Struggles and Triumphs, P. T. Barnum [good books to read in english .txt] 📗

and other animals were added to the collection in my Museum, and I employed Herr Driesbach, the celebrated lion-tamer, as an exhibitor. Some time afterwards the bears were sold to a menagerie company, but I kept “old Neptune,” the sea-lion, for several years, sending him occasionally for exhibition in other cities, as far west as Chicago. This noble and ferocious animal was a very great curiosity and attracted great attention. He was kept in a large tank, which was supplied with salt water every day from the Fall River steamboats, whose deck hands filled my barrels on every passage to the city with salt water from the deepest part of Long Island Sound. On his tours through the country the sea-lion lived very well in fresh water.

It was at one time my serious intention to engage in an American Indian Exhibition on a stupendous scale. I proposed to secure at the far West not less than one hundred of the best specimens of full-blood Indians, with their squaws and papooses, their paint, ponies, dresses, and weapons, for a general tour throughout the United States and Europe. The plan comprehended a grand entry at every town and city where the Indians were to exhibit⁠—the Indians in all the glory of paint and feathers, beads and bright blankets, riding on their ponies, followed by tame buffaloes, elks and antelopes; then an exhibition on a lot large enough to admit of a display of all the Indian games and dances, their method of hunting, their style of cooking, living, etc. Such an exhibition is perfectly practicable now to anyone who has the capital and tact to undertake it, and a sure fortune would follow the enterprise.

On the 13th of October, 1860, the Prince of Wales, then making a tour in the United States, in company with his suite, visited the American Museum. This was a very great compliment, since it was the only place of amusement the Prince attended in this country. Unfortunately, I was in Bridgeport at the time, and the Museum was in charge of my manager, Mr. Greenwood. Knowing that the name of the American Museum was familiar throughout Europe, I was quite confident of a call from the Prince, and from regard to his filial feelings I had, a day or two after his arrival in New York, ordered to be removed to a dark closet a frightful wax figure of his royal mother, which, for nineteen years, had excited the admiration of the million and which bore a placard with the legend, “An exact likeness of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, taken from life.” Mr. Greenwood, who was an Englishman, was deeply impressed with the condescension of the Prince, and backed his way through the halls, followed by the Prince, the Duke of Newcastle, and other members of the royal suite, and he actually trembled as he attempted to do the reception honors.

Presently they arrived in front of the platform on which were exhibited the various living human curiosities and monstrosities. The tall giant woman made her best bow; the fat boy waddled out and kissed his hand; the “negro turning white” showed his ivory and his spots; the dwarfs kicked up their heels, and like the clown in the ring, cried “here we are again”; the living skeleton stalked out, reminding the Prince, perhaps, of the wish of Sidney Smith in a hot day that he could lay off his flesh and sit in his bones; the Albino family went through their performances; the “What is it?” grinned; the Infant Drummer-boy beat a tattoo; and the Aztec children were shown and described as specimens of a remarkable and ancient race in Mexico and Central America. The Prince and his suite seemed pleased, and Greenwood was duly delighted. He was, however, quite overwhelmed with the responsibility of his position, especially whenever the Prince addressed him, and leading the way to the wax figure hall he called attention to the figures of the Siamese Twins and the Quaker Giant and his wife.

“I suppose,” said the Prince, “these figures are representatives of different living curiosities exhibited from time to time in your Museum?”

“Yes, your Royal Highness, all of them,” replied the confused Greenwood, and as “all of them” included very fair figures of the Emperors Nicholas and Napoleon, the Empress Eugenie, and other equally distinguished personages, the Prince must have thought that the Museum had contained, in times past, some famous “living curiosities.” On leaving the Museum, the Prince asked to see Mr. Barnum, and when he was told that I was out of town, he remarked: “We have missed the most interesting feature of the establishment.” A few days afterwards, when the Prince was in Boston, happening to be in that city, I sent my card to him at the Revere House, and was cordially received. He smiled when I reminded him that I had seen him when he was a little boy, on the occasion of one of my visits to Buckingham Palace with General Tom Thumb. The Prince told me that he was much pleased with his recent inspection of my Museum, and that he and his suite had left their autographs in the establishment, as mementos of their visit.

When I arrived in Boston, by the by, on this visit, the streets were thronged with the military and citizens assembled to receive the Prince of Wales, and I had great difficulty, in starting from the depot to the Revere House, in getting through the assembled crowd. At last, a policeman espied me, and taking me for Senator Stephen A. Douglas, he cried out, at the top of his voice: “Make way there for Judge Douglas’s carriage.” The crowd opened a passage for my carriage at short notice, and shouted out “Douglas, Douglas, hurrah for Douglas.” I took off my hat and bowed, smiling from the windows on each side of my carriage; the cheers and enthusiasm increased as I advanced, and all the way to the Revere House