They visited Holland, which pleased Barnum more than any country in Europe, except Great Britain. He admired the Dutch most for those very virtues which counted against his own success in that country: frugality, industry, and thrift. The Dutch were not enthusiastic over General Tom Thumb, because they were not accustomed to spend money for such things. But Barnum enjoyed himself so much in this clean and busy little kingdom that he was compensated in pleasure for his expense, and he also found there the Albino Family, consisting of perfect Albino specimens, a man, his wife and son, whom he sent to America, where they were the most popular attraction at the Museum for a long period. Barnum returned to England, where his wife and daughters had arrived. He settled them in a house in London, arranged for General Tom Thumb’s management by agents, and made a hurried trip to New York for the purpose of settling some of his debts. When he arrived in New York, he found that many of his friends avoided him on the streets, and in Bridgeport he was cut by a few of those he had known well before his bankruptcy. “Iranistan” had been taken over by Barnum’s creditors, but they found it impossible to sell the weird residence, and they offered Barnum the use of it as a home. Painters and carpenters were putting the house in order; they were in the habit of eating their lunches in the dome room, where there was a circular cushioned seat. One of them left his lighted pipe on a stuffed cushion, and on December 18, 1857, Barnum, who was in New York, received a telegram from his brother announcing that “Iranistan” was burned to the ground. Barnum’s reflections on this disaster were: “My beautiful Iranistan was gone! This was not only a serious loss to my estate, for it had probably cost at least $150,000, but it was generally regarded as a public calamity.” No doubt; it was also a great loss to Barnum’s immortality, for, were it standing to-day, nothing could be so effective as a memorial to his unique personal traits. The insurance on “Iranistan” was only $28,000. Subsequently Barnum’s creditors sold the grounds and outhouses to Elias Howe, Jr., the inventor of the sewing-machine needle, who intended to build another resplendent mansion on the site, but death prevented him from carrying out his plans. II