The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-01

was then content to mix sugars, teas, and
liquors, 70 sell oottonfor wool, wool and cotton
for silk and linen, burned peas, beans, and
corn for ground coffee, and corn meal for gin
ger, and to get rid of old bottles and tin BY an
ingenusio lottery swindle. At least so he in
forms us in teIhe Life of p. T. Barnum, writ
ten by himself" He had not yeet been in
spired by prophetic visions of Joyce Heth
Niagara Falls in the Museum, the Feeee mer-
maid Tom Thumb, the Swedish Nightingale
the woolly horse, the happy family, lranstan
the Capitol at Washington, and the White
House cat the other end of the avenue" Now
however, after having "energized his func-
tions, y as DIR, Rush used to say, in surpass-
ing variety of ways, Barnum stretches him
selffor new and still more audaoious flights.
AS Congressional candidate he begins by
exhibiting characteristic correspondence with
a mysteTiously anonymous wTiter-whose real
name may be Quits or Noone, for aught we know
This correspondence might form a curious ad-
ditional chapter in the next edition of the
''Model Letter Writer, " or of the "Apoorypha."
It bears a striking family likeness TO the Feiee
mermaid, which was so fearfully and wonder
fully made. It is political Feeiee mermaid.
1t finely illustrates certain suggestive queries
which the illustrious Snowman, with some
thing like second sight, made two years ago,
under the head of personal "reminiscences, "
in his work entitled "The Humbugs of the
World" 'Need explain to my own beloved
countTymen, - he asks, ''that there is humbug
in politics Does anybody go into a political
campaign without P' Obviously he does
not wish to be suspected of being so green
himself as to ego into a political campaign
without it."
What future smiles upon the aspiring
Barnum How shrewdly he has chosen his
moment for entering the political arena The
radical party is without a leader. Sick of
Summers midnight oil orations, sore under
Thad. Stevens lash, tired of Banks attitu-
dinizing and sonorous monotOnes, bewildered
by Raymond's feats of ground and lofty tum-
bling, distrustful of light-fngered Ben Butler,
vexed at Ashley's blunders, they await impa-
tiently the coming man-and his name is Bar
mum. He recommends himself to them by
writing his own letters of introduction in this
bogus correspondence. His denunciation of
bribery and corruption is so sincere that they
must adore his immaculateness. We fear
that perhaps he almost overshoots the mark
by taking such pains to throw out the inn
preston that he will give no money to secure
his election. If he had said nothing about it,
who would have suspected him of ever giving
away anything but free tickets to his museumH
Under the leadership of Barnum the radical
party will be thoroughly reconstructed on the
grand historical principle of philosophical hum
He has fully revealed it to the world in the
two works to which we have alluded ''The
Life' and ''The Humbugs." Together these
compose what may be called Barnum's Bible.
From Gibbon and the encyclopedias he has
collected the history of all humbugs, from the
Father of Lies humbugging Eve in the Garden
Of Eden, through the Witch of Endor, the
EgypuaiI moSiJioI4,, - the days of Moses
Apollonius Tyaneus Cornelius AgripPo, Cog
iostro, the Count of st. Germain, George
Psalmanazar, Prince Hohenlohe, jeanne South
cote, Matthias, Joe Smith and the Mormon
Bible, the Davenport Brothers, the Japanese
jugglers, and the rest, down to Barnum him
self-the last, but by no means the least
The Connecticut election will be eventful,
curious, and intensely interesting. If the
Democrats should chance to carry the day
which is not impossible, farewell to the hopes
which Barnums candidacy inspires that the
radical party and New England itself will,
under his leadership, be reconstructed on a
new moral basis of swindling The country
will lose the benefit of the lessons which the
Great Panjandrum of Humbug might give to
Chase, and McCulloch, and Jay Cooke, and the
other financial illusionists at Washington
Pretty tricks as they know how to play with
the national finances, they might yet learn
much from Barnum.