"I have not eaten a warm dinner, except on Sundays, since I bought the Museum," was the reply, "and I don't intend to, until I am out of debt."
"That's right," said Mr. Olmsted, heartily, "and you'll pay for the Museum before the year is out."
And he was right.
The nucleus of this establishment, Scudder's Museum, was formed in 1810. It was begun in Chatham Street, and was afterward transferred to the old City Hall, and from small beginnings, by purchases, and to a considerable degree by presents, it had grown to be a large and valuable collection. People in all parts of the country had sent in relics and rare curiosities. Sea captains for years had brought and deposited strange things from foreign lands; and besides all these gifts, the previous proprietor had actually expended, as was stated, $50,000 in making the collection, which valuable as it was when Barnum bought it, was only the beginning of its subsequent greatness. In 1842 the entire contents of Peale's Museum was purchased, and in 1850 the Peale collection of Philadelphia was added. In 1865 the space occupied for museum purposes was more than twice as large as in 1842. The Lecture Room, originally narrow, ill-contrived, and inconvenient, was so enlarged and improved that it became one of the most commodious and beautiful amusement halls in the city of New York. At first the attractions and inducements were merely the collection of curiosities by day, and an evening entertainment, consisting of such variety performances as were current in ordinary shows. Then Saturday afternoons and, soon afterward, Wednesday afternoons, were devoted to entertainments, and the popularity of the Museum grew so rapidly that it was presently found expedient and profitable to open the great Lecture Room every afternoon, as well as every evening, on every weekday in the year. The first experiments in this direction more than justified expectations, for the day exhibitions were always more thronged than those of the evening.
Holidays, of course, were made the most of, and there is a record of twelve performances, to as many audiences, being given in one day.
By degrees the character of the stage performances were changed. The transient attractions of the Museum were constantly diversified, and educated dogs, industrious fleas, automatons, jugglers, ventriloquists, living statuary, tableaux, gypsies, Albinoes, fat boys, giants, dwarfs, rope-dancers, live "Yankees," pantomime, instrumental music, singing and dancing in great variety, dioramas, panoramas, models of Niagara, Dublin, Paris, and Jerusalem; Hannington's dioramas of the Creation, the Deluge, Fairy Grotto, Storm at Sea; the first English Punch and Judy in this country, Italian Fantoceini, mechanical figures, fancy glass-blowing, knitting machines, and other triumphs in the mechanical arts; dissolving views, American Indians, who enacted their warlike and religious ceremonies on the stage—these, among others, were all exceedingly successful.
No man ever understood the art of advertising better than Barnum. Knowing that mammon is ever caught with glare, he took pains that his posters should be larger, his transparencies more brilliant, his puffing more persistent than anybody elses. And if he resorted to hyperbole at times in his advertisements, it was always his boast that no one ever went away from his Museum, without having received the worth of his money. It used to amuse Mr. Barnum later in life, to relate some of the unique advertising dodges which his inventive genius devised. Here is a fair sample, as he once told it:
"One morning a stout, hearty-looking man came into my ticket-office and begged some money. I asked him why he did not work and earn his living? He replied that he could get nothing to do, and that he would be glad of any job at a dollar a day. I handed him a quarter of a dollar, told him to go and get his breakfast and return, and I would employ him, at light labor, at a dollar and a half a day. When he returned I gave him five common bricks.
" 'Now,' said I, 'go and lay a brick on the sidewalk, at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street; another close by the Museum; a third diagonally across the way, at the corner of Broadway and Vesey Street, by the Astor House; put down the fourth on the sidewalk, in front of St. Paul's Church opposite; then, with the fifth brick in hand, take up a rapid march from one point to the other, making the circuit, exchanging your brick at every point, and say nothing to any one.'
" 'What is the object of this?' inquired the man.