MR BARNUM UPON THE ART OF HUMBUG.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1537, 11 May 1885, Page 2

MR BARNUM UPON THE ART OF HUMBUG.

(Foil Mali Budget .) The great showman of the New World is aggrieved. Some one the other day attributed his enormous taking to “ humbug.” But “ there is no humbug about Barnum and his wonderful combination of the world’s marvels.” Therefore Mr P. T. Barnum has despatched to his office the following vindication of “ the Greatest Show on Earth ” and its creator, which we print as a perfect specimen of. the kind of humbug—not in its offensive sense—by which Mr Barnum has risen to his present proud pre-eminence among the Showmen of the world:

In a recent number of your journal I read a statement which is perfectly true —namely, that the expenses of my travelling show were last year about L20D,000. The other part of the statement —namely, that my profits, after paying these enormous expenses, were also L 200.00 correct within 169,009 —the real profits being in fact 703,000J015, or L 140.000. These expenses and profits have been about the same for the last five years, and a third less for fifteen consecutive years. But you most unwarrantably add that this is all the result of “humbug.” I merely give the gist of your article, the paper having become mislaid. If by “humbug you mean deceiving the public, I think you are teaching a false and dangerous philosophy. On December 29, 1858 (twenty-six years ago), I gave a lecture on “ The Art of Money-getting ” in the Great St James’s Hall, Piccadilly, London, and repeated it sixty times in that hall, and in other parts of Great Britain. This lecture is inserted in my autobio-

graphy; more than a million copies have been printed and sold, and an average number of 40,000 copies are sold each season under my show tents. I send you a copy of the boob by this post; you will see that when speaking of the advantages of advertising good and genuine articles, and tha disadvantage of advertising spurious goods, I said, among otter things, as follows: —

Advertise your Business. —Those who deal with the public must be cereful that their goods are valuable ; that they are genuine, and will give satisfaction. When you get an article which you know is going to please your customers, and that wnen they have tried it they will feel they have got their money’s, worth* then let the fact be known that you have got it. Be careful to advertise it in some shape or other, because it is evident that if a man has ever so good an article for sale, and nobody knows it, it will bring him no return. If a man has a genuine article there is no way in which he can reap more advantageously than by “ sowing” to the public in this way. He must, of course, have a really good article, and one which will please his customers ; anything spurious will not succeed permanently, because the public is wiser than many imagine. Men and women am selfish, and we all prefer purchasing where we can get the most for our money ; and we try to find out where we can most surely do so. You may advertise a spurious article and induce many people to call and buy it once, but they will denounce you as an

impostor and swindler, and your business will gradually die out and leave you poor. This is right. Few people can safely depend upon chance custom. You all need to have your customers return and purchase again Preserve your Integrity.—lt 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, bat it was the very essence of stupidity. It was as much as to say : “ If you find it difficult to obtain money honestly, you cm 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 meo who attempted to follow

this advice ; not to understaud that no man can be dishonest without soon being found out, and that when his lack of principle is discovered nearly . every avenue tc soccers is closed against him for ever. The public very properly shun all whose integrity is doubted. 1 have been a public manager for nearly half a century, and it has always been said that I give the public novelties to be found nowhere else, and that my patrons receive their money’s worth thrice told. The only fault ever attributed to my ■' Greatest Show ou Earth ” is that it is “ too large, and contains more marvels than can be well seen and comprehended at a single inspection.” It is obvious, therefore, (hat my milii na of patrons will say that there is no humbug, in its offensive sense, about Barnum or his wonderful combination of the world’s marvels. But 1 plead guilty (if it is guilt) of that kind of “humbug” which consists of flags, banners, sky rockets, unique advertisements, attractive colored show bills, grand street pageants, bands of music, etc. —all used to attract public attention to the ve y beat exhibi-

tions extant. This is the kind of humbug which placed the inscription on the Egyptian pyramids —“ Try Warren’s bracking, 30, Strand, London ” The uniqueness of this advertisement, in such a placa, gave the blacking maker great notoriety—the people did “ try ” the blacking, and finding it good, Warren made a fortune, much of which was duo to the “ humbug ” way of advertising his genuine article. To this sort of humbug, and no other, do 1 owe my success, as is well known wherever my exhibitions h ive been’ seen.