Turner was another active practical joker, and Barnum once more found himself in an atmosphere where that type of humor won great applause. Upon one occasion a joke of Turner’s endangered Barnum’s life. The company was in Annapolis, Maryland. The murder in Rhode Island of a Miss Cornell had aroused the entire population of the eastern states against the accused, the Rev. Ephraim K. Avery, who had been acquitted in the face of general conviction of his guilt. Turner pointed out Barnum to some of the loungers in the bar-room of the Annapolis hotel as the Rev. Ephraim K. Avery, incognito. The bar-room was quickly emptied as the righteous Maryland townsmen started after Barnum with the intention of taking the Rhode Island law into their own hands. He was roughly seized and informed of the intention of the mob to tar and feather him, which process was to be followed by a regulation lynching. When Barnum protested that he was Barnum, the name being then unknown, the outraged citizens refused to listen. It was only with great difficulty that he persuaded these enraged advocates of direct action to return with him to the hotel and confront Aaron Turner with his own hoax. Turner told the mob, which had been increased by fifty or sixty persons as Barnum was marched up the main street to the hotel, that “he believed there was some mistake about it. The fact is my friend Barnum has a new suit of black clothes on, and it makes him look so much like a priest I concluded it must be Avery.” The mob, appreciative of Turner’s joke, dispersed, but Barnum was left with his new coat torn off his back and his other clothes damaged from the rolling in the dirt which he had received at the hands of the mob. When he became angry with Turner, the showman said: “My dear Barnum, it was all for our good. Remember, all we need to insure success is _notoriety_. You will see that the whole town will be talking about the trick played by one of the circus managers on the other, and our pavilion will be crammed to-morrow night.” The pavilion was crammed the next night, but Barnum was incapable of considering impersonally the value of such dangerous personal publicity.