Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1902 — PLOWING WITH ELEPHANTS. [ARTICLE]

PLOWING WITH ELEPHANTS.

Barnum's Reply to Farmer Who Asked if It Would Pay. It may be said of P. T. Barnum that be was the Majordomo or Lord of Laughter and Fun, the protean Dispenser of Amusement How well he became known through this function one curious Incident certifies. Some years before he died, an obscure person in some remote part of A:sia wrote a letter, which he dropped In the postoffice near him, directed to "Mr. Barnum, America.’’ The letter reached its destination without an hour’s delay. The great showman unaffectedly enjoyed being known from the very beginning of his celebrity; and whea he found his celebrity was a tremendous factor In bls success, he did everything that he could think of to extend the exploitation of his name. This was not to nourish vain imaginings or because he felt exalted; it was to promote business. Around his successive homes at Bridgeport, Conn., he was fond of putting something that suggested a show. Queerly marked Rattle, the sacred cow, or an elephant, were frequently among the stock to be noticed in his fields. On one occasion he had an elephant engaged in plowing on the sloping hill where it could plainly be seen by the passengers on the New Haven and Hartford Railroad, an agricultural innovation that he knew would get notice of some sort in every newspaper in the country. It was even said that he received letters from farmers far and wide asking how much hay one elephant ate, and if, it was more profitable to plow with an elephant than with horses or oxen. His replies were invariably frank, and were of this purport: If ydu have a large museum in NeW York, and a great railway sends trains full of passengers within eyeshot of the performance, it will pay, and pay well; but if you have no such institution, then horses or oxen will prove more economical.—Century Magazine.