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

I continued to bow Judge Douglas’s grateful acknowledgments for the enthusiastic reception. There must have been at least fifty thousand people who joined in this spontaneous demonstration in honor of Judge Douglas.

When Douglas ran for the presidency in 1860, my democratic friend, J. D. Johnson, bet me a hat that the Judge would be elected. Douglas passed through Bridgeport on his electioneering tour down East, and made a brief speech from the rear platform of the car, to the people assembled at the depot. The next day Mr. Johnson met me in a crowded barber shop and asked me if I had ever seen Douglas? I answered that I had, and Johnson then asked what sort of a looking man he was. Remembering our hat bet, and knowing that Johnson expected a pretty hard description of his favorite candidate, I said:

“He is a red-nosed, blear-eyed, dumpy, swaggering chap, looking like a regular barroom loafer.”

“I thought as much,” said Johnson, “for here is the New Haven paper of this morning, which says that he is the very image, in personal appearance, of P. T. Barnum.”

When the roar that followed subsided, I told Johnson I must have had some other man in my mind’s eye, when I answered his question.

One day I went out of the Museum in great haste to Tom Higginson’s barber shop, in the Park Hotel, where my daily tonsorial operations were performed, and finding a rough-looking Hibernian just ahead of me, I told him that if he would be good enough to give me his “turn,” I would pay his bill; to which he consented, and taking his turn and my own shave, I speedily departed, saying to Tom, as I went out: “Fix out this man, and for whatever he has done I will pay the bill.”

Two or three clerks and reporters, who were in the shop, and who knew me, put their freshly-dressed heads together and suggested to Tom that here was an opportunity to perpetrate a practical joke on Barnum, and they explained the plan, in which Higginson readily acquiesced.

“Now,” says one of them to the Irishman, “get everything done which you like, and it will cost you nothing; it will be charged to the gentleman to whom you gave your turn.”

“Sure and a liberal gintleman he must be,” said Pat.

“Will you take a bath?” asked the barber.

“That indade I will, if the gintleman pays,” was the reply.

When he came out of the bath he was asked if he would be shampooed. “And what is that?” asked the bewildered Hibernian. The process was explained and he consented to go through with the operation. Thereafter, moved and instigated thereto by the barber and his confederates, Pat permitted Higginson to dye his red hair and whiskers a beautiful brown, and then to curl them. When all was done, the son of Erin looked in the mirror and could scarcely believe the evidence of his own eyes. A more thorough transformation could scarcely be conceived, and as he went out of the door he said to Higginson:

“Give the generous gintleman me best complements and tell him he can have my turn ony day on the same terms.”

One of the newspaper reporters, who assisted in the joke, published the whole story the next day, and when I called at the barber shop a bill for $1.75 was presented, which, of course, I could do no less than to pay. The joke went the rounds of the papers; and after a few months, an English friend sent me the whole story in a copy of the London Family Herald⁠—a publication that issues about half a million of copies weekly. Mr. Currier, the lithographer, put the joke into pictorial form, representing the Irishman as he appeared before, also as he appeared after the “barbarous” operations. After all, it was a good advertisement for me, as well as for Higginson; and it would have been pretty difficult to serve me up about these times in printers’ ink in any form that I should have objected to.

Meanwhile, the Museum flourished better than ever; and I began to make large holes in the mortgages which covered the property of my wife in New York and in Connecticut. Still, there was an immense amount of debts resting upon all her real estate, and nothing but time, economy, industry and diligence would remove the burdens.

XXXV East Bridgeport

Another New Home⁠—Lindencroft⁠—Progress of My Pet City⁠—The Chestnut Wood Fire⁠—How It Became Old Hickory⁠—Inducements to Settlers⁠—My Offer⁠—Every Man His Own House-Owner⁠—Whiskey and Tobacco⁠—Rise in Real-Estate⁠—Pembroke Lake⁠—Washington Park⁠—Great Manufactories⁠—Wheeler and Wilson⁠—Schuyler, Hartley and Graham⁠—Hotchkiss, Son and Company⁠—Street Names⁠—Many Thousand Shade Trees⁠—Business in the New City⁠—Unparalleled Growth and Prosperity⁠—Probabilities in the Future⁠—Situation of Bridgeport⁠—Its Advantages and Prospects⁠—The Second, if Not the Foremost City in Connecticut.

For nearly five years my family had been knocked about, the sport of adverse fortune, without a settled home. Sometimes we boarded, and at other times we lived in a small hired house. Two of my daughters were married, and my youngest daughter, Pauline, was away at boarding school. The health of my wife was much impaired, and she especially needed a fixed residence which she could call “home.” Accordingly, in 1860, I built a pleasant house adjoining that of my daughter Caroline, in Bridgeport, and one hundred rods west of the grounds of Iranistan. I had originally a tract of twelve acres, but half of it had been devoted to my daughter, and on the other half I now proposed to establish my own residence. To prepare the site it was necessary to cart in several thousands of loads of dirt to fill up the hollow and to make the broad, beautiful lawn, in the center of which I erected the new house, and after supplying the place with fountains, shrubbery, statuary and all that could adorn it, I named my new home “Lindencroft.” It was, in truth, a very delightful place, complete and convenient in all respects,