The Forrest City times., 1891-05-15

As As OHENNSM Ms
 h,m. and there are very few Americans who do not feel that they owe him certain debt of gratitude for brighten ing their lives or the lives of their children.
 Phineas Taylor Barnum was born in Bethel. Ct., July 5. 1810 His father, Pilo Barnum, was a tailor, a farmer, a country merchant and sometimes a tavern keeper.
 Mir. Barnum's father died when Phneas was 15 years old and left his family in very poor circumstances. The lad was obliged to get trusted fer the pair of shoes he wore to his fathers funeral. He literally began the world with nothing, and was barefooted at that Young Barnum developed a dis tase for manual labor, and was en- ployed as clerk in country store.
 In period of political excitement Mir. Barnum wrote number of com. munications to a Danbury paper, whi oh were refused publication. and lie estab- lished a paper of hls own, the Herald Of Freedom. the hrst number of which appeared Oct. 19, 1881. Lacking that experience which induces caution, and without dread of consequences, he fre- queutly laid himself open to the charge of libel, and three times in three years he was prosecuted. The last was n criminal prosecution. brought against him for stating in his paper that a man in Bethel, prominent in church, had been guilty of taking usury of an or plan boy. The truth of the statement was proved, but he was convicted, sen- fenced 10 a fine of $100 and imprison- ment in the common jail for 50 days.
 Mir. Barnum sold out his paper after on editorial career Of three years, and, disposing of his interest in Bethel, moved to New York literally to seek his fortune. For time he kept n small private boarding house. and in 1885, over fifty years ago, began his long and successful career as show- man by the exhibition of a remar ka ble negro woman, said to have been 160 years old and to have been the nurse of Gen. Washington.
 Que bitterly cold morning early Tn 1868, as he sat by the flreside looking at the morning paper. he ~ead Bar num's museum totally destroyed by tire." By the burning of Iranistan anu two museums he lost x1,000, 900. He now sold out hls traveling menagerie and retired from business. But after so active life he was not content to long remain idle. and in l,10-7l organ ized a great show enterprise, combin- ing museum, menagerie, caravan, hippodrome and circus, which was ex- hibited with much profit, though at great expense. Hs also purchased the building and lease on Fourteenth street. New York, known as tine Hippothea- tron, and established show for the employment of 200 of his people who would otherwise be idle in winter. Four weeks after its inauguration he was in New Or leans, and while reading an account of the flooding of his show grounds in that city a telegram reached him announc- ing the burning of the Now York estab- lishment, by which he lost nearly $500. 600. He returned to New York. and. with his never-failing pluck, was on the road again the next spring with "Barnum's Travelling Worlds Fair. '" whose expenses were S5.000 day; and his name has ever since been connected with the greatest show enterprises the country has seen. one marked feature of which was the transportation 10 America from Eng gland of the famous elephant, Jumbo. whose bones are now set up at Tufts Coliege, to which iu- stitution they were presented by Mir. Barnum.
 In 1s49 came thu Jenny Lind tour, in which Mir Barnum achieved one of the greatest successes in managerial work known in the history of amusement undertakings The Swedish nghtiu- gale gave niuetytive concerts under his control, the total receipts of which were $1l2. l6l. 34, or an average of $7. 4e6. 43 per night. The next year Mir. Barnum started a travelling museum and menagerie.
 Offers of assistance came from far and near. but Mr. Barnum would no, accept them, and courageously began to light for fortune once more. He took Tom Thumb and went abroad. where he renewed his former successes.
 Mir. Barnum was a Republican. He was elected four times to the I.egisla ture, and once to the mayoraltv of Bridgeport, his supporters not being contiued at all to party lines. however, and did yeoman service in all his pub. lie offices.
 He lectured under the auspices of the Redpa,h Lvceum Bureau of Boston in 1875. on "The World and How to Lave in it," and wrote one or two works of fiction. Besides giving thou sands of dollars worth of land to Bridgeport for park purposes. he gave $50. 900 Of land for cemetery, and iu his native town Of Bethel he erected a fountain at cost of $a0,05
 Mfr. Barnum had catered to the inno- cent amusement of millions cf people, and he said: ''To my eyes the handsom. est picture in all the world is an array of young and smiling faces such as I have seen day after day and night after night beneath the shelter of my tents. To my ears the sweetest music is the clear. ringing laughter of tho children as they give vent to their joy in my show"
 The great snowman lost several for tunes. but, as he himself often said. he ,e Id not have lost them if he had not first been successful in winning them.
 One or shs Osher.