Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1891 — P. T. BARNUM IS DEAD. [ARTICLE]

P. T. BARNUM IS DEAD.

THE SHOWMAN EXPIRES AT HIS HOME. Without Exception Ho Wm tho World*® Greatest Showman—Some of Hi® Notable Enterprises—Sketch of Hl® Long and Remarkable Career. Phtneas Taylor Barnum, the great showman, died at Marina, Conn., .after. an illness of twenty-one weeks. He had during that whole period firmly insisted that his sickness was only temporary, and that ho would soon be out again. Mr. Barnum was wlihout doubt the greatest showman on earth. Very eatly in life he tcok the measure of averager human nature and profited by the accuracy of his gauge. Ho found It both curious and credulous, and he catered to it accordingly. Nearly ' forty years ago’ ho wrote his autobiography, for he was even then famous, and did not scruple to show the manner in which he had imposed upon a public anxious to sea the marvelous. Artemus Ward's peagreen* ox, the history of which he told thirty years ago, was a pale reflection of Barnum's woolly horse, and various other devices with which he was not unwilling to admit he had. amused the public withal. The nea-green ox fell into a Jersey canal and lost its peculiar color, resuming thereafter, as Ward explained, agricultural pursuits. As he advanced in years Barnum found it more profitable to satisfy ordinary curiosity than to attempt to play upon credulity. The menagerie formed a never-falling source of public Interest, and liking for the hippodrome, the ringmaster, the clown, the little lady who in abbreviate! skirts jumped through the hoops, the Intelligent dogs, and the performing elephants never flagged. Barnum soon camo to look upon himself as a curiosity and us such made in a coach and four the circuit of the ring. Far more attractive than the footlights, the canvas yielded an immense fortune to the man who could show what he described as tho greatest aggregation on earth. Barnum had long been a millionaire, and though he affected public spirit the trail of the sawdust was over it all. Ho had no capacity for politics, no real understanding of great public questions. He was evermore tho public’s obedient serf vant, taking the public’s cash at the box-office. First and last he was a showman, with something bizarro in his character. He was a man of the ring and tho band-wagon. No one in his profession has achieved equal fame or fortune. Ho was master of his art, because he pursued his profession with undeviating ardor and profound knowledge of human kind.

Phlneas Taylor Barnum, the most widely known, unique, yet thoroughly typical American of the time, was born tn • the little town of Bethel, Conn., on the 3th of Jijly; IW.' Hfrf gfttitffather, Ephraim Barnum, bhd bedff ti cbYltlnetital captain In the revolutfoWurf war, and his father, Philo Barnum,'took iurnt* at tailoring, innkeeping and farming; Phlneas’ boyhood passed uneventfully In his native town, whore he showed in school and On the farm the traits of thrift and shrewdness which so strongly marked his character in after life. About 1830, Mr. Barnum became deeply Interested in politics, and, publication having been denied certain communications of his to a Danbury paper on the dangers of sectarian Interference In political charaeterlstlo determination he started, In October, 1831, a paper of his own—the Herald of Freedom. The vehemence of his youthful editorials secured for the paper a large subscription list at once and several libel suits very shortly, In one of which he was imprisoned for sixty days., lie continued to edit his paper from jail, and the notoriety he acquired still further swelled Its circulation. It was In 1835 that P. T. Barnum at last struck his life’s path. He had heard of the existence of George Washington's negro nurse, then at the advanced age of 161 years, and, selling out his business again, he bought the right to exhibit her for SI,OOO, and commenced his career as a showman. His success was Immediate and electrifying. About this time he obtained control of the defunct American Museum, New York. Wildly Improbable as were the promises held out by his advertisements, indefatigable as he was In devising schemes to humbug the public for their own amusement and his profit, there was never a time when his entertained victims did not gladly acknowledge that they had “got more than their money’s worth out of the show. ” A list of the pranks he played with his patrons, the undreamed of monstrosities he exhibited, would read like the catalogue of the ships in tlx) Iliad. Here was to be seen the “club that killed Captain Cook," “Niagara Falls with real water,” the “woolly horse,” the “Feejee mermaid,** the “fish with legs,” mechanical toysand automatons. He Inaugurated the “baby contests,” which since have bocome features in fairs the world around. He placed powerful calclnm lights on the top of his museum, giving an unheard ot illumination of lower Broadway—precursors of the electric lights of to day. Of all the adventures with which the name of Barnum was ever connected, the most successful was his engagement ot Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, for a series of concerts tn America and Havana in 1849. For these concerts he was to pay the cantatrice the then unheard of sum of SI,OOO a night Barnum's gross receipts from the nfnety-flvo Jenny Lind concerts amounted to about three-quarters of a million dollars. In 1844, during his first visit to England, the great showman exhibited to the British public sixteen Indians, Including sqvaws, t hus antedating the recent enterof Buffalo Bill. , - From that time to the day of his death Mr. Barnum led all rivals in the show busine-s. Millions of Americans will revere his memory.