Daily press. [volume] (Newport News, Va.) 1896-current, 1898-02-06
OUR DEBT TO BARNUM
THE SNOWMAN A MORAL!ST IN DIS
GUIsE OF THE ESOP TYPE.

- NV DIS-
GUlSe OF THE %SOP TYPE.
His Fables Presented Under the Guise of
Freaks OF In Hair Raising Acts-The
Lesson He Meant to Teach by Shooting
the woman Out of q Cannon.
In his ago of scrAmble the public too
soou forgctS its bcnefactors, and ever there
Is need of a class of devoutcr spirits who,
like Walter Scott's Old Mortality, shall
go about through the graveyards, with re-
touching mallct and chisel, seeking to
Keep green the memory of departed wor-
| thies.
Like too many of his ]forerunners, tho
late lamented p. T. Barnum, tho aborig-
inal creator of the greatest show on
carth,' was in his day and generation a
man Observation-Disclosures man who, as
Wordsworth puts it, wandered lonely as
o cloud even amid the throngs gathered
by the more superficial attractions of his
circus. Dealing on SO vast q scale in wild
beasts and human monstrosities, few but
d select group of bosom friends knew him
for what he really was, n mornlist in dis
gulsc OF the dIsop type-a man who, while
nc talked beasts, meant men.
In the earlier stages of his career pcsi-
tive rcprobation was hcapcd on his head
by thousands who, to use their own coarse
language, felt they had been jeremy did.
died in paying u quarter each to rcvcl in
the vision of the beautiful "Fiji mer-
maid sitting on a rock and colnbing her
golden locks, only to find inside tho tent
the stuffed skin of a sho baboon glued On
tho tail of II Goldfish. Your rcprobation is
misdircctcd," retortcd Barnum. "True,
have got the quarters, but then in return
wan hnH.,. .r-k ~ =
arc aesthetic, anatomical and psychologist
impossibilities. The one thing nccdful
was to work in you a drastic, realistic
cure My show is strictly moral, and now
1t remains with you, as you chew tho cud
OF sweet and bitter reflections, to extract
tho moral" Thus from the start WAS
manifest the serious, didactic Gust OF the
great mans mind.
That in so obtuse n world MS this a NOR
alist of the type of Barnum was ct the out
set misunderstood is only natural. When,
Tor Xamplc he first doomed up before the
American public ne the one maj on the
planet OF the hardihood to shoot u full
grown live woman out of n cannon and
catch her on the fly in II wavy net as big as
u porgy seine, who for a dreamed
that underlying all tho pagcantry of so
sensational u spectacle lurked II pregnant
moral lesson? Yet to Barnum the moral
was the one serious consideration. To use
his fnrorite natural history figure of speech
for tho turn Of his mind was highly
mctaphorical-the moral stood out plain
us a Jnckass' cars. In his eyes the rest of
the exhibition, the whole external show,
was nero embellishments, mere rhetorical
emphasis to excite the sluggish minds of
the thoughtless and stimulate them to re-
Election,
'Hcre"-ho would break out in hia
more expansive hours of perhaps venial
self cxultation-"here Is my grand para
bic, my dramatic moral masterpiece. TIL
supreme moral forces of the individual
and of society are momentum and control.
Momentum by itself is headlong and de.
structive. Control by itself is tame and
even sappy. In harmony they become
sublime as the centrinetal and centrifugal
forces of the solar system. Preachers in
the pulpit essay indeed to cxpound the
same doctrine. Preachers, however, have
no such magnificent apparatus of ,llustra-
tlon at command rs has the proprietor of
a circus, and SO NIL remains in the realm
or vhgueness and abstraction. Their hear
crS fall asleep, but when bang goes nv
big cannon and, 10, 100 pounds of glorious
womanhood-roso rcd, lily white, dining
ly bespangled-is seen hurting through
the air the dullcst head clears up. Mo
mentum In oil its titanic, all its frightful-
~ perllous behring's is grasped in a tricc.
The emotions pour In a mighty flood. The
tate of Il woman, of q sister, hangs in
agonizing suspense. Momentum hurls her
with annih!lating fury, and, unless some
equal counter force leap to the rescue, q
second more and she must lie before the
~stupendous throng of spectators Il brain
less, bleeding corpse. Now first reveals it.
self the latent significance, the profound
symbolism, OF my interpreting net. Action
and reaction arc equal, II so the ret
must embody q power of arrest at least as
mighty as that of the ~gunpowdcr that dis
charged the woman out of the c%annon's
mouth. But, n power, must it be yielding,
though firm; plant, though irresistible;
absorbent as n poulticc, though ~reactive as
u steel spring. The astonishcd audience
now bcholds how it envelops her, sways
with ner, defects hcr on 90 tungents. yet
ever holds her safe in diminishing velocity
I'LL ut last she lies in its embrace,
Calm as a cradled child in dreamless slumber
bound.
lit is at this crisis in the exhibition"
would proceed the great moralist, "that /
always scan with that smile of sympathetic
benevolence for which I am noted tho vast
amphithcater to see how many fond par
ents have caught the inner meaning of
the dramatic spectacle and arc expound-
ing to their little boys and girls the real
significance of the understanding it
plain as day what the destructive momen-
Jun OF their own Feasibility and bclliger-
cncy will inevitably bring them to if they
DO not learn how to enmesh and absorb il
IN the firm yet yielding net of patience
and sweetness"
Is 1t II wonder, then, that in hours of
such cifusicn the world famous impre-
sario should proudly have conferred the
title OF greatest moral show on earth"
upon what ordinary mortals called nothing
but "Barnum's circus?"-Boston Herald.
AZ Awfu' Thing"