P. T. Barnum.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 76, 15 November 1884, Page 4

P. T. Barnum.

Closing Days op an Eventful Career— The Gre«t Showman's Retirement — Reminiscences op the Jenny Lind Concerts. New York, Septembor U, 1884.— There is probably no one who will not hoar with regret that P. T. Barnura, the veteran 'showman, has made his last tournde with his famous show. He is now so ill at his home in Bridgeport, Conn., that his friends despair of his recovery, and measures have already been taken to insure the permanency of the business with which he has been so long connected. Barnum is now in his seventy-first year, and has been in active service ever since childhood His father was a poor man, and the boy was put early to work. He has gone through a wider variety of employment than any other man on record, including the sale of lottery tickets, keeping an oyster saloon, editing a newspaper, tending bar, negro melodist, boarding-house keeper, book canvasser, making bear's grease, dramatic critic, preacher, bank president, author, partner in clock factory, Jenny Lind concert manager, and last of all travelling showman. He has also been interested in the cloak manufactory, in land speculation, in the fire annihilator, in an illustrated newspaper and other enterprises. In the course of his seventy years he has known what it is to succeed and to fail, but through it all he has kept a kindly spirit, and has been a general favourite with the public. In looking back over Mr Barnum's history, the engagement of Jenny Lind stands out prominently ; he was never tired of talking about it, and although he after svards lost the whole half million which he made by that speculation he can to this day recall from memory the exact amount of money which every town in the country contributed to thut half million. Jenny Lind landed here on the 21st of August, 1850. Barnum had so worked up popular excitement that ten thousand persons crowded down on the docks, near Canal-street, to welcome her. His agreement was that she was to receive $1,000 for each concert beside all her personal expenses. This price was at the time considered a wild one, and people on every side predicted that Barnum would lose every cent he had in the world before the first twenty concerts were over. The first concert was given on the 10th of September at Castle Garden.