During my first visit to England I obtained, verbally, through a friend, the refusal of the house in which Shakespeare was born, designing to remove it in sections to my Museum in New York; but the project leaked out, British pride was touched, and several English gentlemen interfered and purchased the premises for a Shakespearian Association. Had they slept a few days longer, I should have made a rare speculation, for I was subsequently assured that the British people, rather than suffer that house to be removed to America, would have bought me off with twenty thousand pounds. I did not hesitate to engage, or attempt to secure anything, at any expense, to please my patrons in the United States, and I made an effort to transfer Madame Tussaud’s world-wide celebrated wax-work collection entire to New York. The papers were actually drawn up for this engagement, but the enterprise finally fell through.
The models of machinery exhibited in the Royal Polytechnic Institution in London, pleased me so well that I procured a duplicate; also duplicates of the “Dissolving Views,” the Chromatrope and Physioscope, including many American scenes painted expressly to my order, at an aggregate cost of $7,000. After they had been exhibited in my Museum, they were sold to itinerant showmen, and some of them were afterwards on exhibition in various parts of the United States.
In June 1850, I added the celebrated Chinese Collection to the attractions of the American Museum. I also engaged the Chinese Family, consisting of two men, two “small-footed” women and two children. My agent exhibited them in London during the World’s Fair. It may be stated here, that I subsequently sent to London the celebrated artist De Lamano to paint a panorama of the Crystal Palace, in which the World’s Fair was held, and Colonel John S. Dusolle, an able and accomplished editor, whom I sent with De Lamano, wrote an accompanying descriptive lecture. Like most panoramas, however, the exhibition proved a failure.
The giants whom I sent to America were not the greatest of my curiosities, though the dwarfs might have been the least. The “Scotch Boys” were interesting, not so much on account of their weight, as for the mysterious method by which one of them, though blindfolded, answered questions put by the other respecting objects presented by persons who attended the surprising exhibition. The mystery, which was merely the result of patient practice, consisted wholly in the manner in which the question was propounded; in fact, the question invariably carried its own answer; for instance:
“What is this?” meant gold; “Now what is this?” silver; “Say what is this?” copper; “Tell me what this is,” iron; “What is the shape?” long; “Now what shape?” round; “Say what shape,” square; “Please say what this is,” a watch; “Can you tell what is in this lady’s hand?” a purse; “Now please say what this is?” a key; “Come now, what is this?” money; “How much?” a penny; “Now how much?” sixpence; “Say how much,” a quarter of a dollar; “What color is this?” black; “Now what color is this?” red; “Say what color,” green; and so on, ad infinitum. To such perfection was this brought that it was almost impossible to present any object that could not be quite closely described by the blindfolded boy. This is the key to all exhibitions of what is called “second sight.”
In 1850, the celebrated Bateman children acted for several weeks at the American Museum and in June of that year I sent them to London with their father and Mr. Le Grand Smith, where they played in the St. James Theatre, and afterwards in the principal provincial theatres. The elder of these children, Miss Kate Bateman, subsequently attained the highest histrionic distinction in America and abroad, and reached the very head of her profession.
In October, 1852, having stipulated with Mr. George A. Wells and Mr. Bushnell that they should share in the enterprise and take the entire charge, I engaged Miss Catherine Hayes and Herr Begnis to give a series of sixty concerts in California, and the engagement was fulfilled to our entire satisfaction. Mr. Bushnell afterwards went to Australia with Miss Hayes and they were subsequently married. Both of them are dead.
Before setting out for California, Miss Catherine Hayes, her mother and sister spent several days at Iranistan and were present at the marriage of my eldest daughter, Caroline, to Mr. David W. Thompson. The wedding was to take place in the evening, and in the afternoon I was getting shaved in a barber-shop in Bridgeport, when Mr. Thompson drove up to the door in great haste and exclaimed:
“Mr. Barnum, Iranistan is in flames!”
I ran out half-shaved, with the lather on my face, jumped into his wagon and bade him drive home with all speed. I was greatly alarmed, for the house was full of visitors who had come from a distance to attend the wedding, and all the costly presents, dresses, refreshments, and everything prepared for a marriage celebration to which nearly a thousand guests had been invited, were already in my house. Mr. Thompson told me that he had seen the flames bursting from the roof and it seemed to me that there was little hope of saving the building.