One anecdote taken from a thousand is a good example of the advantages which Barnum has derived from advertisements.
Some years ago a negro, having obtained a reward as a violinist at the Paris Conservatoire of Music, Barnum concluded an engagement with him by telegram for one year at a salary of 40,000 dollars. The walls of New York were [p020] then immediately covered with placards depicting a negro playing the violin, but without any descriptive words attached to the picture.
His virtuoso arrived, and Barnum hastened to produce him. The Yankees came, listened, applauded, but did not send their friends. What could Barnum do to rouse their dormant curiosity? He told his workmen to paste the figure of the negro upside down. This ingenious device was crowned with success. Perhaps the audience who flocked to hear him during three consecutive years fancied that a negro would be exhibited to them—a laureate from the Paris Conservatoire, who would play the violin whilst balanced on his head. Whatever their idea may have been, they went in millions; and this anecdote is not less characteristic of the peculiar stamp of American curiosity than of Barnum’s genius for puffing.
It is also an interesting proof of the share which advertisements play in the success of an entertainment. The artist world has learnt to appreciate the extraordinary effect of these coloured placards, and willingly spends a large sum of money in procuring the most effective designs; and these advertisements—of which I have reproduced a few of the most typical—are so varied and so brilliant that they might fairly dazzle collectors. The finest are issued by the firms of David Allen and Sons of Belfast, Mr. Barlow of Glasgow, Adolphe Friedlander of Hamburg, and Charles and Emile Levy of Paris.
This is the general outline of the organization: of the banquistes, who travel round the world without a country and without home ties. [p021]
[p022] I must now speak of a less adventurous mountebank—the Frenchman, who never willingly travels either by railroad or steamer, and who for centuries—for generations—has contentedly jogged along in a caravan from one fair to another, making in this way his eternal tour of France.
The origin of all these troupes of mountebanks, of every [p023] one of these travelling shows, is lost in the mist of ages. At what epoch were founded the Théâtre Vivien, the Théâtre de Saint-Antoine, the theatres of the Enfer and of the Physicien Delisle? In what century did Mouza-ba-baloued first turn his prophetic wheel under the awning of his caravan? I assure you that it is beyond the recollections of grandchildren or of their grandfathers. At all events, it is certain that from our birth we feel some curiosity mingled with a delicious dread of the mountebank, the picturesque wanderer, who passes our home at the same date in every year—like the migratory birds—who disappears one morning, without any one knowing where he has gone, or even with any certainty where he has come from; an ambiguous individual whom travellers on the high road pass as evening falls, encamped on the wayside, his kettle installed on a heap of stones, his thin steed munching the dusty grass, his half naked children wandering round the caravan, whilst the light shining through the little red curtains in the window throws the semblance of a plash of blood on the road.
