Barnum planned to form the nucleus for a public zoölogical garden in New York from his menagerie, and he also planned to make his Museum collection a public institution, which would eventually be taken over by the government and opened to the public free of charge. For this purpose he persuaded President Andrew Johnson to give him a letter of instruction to consuls abroad to collect as much material as possible for Barnum’s Museum. Barnum’s scheme was indorsed by leading citizens and editors, including Horace Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Ward Beecher and Simeon Draper. General Grant donated the hat he had worn during his Civil War campaigns to Barnum’s Museum. But on March 3, 1868, the new Museum was burned to the ground. [Illustration: BARNUM, THE VETERAN SHOWMAN A caricature by Spy drawn from life in 1889 for “Vanity Fair,” London. _Houdini Collection_] [Illustration: BARNUM’S BRIDGEPORT HOME “IRANISTAN--AN ORIENTAL VILLA”] It was one of the coldest days of that year, and the elements combined to advertise Barnum, for the streams of water that were played upon the blazing building froze into sparkling coverings of ice, and the next morning a gorgeous spectacle was presented free of charge to thousands of New Yorkers, who stood in the cold all day to watch the lights and shades the sun made on the ice-covered ruins. The sight is noted in the annals of the time as a picture no artist could have painted. Barnum lost much money in the fire, and Van Amburgh’s collection of lions and tigers died painfully. This time Barnum determined he would retire and devote himself entirely “to serious reflections on the ends and aims of human existence,” social pleasures, and intellectual pursuits. George Wood, proprietor of Wood’s Museum, Barnum’s most important rival, offered him three per cent. of his receipts for the right to say that Wood’s Museum was the successor to Barnum’s Museum. He thus capitalized his valuable name, and he was firmly convinced that now his public life was ended. The organization which was to make his name most famous, the circus, was not even present in the recesses of his mind. He bought more Bridgeport real estate, planted trees, laid out streets, and continued his endeavors to improve the City of Bridgeport in spite of the strenuous opposition of those whom he characterized as “old fogies.” He himself was sixty years old at the time. “Conservatism,” Barnum said in this connection, “may be a good thing in the state, or in the church, but it is fatal to the growth of cities.” In spite of the conservatives, however, he was able to consummate his plans for Seaside Park, a lovely tract of municipal land off Long Island Sound, and to-day a bronze statue of P. T. Barnum, cast when he was an aged man, looks tranquilly with sad eyes across the wide stretch of Long Island Sound, as if he were searching tirelessly, but somewhat wearied, for new curiosities in the distance.