The bogus New York Museum Company sold Peale’s Museum to Henry Bennett, who created publicity by parodying Barnum’s attractions. When Barnum exhibited The Fejee Mermaid, Bennett advertised a “Fudg-ee Mermaid,” and when Barnum advertised a family of singers as the “Orphean Family,” Bennett presented the “Orphan Family.” The novelty of this opposition, however, did not pay expenses, and Barnum soon bought out Bennett, but he hired Bennett as manager of his own museum and instructed him to continue the opposition and the parodies, which created publicity for the American Museum. At the end of six months the collections were combined. Within a year, by means of ingenious, and sometimes unscrupulous, advertising, Barnum’s American Museum became New York’s most popular place of amusement. For New Yorkers it was a place of regular resort, and families brought their lunches and ate them in the Museum rooms so that they might spend the whole day among the curiosities. The Museum was known throughout the country, and visitors to New York, who arrived early in the morning, often visited Barnum’s before they went to their hotels or to their breakfast, for the Museum was opened every morning at sunrise. Barnum once compared the number of visitors to his Museum with those of the British Museum, which, of course, was free of charge, and found that his patrons were more numerous. V Besides his notorious curiosities, Barnum enlarged the Lecture Room of the Museum, and presented regular dramatic performances there. He felt that what he called the “Moral Drama” would pay better than anything that was attractively immoral; and the “Moral Drama” was more palatable to his own conscience, for from childhood until his last year he had a sincere religious fear of impropriety in public presentation. The greatest manifestation of Barnum’s genius for theatrical management in this country was his instinctive realization that the largest part of the community is eminently respectable in public, and it was what, more than anything else, contributed to his financial success, that Barnum catered to the reputable who still retained vestiges of curiosity. Many persons who would not be seen in a theater visited regularly the Museum Lecture Room--Barnum would never consent to calling it a theater--where the moral dramas of “Joseph and His Brethren,” “Moses,” and “The Drunkard” were performed. One afternoon a New England lady walked into Barnum’s office and sat down on the sofa. She examined Barnum curiously for a minute, and then remarked that he looked “much like other common folks, after all.” “Mr. Barnum,” she said “I never went to any Museum before, nor to any place of amusement or public entertainment, except our school exhibitions; and I have sometimes felt that they even may be wicked, because some parts of the dialogue seemed frivolous; but I have heard so much of your ‘moral dramas,’ and the great good you are