Struggles and Triumphs P. T. Barnum (the beginning after the end read novel .TXT) 📖

the merits of the invention in the highest terms. The principal value of the machine seemed to consist in its power to extinguish flame, and thus prevent the spread of fire when it once broke out. Besides, the steam or vapor generated in the Annihilator was not prejudicial to human life. Now, as water has no effect whatever upon flame, it was obvious that the Annihilator would at the least prove a great assistant in extinguishing conflagrations, and that, especially in the incipient stage of a fire, it would extinguish it altogether, without damage to goods or other property, as is usually the case with water.

Hon. Elisha Whittlesey, First Comptroller of the United States Treasury at Washington, was interested in the American patent, and the gentleman that called upon me desired that I should also take an interest in it. I had no disposition to engage in any speculation; but, believing this might prove a beneficent invention, and be the means of saving a vast amount of human life as well as property, I visited Washington City for the purpose of conferring with Mr. Whittlesey, Hon. J. W. Allen and other parties interested.

I was there shown numerous certificates of fires having been extinguished by the machine in Great Britain, and property to the amount of many thousands of pounds saved. I also saw that Lord Brougham had proposed in Parliament that every Government vessel should be compelled to have the Fire Annihilator on board. Mr. Whittlesey expressed his belief in writing, that “if there is any reliance to be placed on human testimony, it is one of the greatest discoveries of this most extraordinary age.” I fully agreed with him, and have never yet seen occasion to change that opinion.

I agreed to join in the enterprise. Mr. Whittlesey was elected President, and I was appointed Secretary and General Agent of the Company. I opened the office of the Company in New York, and sold and engaged machines and territory in a few months to the amount of $180,000. I refused to receive more than a small portion of the purchase money until a public experiment had tested the powers of the machine, and I voluntarily delivered to every purchaser an agreement, signed by myself, in the following words:

“If the public test and demonstration are not perfectly successful, I will at any time when demanded, within ten days after the public trial, refund and pay back every shilling that has been paid into this office for machines or territory for the sale of the patent.”

The public trial came off in Hamilton Square on the 18th December, 1851. It was an exceedingly cold and inclement day. Mr. Phillips, who conducted the experiment, was interfered with and knocked down by some rowdies who were opposed to the invention, and the building was ignited and consumed after he had extinguished the previous fire. Subsequently to this unexpected and unjust opposition, I refunded every cent which I had received, sometimes against the wishes of those who had purchased, for they were willing to wait the result of further experiments; but I was utterly disgusted with the course of a large portion of the public upon a subject in which they were much more deeply interested than I was.

The arrangements of the Annihilator Company with Mr. Phillips, the inventor, predicated all payments which he was to receive on bona fide sales which we should actually make; therefore he really received nothing, and the entire losses of the American Company, which were merely for advertising and the expense of trying the experiments, hire of an office, etc., amounted to nearly $30,000, of which my portion was less than $10,000.

In the spring of 1851 the Connecticut Legislature chartered the Pequonnock Bank of Bridgeport, with a capital of two hundred thousand dollars. I had no interest whatever in the charter, and did not even know that an application was to be made for it. More banking capital was needed in Bridgeport in consequence of the great increase of trade and manufactures in that growing and prosperous city, and this fact appearing in evidence, the charter was granted as a public benefit. The stock-books were opened under the direction of State Commissioners, according to the laws of the Commonwealth, and nearly double the amount of capital was subscribed on the first day. The stock was distributed by the Commissioners among several hundred applicants. Circumstances unexpectedly occurred which induced me to accept the presidency of the bank, in compliance with the unanimous vote of its directors. Feeling that I could not, from my many avocations, devote the requisite personal attention to the duties of the office, C. B. Hubbell, Esq., then Mayor of Bridgeport, was at my request appointed Vice-President of the institution.

In the fall of 1852 a proposition was made by certain parties to commence the publication of an illustrated weekly newspaper in the City of New York. The field seemed to be open for such an enterprise, and I invested twenty thousand dollars in the concern, as special partner, in connection with two other gentlemen, who each contributed twenty thousand dollars, as general partners. Within a month after the publication of the first number of the Illustrated News, which was issued on the first day of January, 1853, our weekly circulation had reached seventy thousand. Numerous and almost insurmountable difficulties, for novices in the business, continued however to arise, and my partners becoming weary and disheartened with constant overexertion, were anxious to wind up the enterprise at the end of the first year. The goodwill and the engravings were sold to Gleasons Pictorial, in Boston, and the concern was closed without loss.

In 1851, when the idea of opening a World’s Fair in New York was first broached, I was waited upon by Mr. Riddell and the other originators of the scheme, and invited to join in getting it up. I declined, giving as a reason that such a project was, in my opinion, premature. I felt