Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1878 — Tom Thumb and Jenny Lind. [ARTICLE]

Tom Thumb and Jenny Lind.

“Where’s Tom Thumb now, Mr. Barnum ?” “He is living in Middleborough, Plymouth county. Mass., near Taunton. He is a great, big fellow now; weighs eighty pounds. Yet he * draws’ pretty well. He and his wife and Gen. Grant, Jr., and Minnie Warren give drawingroom entertainments every winter. They net about S2OO a night. Tom Thumb should be very well off. But he has squandered a good deal of his money in yachts, etc. He is 41 years old. I will tell you something in the strictest confidence. Minnie Warren, you know, who married Gen. Grant, Jr. (his real name is Newell), a short time ago, is in a very interesting condition. She is a nice little thing. Her parents and the other little people’s parents all live in or near Middleborough.” “ Is Jenny Lind poor ?” “Not a bit of it. The reports to that effect in the newspapers were the grossest slanders—all that story, you remember, about her husband’s being a spendthrift and making way with her money. He sued one of the publishers, and proved in court that Jenny is worth $2,000,000. She made $1,000,000 in America, and Mr. Goldschmidt invested it so successfully that it has doubled itself. He is a real nice, quiet, little fellow, a Jew—though be became a Christian when he married her—an l three or four years younger than she. I saw

her only a year ago. She is well and happy. She has a grown-up son and daughter. Sir Julius Benedict, the composer, Jenny’s old teacher, told me that the daughter would have been as great a singer as her mother ever as if she hadn’t been rich. As for the son, he knows that Jenny is rich. He likes to spend the money, and Jenny likes to have him.” —lnterview with Bamum.