The reading of the letter excited much sensation, applause, and laughter.
The resolutions were re-read and passed unanimously.
Mr. William Bishop said it was unusual for citizens to meet together to express sympathy with one who had lost his fortune. It was very common for the people and the press to eulogize a man when he was beyond the reach of human sympathy. He thought it was far better to tender a man the marks of approval while he was yet alive and could appreciate it. [Applause] For along time in this city they were accustomed to bury their dead among the living. Mr. Barnum had done more than any other man to secure to this city the most beautiful-cemetery in Connecticut. He alone had secured to the city what it had never had before—a public square. On the east side of the river he had almost completed a school-house, a thing which could be said of no other man. [Loud cheering.] If material aid were needed, he should be proud to assist in raising it. There was one clause in the resolutions which he did not believe. He did not believe that "in all probability he could ever retrieve" his fortune. [Prolonged cheering.]
Mr. J. E. Dunham made a brief but earnest speech. He hoped this meeting would put down the sneers which were in circulation in relation to Mr. Barnum's sincerity, by showing that those estimated him most who knew him best.
Mr. Nathaniel Greene and Mr. Bowles made short but effective speeches.
The meeting was characterized throughout by the greatest enthusiasm, and adjourned with three loud cheers for Barnum.
Nor was sympathy all his neighbors offered him; shortly after this meeting a number of gentlemen in Bridgeport offered him a loan of $50,000, if that sum would meet the exigency.
Little by little the magnitude of the fraud practiced upon Barnum's too confiding nature dawned upon him. Not only had his notes been used to five times the amount stipulated, but the money had been applied, not to relieving the temporary embarrassment of the company, but almost entirely to the redemption of the old claims of years gone by. Barnum sent two of his friends to New Haven to ask for a meeting of the creditors, authorizing them to say for him in substance:
"GENTLEMEN: This is a capital practical joke! Before I negotiated with your clock company at all, I was assured by several of you, and particularly by a representative of the bank which was the largest creditor of the concern, that the Jerome Company was eminently responsible, and that the head of the same was uncommonly pious. On the strength of such representations solely, I was induced to agree to indorse and accept paper for that company to the extent of $110,000—no more. That sum I am now willing to pay for my own verdancy, with an additional sum of $40,000 for your 'cuteness, making a total of $150,000, which you can have if you cry 'quits' with the fleeced showman and let him off."
Many of the old creditors favored this proposition; but it was found that the indebtedness was so scattered it would be impracticable to attempt a settlement by an unanimous compromise of the creditors.