A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career: Life of Hon. Phineas T. BarnumBenton, Joel
History
A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career: Life of Hon. Phineas T. Barnum
Benton, Joel
Barnum's American Museum; Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810-1891; Circus owners -- United States -- Biography
"The next day the Managers' Association met, heard the report,
and unanimously resolved to withdraw their advertisements from
the Herald, and their patronage from the Herald job
establishment, and it was done. Nevertheless, the Herald for
several days continued to print gratutitously the advertisements
of Wallack's Theatre and Niblo's Garden, and inordinately puffed
these establishments, evidently in order to ease the fall, and to
convey the idea that some of the theatres patronized the Herald,
and perhaps hoping by praising these managers to draw them back
again, and so to nullify the agreement of the Association in
regard to the Herald. Thereupon, the mangers headed their
advertisements in all the other New York papers with the line,
'This establishment does not advertise in the New York Herald,'
and for many months this announcement was kept at the top of
every theatrical advertisement and on the posters and playbills.
"The Herald then began to abuse and villify the theatrical and
opera managers, their artists and their performances, which, of
course, was well understood by the public, and relished
accordingly. Meanwhile the theatres prospered amazingly. Their
receipts were never larger, and their houses never more thronged.
The public took sides in the matter with the managers and against
the Herald, and thousands of people went to the theatres merely
to show their willingness to support the managers and to spite
'Old Bennett.' The editor was fairly caught in his own trap.
Other journals began to estimate the loss the Herald sustained by
the action of the managers, and it was generally believed that
this loss in advertising and job printing was not less than from
$75,000 to $100,000 a year. The Herald's circulation also
suffered terribly, since hundreds of people, at the hotels and
elsewhere, who were accustomed to buy the paper solely for the
sake of seeing what amusements were announced for the evening,
now bought other papers. This was the hardest blow of all, and it
fully accounted for the abuse which the Herald daily poured out
upon the theatres.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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