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

establishment. Without the slightest evidence of agitation, he laid the telegram upon his desk and finished his speech. When he went next day to New York he saw only a pile of black, smouldering ruins.

Immediately after adjournment that afternoon, I took the cars for Bridgeport, spending the night quietly at home, and the following morning I went to New York to see the ruins of my Museum, and to learn the full extent of the disaster. When I arrived at the scene of the calamity and saw nothing but the smouldering debris of what a few hours before was the American Museum, the sight was sad indeed. Here were destroyed, almost in a breath, the accumulated results of many years of incessant toil, my own and my predecessors, in gathering from every quarter of the globe myriads of curious productions of nature and art⁠—an assemblage of rarities which a half million of dollars could not restore, and a quarter of a century could not collect. In addition to these there were many Revolutionary relics and other links in our national history which never could be duplicated. Not a thousand dollars worth of the entire property was saved; the destruction was complete; the loss was irreparable, and the total amount of insurance was but forty thousand dollars.

The fire probably originated in the engine room, where steam was constantly kept up to pump fresh air into the water of the aquaria and to propel the immense fans for cooling the atmosphere of the halls. The flames burst through into the manager’s office, and rapidly extended to all parts of the building. The desk of my son-in-law, Mr. Hurd, was already in flames when he opened it and took out several thousands of dollars in bank bills, and reflecting upon the risk he might incur in carrying it through the surging crowd outside, with remarkable presence of mind, and faith in Herring’s safes, he hastily thrust this money with the account books into my safe, which already held many thousand dollars, and locking the door, left the whole with entire confidence to the flames. Buttoning his coat, he safely made his way out of the burning building and through the excited throng in the streets.

Mr. Hurd’s faith in Herring was well founded; for, when the safe was recovered from the ruins, its contents were discovered to be in perfect preservation. Of the curiosities and other contents of the establishment nothing was saved. When I first gazed upon the ruins, I saw, down in the depths, the remains of the two white whales, which had arrived only a week before, and which were swimming in the great glass tank when the fire broke out. I had never seen these monsters alive, but the half-consumed carcasses presented to my mind the worst specimens of baked and boiled fish that could be conceived of. All the New York newspapers made a great “sensation” of the fire, and the full particulars were copied in journals throughout the country. A facetious reporter, Mr. Nathan D. Urner, of the Tribune, wrote the following amusing account, which appeared in that journal, July 14, 1865, and was very generally quoted from and copied by provincial papers many of whose readers accepted every line of the glowing narrative as “gospel truth”:

Soon after the breaking out of the conflagration, a number of strange and terrible howls and moans proceeding from the large apartment in the third floor of the Museum, corner of Ann Street and Broadway, startled the throngs who had collected in front of the burning building, and who were at first under the impression that the sounds must proceed from human beings unable to effect their escape. Their anxiety was somewhat relieved on this score, but their consternation was by no means decreased upon learning that the room in question was the principal chamber of the menagerie connected with the Museum, and that there was imminent danger of the release of the animals there confined, by the action of the flames. Our reporter fortunately occupied a room on the north corner of Ann Street and Broadway, the windows of which looked immediately into this apartment; and no sooner was he apprised of the fire than he repaired there, confident of finding items in abundance. Luckily the windows of the Museum were unclosed, and he had a perfect view of almost the entire interior of the apartment. The following is his statement of what followed, in his own language:

Protecting myself from the intense heat as well as I could, by taking the mattress from the bed and erecting it as a bulwark before the window, with only enough space reserved on the top so as to look out, I anxiously observed the animals in the opposite room. Immediately opposite the window through which I gazed, was a large cage containing a lion and lioness. To the right hand was the three storied cage, containing monkeys at the top, two kangaroos in the second story, and a happy family of cats, rats, adders, rabbits, etc., in the lower apartment. To the left of the lion’s cage was the tank containing the two vast alligators, and still further to the left, partially hidden from my sight was the grand tank containing the great white whale, which has created such a furore in our sightseeing midst for the past few weeks. Upon the floor were caged the boa-constrictor, anacondas and rattlesnakes, whose heads would now and then rise menacingly through the top of the cage. In the extreme right was the cage, entirely shut from my view at first, containing the Bengal tiger and the Polar bear, whose terrific growls could be distinctly heard from behind the partition. With a simultaneous bound the lion and his mate, sprang against the bars, which gave way and came down with a great crash, releasing the beasts, which for a moment, apparently amazed at their sudden liberty, stood in the middle of the floor lashing their sides with