The success of Barnum’s circus was almost immediate, but it was not spontaneous. While Barnum was enjoying the fruit of his past activities at his home in Bridgeport, Coup was preparing the country for the Barnum show. The name of Barnum was a great attraction, for his thirty years of association with the public in the amusement business carried his name and reputation everywhere throughout the United States and in many of the important countries of Europe. General Tom Thumb, Jenny Lind, and the American Museum formed a background of notoriety which finally made Barnum’s name, and later the name of Barnum & Bailey, a household expression and a national institution. During the first season Barnum was present with the show in all the large cities, and he exploited his personality and reputation for the benefit of his circus. Frequently he delivered lectures on temperance at the Y. M. C. A. in a city where the circus was performing. “My managers and assistants,” Barnum wrote, “insist that my free lectures, especially in the large cities, result to my pecuniary disadvantage, as fully satisfying many who otherwise would patronize the exhibition to gratify their curiosity. However, as our immense pavilions are always crowded, I can see no real cause for complaint.” No doubt there were enough people who, after seeing Barnum, still wanted to see the giraffe and the Fiji Cannibals. But in its first year the factor that contributed more than any other to the success of Barnum’s circus was W. C. Coup’s advance publicity and advertising and his excellent transportation arrangements. Every other circus had previously been confined to a town and its immediate vicinity for its patronage; Coup ordered his advertisers to post their bills as far as fifty and seventy-five miles from the place where the circus would exhibit, and his advance brigade of bill posters, it was said, posted more bills in one week than other circus companies posted in an entire season. Coup then arranged with the leading railroads of New England and New York to run special excursion trains at reduced fares to points where the Barnum Circus pitched its tents. Often the attendance at the circus was in this way brought up to a total of twice and three times the population of the town visited. The gross receipts of the first season were more than $400,000, and this sum did not include the profits from candy stands, incidental concerts and side-shows.