Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum

by P. T. Barnum

Mr. P. T. Barnum is the only man in the show-business who thoroughly comprehends the demands of the public, and is willing to satisfy them at any expenditure of time and means. His projects are conceived on a gigantic scale, very far in advance of the conservatism so characteristic of even liberal managers. His expensive expeditions to Labrador, some years ago, to capture white whales for the American Museum, and another expedition to South Africa, in 1859, which secured the first and only living hippopotamus ever seen on this continent, involved an outlay sufficient to organize and completely furnish a first-class show. A third even more hazardous expedition was sent to the North Pacific to capture seals, sea lions, and other marine monsters, which were transported thousands of miles in immense water tanks. These are but a few in many instances of that large and comprehensive liberality that distinguishes all of Mr. Barnum’s enterprises, and is the source of his managerial triumphs and the foundation of his financial success. Obstacles, that to others seem insurmountable, only spur him on to greater effort. No article of real novelty or merit which will enhance the attractions of his exhibitions is suffered to escape for lack of energy, or for want of liberal expenditure of money. It is this spirit that has enabled Mr. Barnum to combine in one exhibition the most complete and colossal collection of animate and inanimate curiosities ever assembled in the world.

In the spring of 1871, when the great show was about to enter upon its first campaign, complete as it seemed to the manager and to other experts, Mr. Barnum thought a most valuable feature might be added. He telegraphed to the whaling ports of New England, and sent messages to San Francisco and Alaska, to know if a group of sea lions and other specimens of the phocine tribe could be secured. Finally, through his agents in San Francisco, he organized an expedition to Alaska. By the first of July, several fine specimens of seals and sea lions, some of the latter weighing more than 1,000 pounds each, were brought in tanks over the Union Pacific Railway, were safely landed at Bridgeport, and, thereafter, were forwarded to the show, then on its travels through New England. As these delicate animals are likely to die, arrangements have been made to keep good the supply, and December 16, 1871, Mr. Barnum received a telegram from San Francisco that six more sea lions had just arrived at that port for him. Two of these will be sent, by arrangement, to the Zoölogical Gardens, in Regent’s Park, London, and the rest, with several seals captured in the same expedition, will be added to Barnum’s show next spring.

Mr. Barnum’s active and enterprising agents are in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and elsewhere in the world, wherever anything rare and valuable—bird, beast, reptile, or other animate or inanimate curiosity—can be secured, which will add to the interest of the exhibition. In the menagerie, and the hippodrome also, experts are constantly engaged in training elephants, camels, performing horses, and other animals, and are thus preparing new and attractive features, some of which will be as novel to the show profession as they will be new and attractive to the public.

I might fill hundreds of pages with the notices of the New York papers during the protracted exhibition at the Empire Rink. Every day, almost, the journals had something new to say about the show, from the simple fact that nearly every day the addition of some new animal or attraction, or fresh features in the ring performances compelled new notices. The exhibition continued with unabated success and patronage till after the holidays, when necessary preparations for the spring campaign, including the repainting of all the wagons, compelled me to close.

I must make mention merely of two genuine curiosities from California—the one a section of one of the big trees, and the other a bright young Digger Indian, who was my guide through the Yosemite Valley. I little thought when I saw the big trees that I should soon secure for exhibition in New York a gigantic section of one of them, with the bark, which, set up as it enclosed the tree, enclosed, on one occasion, at the Empire Rink, two hundred children from the Howard Mission. The Digger was equally a curiosity in his way. One day when the baboon escaped from his cage, and defied all the efforts of the keepers to capture him, my Digger Indian lassooed him, and brought him down with a run and a rope in less than no time. His services in, and with, this “line” on other occasions were more memorable.

I cannot close this additional narrative without warning my readers, and the public generally, that the enormous success of my great combination has stimulated unscrupulous smaller showmen to feeble imitations, which, in some instances, are, and are intended to be, downright frauds upon the public. Nearly every circus and menagerie in the country has lately added what is called a “museum,” and in some cases they have employed a man named, or supposed to be named, Barnum, intending to advertise under the title of “Barnum’s Show,” thereby deceiving and swindling the public. The trick is very transparent, and can be successful, if at all, only in very rural regions, where the newspapers fail to penetrate. The so-called “Museums” may embrace a stuffed animal or two, and a small show of wax-works. Indeed, some of these minor managers have bought cast-off curiosities from me, and cheap rubbish from old museums, with which to set up the “new features” in their circuses or menageries. The whole public knows that there is but one P. T. Barnum, and but one show in the country of sufficient importance to bear his name. I trust to my name and my long-worked-for and well-earned reputation to insure the public against imposition from the attempts of my imitators, who are as unprincipled as they will be unsuccessful in their efforts to defraud me and to delude the public.

CONCLUSION.

In sending these last pages to the printer in March, 1872, I may say that my manager, Mr. Coup, his assistants, and myself, have been busy ever since New Year’s in reorganizing our great travelling show, building new wagons and cages, and painting, gilding and repairing the others. One of the great carved, mirrored and gilded chariots, from England, used by me in 1871, is a grand affair, made telescopic, and when extended to its full height reaches an altitude of forty feet, on the top of which, in our street processions, we place a young lady, costumed to personate the Goddess of Liberty. The re-gilding of this one vehicle preparatory to opening our spring campaign cost about five thousand dollars—enough to build a nice house in the country. The wintering of my horses and wild animals, salaries of employees and expense of fitting up properly for the next season, cost over $50,000. During the winter my agents abroad have shipped me many interesting and expensive curiosities. Indeed, ship after ship has brought me so many rare animals and works of art that I have sometimes been puzzled to find places to store them.

Two beautiful Giraffes, or Camelopards, were despatched to me, but one died on the Atlantic, making three of these tender and valuable animals that I have lost within a year. The only one on this continent at this present writing is mine. He is a beauty. I own another, which is now in the Royal Zoölogical Gardens, Regent’s Park, London, ready to be shipped at any moment should I unfortunately be obliged to send a message by the Atlantic Cable announcing the death of my present pet.