After making it clear that the difference between a thief and a Barnum is a great one, the author exposed various humbugs in detail. Barnum’s book contains chapters on the spiritualists of his day, adulterations of food and of drink, fraud in auctions, lottery deceptions, bogus oil and coal stocks, the Dutch tulip speculations, the South Sea Bubble, patent medicines, the Moon Hoax, ghosts and haunted houses, witchcraft, magic, adventurers, vampires, religious impostures and heathen humbugs. Many of these subjects, and others in the book which are too detailed to mention, do not fall within the scope of Barnum’s definition of a humbug; most of them are treated entertainingly, even if they were perpetrated by swindlers and impostors, with whom Barnum usually had no patience, and of whom he had no understanding. His sense of honesty and propriety as expressed in this book is great enough to lead the reader to believe that he was guilty of his own accusation in that he condoned deception only in the show business, and believed firmly that cheating in other trades was indefensible. And even in his own trade practices which were distasteful to him, but no worse than some of his own acts, come in for rigorous moral condemnation. In discussing advertising he is very hard on the man who dares to deface landscape with billboards: “Any man with a beautiful wife or daughter would probably feel disagreeably, if he should find branded indelibly across her smooth white forehead, or on her snowy shoulder in blue and red letters, such a phrase as this: ‘Try the Jigamaree Bitters!’... A lovely nook of forest scenery or a grand rock, like a beautiful woman, depends for much of its attractiveness upon the attendant sense of freedom from whatever is low; upon a sense of purity and of romance. And it is about as nauseous to find ‘Bitters’ or ‘Worm Syrup’ daubed upon the landscape, as it would be upon the lady’s brow.” Barnum’s favorite example of the harmless humbug type, who retained his integrity along with his notoriety, was Monsieur Mangin, the French pencil maker, to whom a chapter of _The Humbugs of the World_ is devoted. Mangin used to drive through the Champs Elysées, the Place Vendôme, the Place de la Bastille, or the Place de la Madeleine, in a large, ornamented carriage drawn by two bay horses. When he stopped his horses in one of the populous Parisian streets, his servant would hand him several large portraits of himself, which he would hang on the sides of the coach. Then gradually Monsieur Mangin would change his clothes, substituting for his hat a burnished helmet, a velvet and gold tunic for his modest business coat, steel gauntlets for his gloves. A shining brass cuirass covered his breast. The servant would also change into a medieval costume and then would play the organ which occupied part of the carriage. A large crowd collected rapidly. Mangin would rise, and in a calm, dignified, and solemn manner address his audience: