The next day the colonel handed me a New York paper, which proved to be the same that I had mentioned, and in it appeared a double leaded account on the Jumbo excitement. Their show agents in London did wonderful work in keeping the associated press filled with new matter, and the free advertising they secured would have cost at regular rates a half million of dollars and even then would not have been as effective.
The agents succeeded in working up this opposition to Jumbo's removal until they induced the editor of the London Telegraph to cable Barnum, asking what price he would take to leave Jumbo in his own home, explaining the feeling of the people, especially the children. This editor had no idea then and perhaps does not even now know that he was made an innocent agent in the big advertising scheme. The children of Great Britain had ridden on Jumbo's back, fed and fondled him for years, so that it was easy to arouse this feeling of indignation and sympathy. The multitude even threatened violence if he was removed. The excitement had purposely been kept up to such a pitch by these people that it became international.
There was also much excitement about Jumbo's wife, Alice. Elaborately written articles were cabled over, expressing the sorrow of Alice at the enforced departure of Jumbo and her consequent separation from her husband. The feelings of the people were so worked upon that sympathy for Alice and Jumbo almost equaled that aroused for the slave by the description of Uncle Tom in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The advertising matter for Jumbo—the lithographs, etc.—had already been printed, and in them he was called "Mastodon." When he refused to be moved his right name, Jumbo, was used, as the dispatches had gone out in that name. The strategy used by these managers and their agents to get all this notoriety did no one any harm and made good sensational reading for the newspapers.
VII
PARADES AND BAND WAGONS
Shows thrive best on bluster and buncombe. Years of experience have taught me that the traveling show business handled by capitalists who have been trained in other lines of enterprise can never succeed. I have often been reproved by business men who were astounded at the lavish and apparently wasteful expenditures of the circus for "show and blow," and who have insisted that these expenses should be cut in half. It is true that such reckless expenditures in any ordinary commercial undertaking would be disastrous, but it is the life of a big show. When it is possible thoroughly to arouse the curiosity of the public, expense should be a secondary consideration.
THE FIFTY-CENT RIVALS OF THE $10,000 HIPPOS
I recall an incident, however, which goes to show that the most expensive attractions do not necessarily prove the greatest drawing cards. Among the rare animals which I had one season were some Memiponias, or tiny deerlets—"hell benders," as they were commonly called. One of the opposition shows was making a great feature of a pair of hippopotami, or river horses, from the Nile. I had made arrangements to receive, at stated intervals, regular numbers of "hell benders," and I would wire my agents ahead, "Another living hell bender arrived to-day." This he would advertise with great gusto, getting out special bills and keeping up the excitement.
One day, while one of my agents, who happened to be back with the show, was sitting in my office, a bill to the amount of six dollars was presented for "One dozen hell benders." Seeing this he inquired what it meant.