While indulging moderately in sundry enterprises, Barnum kept careful control of the Museum. He visited New York only one or two days each week, spending the rest of his time at “Iranistan,” but he transacted business for the Museum at his home, and he continued his efforts to make the collection larger and better. Any curiosity that happened to be passing through New York was requisitioned for the Museum. Miss Pwan Tekow, a Chinese lady, arrived in New York in April, 1850, and Barnum exhibited her at the Chinese Museum, a collection he purchased at this time and operated separately from Barnum’s American Museum. The advertisement for Miss Pwan Tekow read: “She is such a curiosity! The women admire her tiny feet, the men her pretty face, plump figure, and both the air of high breeding and education she exhibits. Surrounded by the immense Chinese collection she fancies herself in the Flowery Nation, and laughs and talks with all the spirit and vivacity of our own beauties. This is the first time that a Chinese lady of consequence has ever been seen by the eyes of ‘barbarians.’” The Chinese Museum brought in revenue while the American Museum was being enlarged, so that business literally continued while alterations were going on. In August of 1850 a negro came to New York who claimed to have discovered a weed that would turn negroes white. Barnum exhibited him at the Museum. He hailed this negro and his weed as the solution of the slavery problem, contending in his advertisements that if all the negroes could be turned white the problem of slavery would disappear with their color. The newspapers reported daily the progress of the negro’s change in color. A Gallery of Beauty, a contest in which two hundred prizes were offered to “the handsomest women in America, the Public to be the Judges” from daguerreotypes sent to the Museum, created a sensation, and another Baby Show added greatly to the popularity of the Museum. Barnum wrote to his friend Ballou, of _Ballou’s Pictorial_: “FRIEND BALLOU. “Dear Sir: We gave Mr. French to-day our advertisement of the Baby Show--I send here a circular of particulars which I hope you will notice. “Two triplets and one Quartern are already engaged, and we expect the woman from Ohio who has _five_ (at a birth). “In a few days we shall have the Giant Woman from Maine, said to be a very tall curiosity. I guess our Museum can sometimes furnish as good things for you to illustrate as you can pick up elsewhere, and I will occasionally pay for engraving special curiosities such as giant, etc., if you will publish them. Of course I don’t expect or wish you to publish anything that is not of itself full of _interest_ to the public. “Our Baby Show will make a grand scene for illustration. “Yours very truly, “P. T. BARNUM.”[12]