to work on his name. This, however, seems to have been prudently with- the imagination of the reader, rather than to round any system of held. Had it been given, the congregation might have been cycles or periods,—and then compares therewith the accurate tempted to indulge in the Scriptural quotation, " Is Saul also enumeration of genealogies and other things requiring numbers by among the prophets?" That saying in Faust about the come- the Arabs. But another writer, Bailiaki, lays down the qualities dian being able to teach the parson if the parson is a come- of a good historian thus :-
dian, may not have occurred either to Barnum or his hearers, as Man can be read by the heart of man. The heart is strengthened we may doubt if any of them were readers of Goethe. But in or weakened by what it hears and secs, and until it hears or sees the bad another place Barnum certainly tried to verify this maxim. His aud the good, it knows neither sorrow nor joy in this world. Be it circus was denounced from the pulpit as immoral, aud after the therefore known that the eyes and ears are the watchmen and spies of the heart, which report to it what they see and hear, that it may take preacher had read the closing hymn, Barnum walked up the advantage of the same, and represent it to Wisdom, who is a just judge, pulpit-stairs and handed him a written request for permission and can separate the true from the false, and can avail itself of what is to reply to him. We must say the Rev. P. T. Barnum is an useful and reject that which is otherwise. It is for this reason that man addition to our gallery of clerical portraits. Perhaps, if he had wishes to learn that which has occurred in past times, and persevered in that course, he might have attained to greater dis- • The History of India, as told by Us men historians. The Muhammadan Period. Edited, tinction than has been his lot as a showman and entrepreneur. vol. II. London: Trebner. 1869.
the reluctance with which Barnum received it, his attempts to With his push and perseverance he might have become a popular parry it by indignant assertions that he knew his shirt was not preacher of the grotesque school, and have substituted a Taber- ragged, and that it was not fair to bet on a subject of which he nacle for a Museum. A slight effort indeed would have made him was certain, only stimulated the other man's ardour. At last the sham ,prelate of the Ecumenical Council, Phineas Taylor, Barnum was forced to take the bet, and then, while the whole Bishop of Humbug (in partibus).
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