“By doing this, sir, you will erect a monument in the hearts of the people worthy of your name! You will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have conferred a boon upon your countrymen. Cleanliness is next to godliness. You, sir, can aid in cleaning and purifying at least ten millions of your dirty fellow-citizens. It is a duty you owe to them and yourself. Look at my portrait on the soap wrapper, and you will see the face of an honest man. Send me your check next week for $5,000, and the week after for $5,000 more. This additional capital will enable me to supply the demand for my unrivaled soap, and I will send you quarterly returns of profits. Come, old fellow, fork over, and no grumbling! You will thus become a public benefactor, and unwashed millions shall chant your name in praise. “My soap makes soft hands and cures soft heads. It removes paint and grease, is unsurpassed for shaving, cures chaps on hands or face, and is death on foul teeth. It cures eruptions to a charm. I have no doubt that a sufficient quantity, properly applied, would cure the eruption of Vesuvius. “Address me immediately at Providence, Rhode Island. “Yours, etc., “PROFESSOR GARDNER, “Known as the New England Soap Man.” That Barnum declined the offer is strange, for, undoubtedly, he believed that cleanliness is next to godliness. But he tried the cake of soap and found it to be excellent. Barnum did put money into many schemes and business enterprises, and almost always it was lost. Phillips’s Fire Annihilator, an English patent; the steamship _North America_, designed to carry immigrants and freight from Ireland to New York; and the _Illustrated News_, a weekly illustrated newspaper published in New York in 1853, were a few of his investments. The Fire Annihilator refused to put out fire; the _North America_ could not find enough Irish freight, and the _Illustrated News_ was abandoned after one year because Barnum’s partners did not know enough about the issue of a newspaper. Throughout his career whenever he turned from pure showmanship to trade, he usually lost money. II