When he first built “Iranistan” Barnum was proud of his wine cellars, but it was not long before he was ashamed of them. In the fall of 1847 he visited Saratoga Springs with General Tom Thumb. The New York State Fair was in progress, and Barnum saw so much intoxication among men of wealth and distinction that he was constrained to think about his own soul. Seldom do we find a prohibitionist so frank and naïve in his objection to spirits as was Barnum. He wrote in his autobiography: “I saw so much intoxication among men of wealth and intellect, filling the highest positions in society, that I began to ask myself the question, What guarantee is there that _I_ may not become a drunkard? I reflected that many wiser and better men than myself had fallen victims to intemperance; and although I was not in the habit of partaking often of strong drink, I was liable to do so whenever I met friends, which in my travels occurred every day. Hence I resolved to fly the danger, and I pledged myself at that time never again to partake of any kind of spirituous liquors as a beverage.” Barnum kept his pledge, which did not include light wines and beer, and he felt himself out of danger. He went about among his friends and urged them to follow his example, to give up whisky. Later he arranged public lectures in Bridgeport, and his friend, the Rev. E. H. Chapin, one of the leading temperance orators of the country, spoke in the Bridgeport Baptist Church at Barnum’s request. The Rev. Mr. Chapin dwelt on the risks which moderate drinkers imposed upon themselves, and the moderate drinker’s evil influence upon the community, for it is the example of the man who knows when he has had enough that the young man emulates when he first takes up a glass of liquor. “If you say that you can drink or let it alone, that you can quit it forever without considering it a self-denial, then I appeal to you as a man, to do it for the sake of your suffering fellow-beings,” was Mr. Chapin’s exhortation. If a man was a public character, he said, this act of self-denial was a duty, and Barnum felt that he was assuredly a public character, an example of success. Another of Mr. Chapin’s arguments that appealed strongly to Barnum, perhaps more even than the first, was this: “If, on the other hand, you say that you like to indulge moderately in the use of intoxicating drinks, and that it would be a self-denial on your part to abandon the practice, then, sir, I warn you in the light of all human experience, that you are _in danger_, and should give it up _for your own sake_. When appetite has so far got its hold upon you as to make the thought of abandoning strong drink uncomfortable, I tell you that the chances are strongly in favor of your dying a drunkard, unless you renounce the use of intoxicating beverages altogether.”