Struggles amd Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P.T. Barnum

I replied: “Sir, advertising is like learning – ‘a little is a dangerous thing.’ ”

A French writer says that “The reader of a newspaper does not see the first insertion of an ordinary advertisement; the second insertion he sees, but does not read; the third insertion he reads; the fourth insertion, he looks at the price; the fifth insertion, he speaks of it to his wife; the sixth insertion, he is ready to purchase, and the seventh insertion, he purchases.” Your object in advertising is to make the public understand what you have got to sell, and if you have not the pluck to keep advertising, until you have imparted that information, all the money you have spent is lost. You are like the fellow who told the gentleman if he would give him ten cents it would save him a dollar. “How can I help you so much with so small a sum?” asked the gentleman in surprise. “I started out this morning (hiccupped the fellow) with the full determination to get drunk, and I have spent my only dollar to accomplish the object, and it has not quite done it. Ten cents worth more of whiskey would just do it, and in this manner I should save the dollar already expended.”

So a man who advertises at all must keep it up until the public know who and what he is, and what his business is, or else the money invested in advertising is lost.

Some men have a peculiar genius for writing a striking advertisement, one that will arrest the attention of the reader at first sight. This tact, of course, gives the advertiser a great advantage. Sometimes a man makes himself popular by an unique sign or a curious display in his window. Recently I observed a swing sign extending over the sidewalk in front of a store, on which was the inscription, in plain letters,

“DON’T READ THE OTHER SIDE.”

Of course I did, and so did everybody else, and I learned that the man had made an independence by first attracting the public to his business in that way and then using his customers well afterwards.

Genin, the hatter, bought the first Jenny Lind ticket at auction for two hundred and twenty-five dollars, because he knew it would be a good advertisement for him. “Who is the bidder?” said the auctioneer, as he knocked down that ticket at Castle Garden. “Genin, the hatter,” was the response. Here were thousands of people from the Fifth Avenue, and from distant cities in the highest stations in life. “Who is ‘Genin,’ the hatter?” they exclaimed. They had never heard of him before. The next morning the newspapers and telegraph had circulated the facts from Maine to Texas, and from five to ten millions of people had read that the tickets sold at auction for Jenny Lind’s first concert amounted to about twenty thousand dollars, and that a single ticket was sold at two hundred and twenty-five dollars, to “Genin, the hatter.” Men throughout the country involuntarily took off their hats to see if they had a “Genin” hat on their heads. At a town in Iowa it was found that in the crowd around the Post Office, there was one man who had a “Genin” hat, and he showed it in triumph, although it was worn out and not worth two cents. “Why,” one man exclaimed, “you have a real ‘Genin’ hat; what a lucky fellow you are.” Another man said “Hang on to that hat, it will be a valuable heir-loom in your family.” Still another man in the crowd, who seemed to envy the possessor of this good fortune, said, “come, give us all a chance; put it up at auction!” He did so, and it was sold as a keepsake for nine dollars and fifty cents! What was the consequence to Mr. Genin? He sold ten thousand extra hats per annum, the first six years. Nine-tenths of the purchasers bought of him, probably, out of curiosity, and many of them, finding that he gave them an equivalent for their money, became his regular customers. This novel advertisement first struck their attention, and then as he made a good article, they came again.

Now, I don’t say that everybody should advertise as Mr. Genin did. But I say if a man has got goods for sale, and he don’t advertise them in some way, the chances are that some day the sheriff will do it for him. Nor do I say that everybody must advertise in a newspaper, or indeed use “printers’ ink” at all. On the contrary, although that article is indispensable in the majority of cases, yet doctors and clergymen, and sometimes lawyers and some others can more effectually reach the public in some other manner. But it is obvious, they must be known in some way, else how could they be supported?

Be polite and kind to your customers. Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly. The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the patronage bestowed upon him. “Like begets like.” The man who gives the greatest amount of goods of a corresponding quality for the least sum (still reserving to himself a profit) will generally succeed best in the long run. This brings us to the golden rule, “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them,” and they will do better by you than if you always treated them as if you wanted to get the most you could out of them for the least return. Men who drive sharp bargains with their customers, acting as if they never expected to see them again, will not be mistaken. They never will see them again as customers. People don’t like to pay and get kicked also.

One of the ushers in my Museum once told me he intended to whip a man who was in the lecture room as soon as he came out.

“What for?” I inquired.

“Because he said I was no gentleman,” replied the usher.

“Never mind,” I replied, “he pays for that, and you will not convince him you are a gentleman by whipping him. I cannot afford to lose a customer. If you whip him, he will never visit the Museum again, and he will induce friends to go with him to other places of amusement instead of this, and thus, you see, I should be a serious loser.”

“But he insulted me,” muttered the usher.

“Exactly,” I replied, “and if he owned the Museum, and you had paid him for the privilege of visiting it, and he had then insulted you, there might be some reason in your resenting it, but in this instance he is the man who pays, while we receive, and you must, therefore, put up with his bad manners.”

My usher laughingly remarked, that this was undoubtedly the true policy, but he added that he should not object to an increase of salary if he was expected to be abused in order to promote my interests.

Be charitable. – Of course men should be charitable, because it is a duty and a pleasure. But even as a matter of policy, if you possess no higher incentive, you will find that the liberal man will command patronage, while the sordid, uncharitable miser will be avoided.

Solomon says: “There is that scattereth and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” Of course the only true charity is that which is from the heart.

The best kind of charity is to help those who are willing to help themselves. Promiscuous almsgiving, without inquiring into the worthiness of the applicant, is bad in every sense. But to search out and quietly assist those who are struggling for themselves, is the kind that “scattereth and yet increaseth.” But don’t fall into the idea that some persons practise, of giving a prayer instead of a potato, and a benediction instead of bread, to the hungry. It is easier to make Christians with full stomachs than empty.

Don’t blab. – Some men have a foolish habit of telling their business secrets. If they make money they like to tell their neighbors how it was done. Nothing is gained by this, and ofttimes much is lost. Say nothing about your profits, your hopes, your expectations, your intentions. And this should apply to letters as well as to conversation. Goethe makes Mephistophiles say: “never write a letter nor destroy one.” Business men must write letters, but they should be careful what they put in them. If you are losing money, be specially cautious and not tell of it, or you will lose your reputation.

Preserve your integrity. – It is more precious than diamonds or rubies. The old miser said to his sons: “Get money; get it honestly, if you can, but get money.” This advice was not only atrociously wicked, but it was the very essence of stupidity. It was as much as to say, “if you find it difficult to obtain money honestly, you can easily get it dishonestly. Get it in that way.” Poor fool! Not to know that the most difficult thing in life is to make money dishonestly! not to know that our prisons are full of men who attempted to follow this advice; not to understand that no man can be dishonest without soon being found out, and that when his lack of principle is discovered, nearly every avenue to success is closed against him forever. The public very properly shun all whose integrity is doubted. No matter how polite and pleasant and accommodating a man may be, none of us dare to deal with him if we suspect “false weights and measures.” Strict honesty not only lies at the foundation of all success in life (financially), but in every other respect. Uncompromising integrity of character is invaluable. It secures to its possessor a peace and joy which cannot be attained without it – which no amount of money, or houses and lands can purchase. A man who is known to be strictly honest, may be ever so poor, but he has the purses of all the community at his disposal; – for all know that if he promises to return what he borrows, he will never disappoint them. As a mere matter of selfishness, therefore, if a man had no higher motive for being honest, all will find that the maxim of Dr. Franklin can never fail to be true, that “honesty is the best policy.”

To get rich, is not always equivalent to being successful. “There are many rich poor men,” while there are many others, honest and devout men and women, who have never possessed so much money as some rich persons squander in a week, but who are nevertheless really richer and happier than any man can ever be while he is a transgressor of the higher laws of his being.

The inordinate love of money, no doubt, may be and is “the root of all evil,” but money itself, when properly used, is not only a “handy thing to have in the house,” but affords the gratification of blessing our race by enabling its possessor to enlarge the scope of human happiness and human influence. The desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can say it is not laudable, provided the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend to humanity.

The history of money getting, which is commerce, is a history of civilization, and wherever trade has flourished most, there, too, have art and science produced the noblest fruits. In fact, as a general thing, money getters are the benefactors of our race. To them, in a great measure, are we indebted for our institutions of learning and of art, our academies, colleges and churches. It is no argument against the desire for, or the possession of wealth, to say that there are sometimes misers who hoard money only for the sake of hoarding, and who have no higher aspiration than to grasp everything which comes within their reach. As we have sometimes hypocrites in religion, and demagogues in politics, so there are occasionally misers among money getters. These, however, are only exceptions to the general rule. But when, in this country, we find such a nuisance and stumbling block as a miser, we remember with gratitude that in America we have no laws of primogeniture, and that in the due course of nature the time will come when the hoarded dust will be scattered for the benefit of mankind. To all men and women, therefore, do I conscientiously say, make money honestly, and not otherwise, for Shakespeare has truly said, “He that wants money, means and content, is without three good friends.”

Nearly every paper in London had something to say about my lecture, and in almost every instance the matter and manner of the lecturer were unqualifiedly approved. Indeed, the profusion of praise quite overwhelmed me. The London Times, December 30, 1858, concluded a half-column criticism with the following paragraph:

“We are bound to admit that Mr. Barnum is one of the most entertaining lecturers that ever addressed an audience on a theme universally intelligible. The appearance of Mr. Barnum, it should be added, has nothing of the ‘charlatan’ about it, but is that of the thoroughly respectable man of business; and he has at command a fund of dry humor that convulses everybody with laughter, while he himself remains perfectly serious. A sonorous voice and an admirably clear delivery complete his qualifications as a lecturer, in which capacity he is no ‘humbug,’ either in a higher or lower sense of the word.”

The London Morning Post, the Advertiser, the Chronicle, the Telegraph, the Herald, the News, the Globe, the Sun, and other lesser journals of the same date, all contained lengthy and favorable notices and criticisms of my lecture. My own lavish advertisements were as nothing to the notoriety which the London newspapers voluntarily and editorially gave to my new enterprise. The weekly and literary papers followed in the train; and even Punch, which had already done so much to keep Tom Thumb before the public, gave me a half-page notice, with an illustration, and thereafter favored me with frequent paragraphs. The city thus prepared the provinces to give me a cordial reception.

During the year 1859, I delivered this lecture nearly one hundred times in different parts of England, returning occasionally to London to repeat it to fresh audiences, and always with pecuniary success. Every provincial paper had something to say about Barnum and “The art of Money Getting,” and I was never more pleasantly or profusely advertised. The tour, too, made me acquainted with many new people and added fresh and fast friends to my continually increasing list. My lecturing season is among my most grateful memories of England.

Remembering my experiences, some years before, with General Tom Thumb at Oxford and Cambridge, and the fondness of the undergraduates for practical joking, I was quite prepared when I made up my mind to visit those two cities, to take any quantity of “chaff” and lampooning which the University boys might choose to bring. I was sure of a full house in each city, and as I was anxious to earn all the money I could, so as to hasten my deliverance from financial difficulties, I fully resolved to put up with whatever offered – indeed, I rather liked the idea of an episode in the steady run of praise which had followed my lecture everywhere, and I felt, too, in the coming encounter that I might give quite as much as I was compelled to take.

I commenced at Cambridge, and, as I expected, to an overflowing house, largely composed of undergraduates. Soon after I began to speak, one of the young men called out: “Where is Joice Heth?” to which I very coolly replied:

“Young gentleman, please to restrain yourself till the conclusion of the lecture, when I shall take great delight in affording you, or any others of her posterity, all the information I possess concerning your deceased relative.”

This reply turned the laugh against the youthful and anxious inquirer and had the effect of keeping other students quiet for a half hour. Thereafter, questions of a similar character were occasionally propounded, but as each inquirer generally received a prompt Roland for his Oliver, there was far less interruption than I had anticipated. The proceeds of the evening were more than one hundred pounds sterling, an important addition to my treasury at that time. At the close of the lecture, several students invited me to a sumptuous supper where I met, among other undergraduates, a nephew of Lord Macaulay, the historian. This young gentleman insisted upon my breakfasting with him at his rooms next morning, but as I was anxious to take an early train for London, I only called to leave my card, and after his “gyp” had given me a strong cup of coffee, I hastened away, leaving the young Macaulay, whom I did not wish to disturb, fast asleep in bed.

At Oxford the large hall was filled half an hour before the time announced for the lecture to begin and the sale of tickets was stopped. I then stepped upon the platform, and said: “Ladies and Gentlemen: As every seat is occupied and the ticket-office is closed, I propose to proceed with my lecture now, and not keep you waiting till the advertised hour.”

“Good for you, old Barnum,” said one; “Time is money,” said another; “Nothing like economy,” came from a third, and other remarks and exclamations followed which excited much laughter in the audience. Holding up my hand as a signal that I was anxious to say something so soon as silence should be restored, I thus addressed my audience:

“Young gentlemen, I have a word or two to say, in order that we may have a thorough understanding between ourselves at the outset. I see symptoms of a pretty jolly time here this evening, and you have paid me liberally for the single hour of my time which is at your service. I am an old traveller and an old showman, and I like to please my patrons. Now, it is quite immaterial to me; you may furnish the entertainment for the hour, or I will endeavor to do so, or we will take portions of the time by turns – you supplying a part of the amusement, and I a part; – as we say sometimes in America, ‘you pays your money, and you takes your choice.’ ”

My auditors were in the best of humor from the beginning, and my frankness pleased them. “Good for you, old Barnum,” cried their leader; and I went on with my lecture for some fifteen minutes, when a voice called out:

“Come, old chap! you must be tired by this time; hold up now till we sing ‘Yankee Doodle,’ ” whereupon they all joined in that pleasing air with a vigor which showed that they had thoroughly prepared themselves for the occasion, and meanwhile I took a chair and sat down to show them that I was quite satisfied with their manner of passing the time. When the song was concluded, the leader of the party said: “Now, Mr. Barnum, you may go ahead again.”

I looked at my watch and quietly remarked, “Oh! there is time for lots of fun yet; we have nearly forty minutes of the hour remaining,” and I proceeded with my lecture, or rather a lecture, for I began to adapt my remarks to the audience and the occasion. At intervals of ten minutes, or so, came interruptions which I, as my audience saw, fully enjoyed as much as the house did. When this miscellaneous entertainment was concluded, and I stopped short at the end of the hour, crowds of the young men pressed forward to shake hands with me, declaring that they had had a “jolly good time,” while the leader said: “Stay with us a week, Barnum, and we will dine you, wine you, and give you full houses every night.” But I was announced to lecture in London the next evening and I could not accept the pressing invitation, though I would gladly have stayed through the week. They asked me all sorts of questions about America, the Museum, my various shows and successes, and expressed the hope that I would come out of my clock troubles all right.

At least a score of them pressed me to breakfast with them next morning, but I declined, till one young gentleman put it on this purely personal ground: “My dear sir, you must breakfast with me; I have almost split my throat in screaming here to-night and it is only fair that you should repay me by coming to see me in the morning.” This appeal was irresistible, and at the appointed time I met him and half a dozen of his friends at his table and we spent a very pleasant hour together. They complimented me on the tact and equanimity I had exhibited the previous evening, but I replied: “Oh! I was quite inclined to have you enjoy your fun, and came fully prepared for it.”

But they liked better, they said, to get the party angry. A fortnight before, they told me, my friend Howard Paul had left them in disgust, because they insisted upon smoking while his wife was on the stage, adding that the entertainment was excellent and that Howard Paul could have made a thousand pounds if he had not let his anger drive him away. My new-found friends parted with me at the railway station, heartily urging me to come again, and my ticket seller returned £169 as the immediate result of an evening’s good-natured fun with the Oxford boys.

After delivering my lecture many times in different places, a prominent publishing house in London, offered me £1,200 ($6,000,) for the copyright. This offer I declined, not that I thought the lecture worth more money, but because I had engaged to deliver it in several towns and cities, and I thought the publication would be detrimental to the public delivery of my lecture. It was a source of very considerable emolument to me, bringing in much money, which went towards the redemption of my pecuniary obligations, so that the lecture itself was an admirable illustration of “The Art of Money Getting.”

CHAPTER XXXII

AN ENTERPRISING ENGLISHMAN

AN ENGLISH YANKEE – MY FIRST INTERVIEW WITH HIM – HIS PLANS BASED ON BARNUM’S BOOK – ADVERTISING FOR PARTNERS – HOW MY RULES MADE HIM RICH – METHOD IN MADNESS – THE “BARNUM” OF BURY – DINNER TO TOM THUMB AND COMMODORE NUTT – MY AGENT IN PARIS – MEASURING A MONSTER – HOW GIANTS AND DWARFS STRETCH AND CONTRACT – AN UNWILLING FRENCHMAN – A PERSISTENT MEASURER – A GIGANTIC HUMBUG – THE STEAM-ENGINES “BARNUM” AND “CHARITY” – WHAT “CHARITY” DID FOR “BARNUM” – SELLING THE SAME GOODS A THOUSAND TIMES – THE GREAT CAKES – SIMNEL SUNDAY – THE SANITARY COMMISSION FAIR.

WHILE visiting Manchester, in 1858, I was invited by Mr. Peacock, the lessee, to deliver a lecture in “Free Trade Hall.” I gave a lecture, the title of which I now forget; but I well remember it contained numerous personal reminiscences. The next day a gentleman sent his card to my room at the hotel where I was stopping. I requested the servant to show the gentleman up at once, and he soon appeared and introduced himself. At first he seemed somewhat embarrassed, but gradually broke the ice by saying he had been pleased in listening to my lecture the previous evening, and added that he knew my history pretty well, as he had read my autobiography. As his embarrassment at first meeting with a stranger wore away, he informed me that he was joint proprietor with another gentleman in a “cotton-mill” in Bury, near Manchester, “although,” he modestly added, “only a few years ago I was working as a journeyman, and probably should have been at this time, had it not been for your book.” Observing my surprise at this announcement, he continued:

“The fact is, Mr. Barnum, upon reading your autobiography, I thought I perceived you tried to make yourself out something worse than you really were; for I discovered a pleasant spirit and a good heart under the rougher exterior in which you chose to present yourself to the public; but,” he added, “after reading your life I found myself in possession of renewed strength, and awakened energies and aspirations, and I said to myself, ‘Why can’t I go ahead and make money as Barnum did? He commenced without money and succeeded; why may not I?’ In this train of thought,” he continued, “I went to a newspaper office and advertised for a partner with money to join me in establishing a cotton-mill. I had no applications, and, remembering your experiences when you had money and wanted a partner, I spent half a crown in a similar experiment. I advertised for a partner to join a man who had plenty of capital. Then I had lots of applicants ready to introduce me into all sorts of occupations, from that of a banker to that of a horse-jockey or gambler, if I would only furnish the money to start with. After a while, I advertised again for a partner, and obtained one with money. We have a good mill. I devote myself closely to business, and have been very successful. I know every line in your book; so, indeed, do several members of my family; and I have conducted my business on the principles laid down in your published ‘Rules for Money-making.’ I find them correct principles; and, sir, I have sought this interview in order to thank you for publishing your autobiography, and to tell you that to that act of yours I attribute my present position in life.”

Of course, I was pleased and surprised at this revelation, and, feeling that my new friend, whom I will call Mr. Wilson,2 had somewhat exaggerated the results of my labors as influencing his own, I said: