The manner in which this matter has been represented would reflect dishonesty upon the Secretary, which would be untrue. No one who knows him will, or can accuse him of dishonesty. I love truth, honesty and religion; I do not mean, however, the religion that Barnum believes in: (I believe that the wicked are punished in another world.) I ask the reader to look at my situation in my old age. I think as much of a good name, as to purity of character and honesty at heart, as any man living; and very often reading in the New York papers of speeches that Barnum has made, alluding to his being defrauded by the Jerome Manufacturing Company, I wish the world to know the whole facts in the case, and what my position was in the Company which bore my name. After many years-- years of very active business life--I had retired from active duty in the Company, although I took a deep interest in every thing connected with it, and also a great pride, as it was a business that I had built up and had been many years in perfecting. The manufacturing had been systematized in the most perfect manner and every thing looked prosperous to me. I owned stock as others did, but did not know of its financial standing, and was always informed that it was all right, and that I should be perfectly safe in endorsing. I wish to have it understood that I did not sign my name to any of this paper, it being done by the Secretary himself, that therefore I could not know of the amounts that were raised in that way, that I did not find out till after the failure, and then the large amounts overwhelmed me with surprise. It will be remembered that Barnum made two or three trips to Europe to provide in some way for the support of his "poor and destitute" family, which as he claimed, had been robbed and ruined by the Connecticut clock-makers. At one time he was stopped on a pier in New York, just as he was starting for Europe, by a suit brought against him. Thus the news went abroad that poor Barnum was hunted and troubled on every side with these clock notes. It was reported that he was quite sick in England and could not live, and, at another time, that being much depressed and discouraged on account of his many troubles, he had taken to drinking very hard, and in all probability would live but a short time; while at the same time, he was lecturing on temperance to the English people, and was in fact a total-abstinence man. These stories were extensively circulated; the value of his paper was depreciated in the market, and was, in several instances bought for a small sum.