Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-28
MANHAT TANISMS.
"REMINISCENCES OF BARNUM, THE
PRINCE OF EUMBUGS.
Suit of a Physician for His Bitten off Nose
More skepticism among Clergy
NEWEST Point Brutality.
New YORK, April Is. 1880.

stay out OF It, lie invariably returns
after certain period of inactivity,
famished and furnishing for new enter.
prises of the spectacular sort. He is now
20, or will be next July and vet, ven.
ture to say, he will at so be conducting
some colossal circus or menagerie, or both,
with andiminished energy and enthusiasm.
AN IRREPREsSIBLE SNOWMAN.
When his old museum at Broadway and
Ann street burned down, fifteen years ago,
he sold the site to Bennett, of the Herald,
and decided to withdraw from public life.
But he reappeared at the head of new
museum, further up Broadway, within two
years, and having again been ousted by
ire, he resolved once more to seek privacy.
He even went so far as to sell number OF
his properties to George Wood, and to
agree, in consideration of certain amount
of cash, not to occupy the field on pain OF
FORGETTING S25, 1000. He was very quiet, fol
him, for considerable time but the rest.
less blood of the exhibitor conquered at
last. He gave Wood check for $25, 600,
and went back to his early love. You re.
member that he instituted grand hippo.
drome in the season of 1874 5, and that il
drew crowds to the building now known as
Madison Square Garden. After some
months its novelty wore off, the vast in.
closure was almost empty, and Barnum
disposed of his enormous quantity of ma
terial at auction, losing, it was thought,
$4,000 or 100000, and again
retired. But here he is once
more, turning away hundreds nightly
from the American Institute and its col
lected prodigies. He is Connecticut Yam
kee, having been born at Bethel in that
State. He evinced from his early boyhood a
fondness for practical jokes and for all kinds
of trading which foreshadowed his destiny.
His father, who was a tavern-keeper, put
him into miscellaneous shop of the vii
lage, and he afterwards set up shop of
his own, making good deal of money by
selling lottery tickets, which he had
learned all about by visiting this city.
Having been clandestinely married at 10,
he soon after bought and edited the Her
aid Of Freedom at Danbury and turned it
to profit. But his free expression of opin-
ion having involved him in libel suits, and
got him into prison, he sold out, lost in
speculations nearly all he had made and
then came here. He tried divers ways to
earn livelihood in this town with ill sue
cess, and was at his wits end when he
heard that
JoICE HETH,
A negress advertised as the nurse of George
Washington, was on exhibition in Phila-
delphia, and could be bought. That is my
chance, said Barnum, and off he posted,
negotiated for Joice so very shrewdly as to
get possession of her for 81, 900 cash, Dor
rowed of his friends. He made the most
of her, telling so many big stories as to
whet public curiosity and made 81, 800 a
week by the spread desire to see her.
This, his initial attempt to humbug the
people, was so prosperous that he formed a
small company and travelled through the
country, taking in much money in all the
towns and villages where he halted. He is
said to have cleared 100000 from Joice
Heth, who was the veritable founder of his
first fortune. In 1886 she died, and an au-
topsy proved that she could not have been
more than Is or so years old, instead of
l6l, which Barnum had declared her to be.
Lie COnbluuCu III tllC SuOW DuSlucSS lOT
several years longer, when outside opera
tions bankrupted him, and he returned to
this city, and
EKED OUT A LIVELIHOOD
By writing for the Sunday papers, and by
doing odd jobs of miscellaneous work. In
lS4l Scudders' American Museum, as it
was designated, was offered for sale, and
Barnum bought it without dollar of cash.
Again the tide turned in his favor. At
the end of year he had paid for the
museum, to which he steadily added until
he had made it the most popular place of
amusement in the republic. There he
drew throngs with the white negroes, the
FIJI mermaid, the woody horse, with other
distortions of nature and ingenious con-
trivances. He there exhibited Tom Thumb,
too 1.-THE little fellow is now to be seen at a
ten-cent show in the Bowery, looking quite
old, stout and much the worse for dissipa-
tion), and reached his climacteric by en-
gaging Jenny Lind at prcdigious price
Isl ,0O0 night for $50 nights, with all the
expenses of herself and troupe), and put
ting, nevertheless, some $780, 600 into his
purse by his audacious and hazardous un.
dertaking Barnum is indeed the Prince
of Humbugs, and whatever may be thought
Of his peculiar enterprises, he is privately
very kind-hearted and pleasant fellow.
As man he is not bit of sham.
A SINGULAR SUIT
Has been brought against a young woman
by a physician in town in this State for
$4,000 damages, for biting off the end of
his nose. He alleges that while he was
making out diagnosis of her case-she
had come to consult him in regard to her
lungs-and trying to discover if she were
suffering from tubercles, she flew at him,
and bit off portion of his proboscis,
which he had considered particularly
handsome one, and which has been ruined
esthetically by her ferocious assault. Her
story is that she went to his office on a
professional visit, and while he was testing
her lungs, he threw his arms about her,
and kissed her passionately and repeatedly.
She endeavored IN vain to disengage her.
self then she screamed for help, but he
caught her by the throat nearly strangled
her, and then resumed his ardent caresses.
Unable to get away from him or to summon
assistance, she seized his nose in her teeth
they are said to be large, strong and
handsome-a held on until he reared
with pain, and in his struggle left the tip
of one of his fair features in her oral keep
ing. She then went her way unmolested,
and AYERS that she has acted entirely in
self-defense. The evidence corroborates her
statement. She is comedy, well-educated,
of unblemished reputation, and has con-
siderable property in her own right. He
is shown to be good deal of coxcomb,
decidedly inclined to rakishness, and to
have been obliged to leave st. Louis on &C.
count of an infuriated husband to whose
wife he had been unduly attentive. The
Judge decided that. the plaintiff had no
right to damages or sympathy, and the
New York community are of his opinion.
The physician probably instituted suit
more with view to hiding the truth than
to recovering anything.
There is moral in this case. 1t is that
men who have resolved to ravish kisses
from women provided with excellent teeth,
should, before carrying out their resolu-
ton, leave their noses at home, to guard
against contingencies. If the New York
physician had done this, he would have
been better off by at least quarter of an
inch of a once graceful beak.
HEREsY IN HIGH PLACE.
Charges of heresy are frequently brought