“When the devil was sick,
The devil a saint would be.
But when the devil got well,
The devil a saint was he.”
Granted, but, after all, the man who looks upon the loss of money as anything compared to the loss of honor, or health, or self-respect, or friends,—a man who can find no source of happiness except in riches,—is to be pitied for his blindness. I certainly feel that the loss of money, of home and my home comforts, is dreadful,—that to be driven again to find a resting-place away from those I love, and from where I had fondly supposed I was to end my days, and where I had lavished time, money, everything, to make my descent to the grave placid and pleasant,—is, indeed, a severe lesson; but, after all, I firmly believe it is for the best, and though my heart may break, I will not repine.
I regret, beyond expression, that any man should be a loser for having trusted to my name; it would not have been so, if I had not myself been deceived. As it is, I am gratified in knowing that all my individual obligations will be met. It would have been much better if clock creditors had accepted the best offer that it was in my power to make them; but it was not so to be. It is now too late, and as I willingly give up all I possess, I can do no more.
Wherever my future lot may be cast, I shall ever fondly cherish the kindness which I have always received from the citizens of Bridgeport.
I am, my dear Sir, truly yours,
P. T. BARNUM.
Shortly after this sympathetic meeting, a number of gentlemen in Bridgeport offered me a loan of $50,000 if that sum would be instrumental in extricating me from my entanglement. I could not say that this amount would meet the exigency; I could only say, “wait, wait, and hope.”
Meanwhile, my eyes were fully opened to the entire magnitude of the deception that had been practised upon my too confiding nature. I not only discovered that my notes had been used to five times the amount I stipulated or expected, but that they had been applied, not to relieving the company from temporary embarrassment after my connection with it, but almost wholly to the redemption of old and rotten claims of years and months gone by. To show the extent to which the fresh victim was deliberately bled, it may be stated that I was induced to become surety to one of the New Haven banks in the sum of $30,000 to indemnify the bank against future losses it might incur from the Jerome company after my connection with it, and by some legerdemain this bond was made to cover past obligations which were older even than my knowledge of the existence of the company. In every way it seemed as if I had been cruelly swindled and deliberately defrauded.
As the clock company had gone to pieces and was paying but from twelve to fifteen per cent for its paper, I sent two of my friends to New Haven to ask for a meeting of the creditors and I instructed them to say in substance for me as follows:
“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.”