Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. BarnumBarnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
General
Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810-1891; Circus owners -- United States -- Biography
“I am convinced,” I replied, “that our enterprise will be much more
successful than either of us anticipated. I wish, therefore, to
stipulate that you shall receive not only $1,000 for each concert,
besides all the expenses, as heretofore agreed on, but after taking
$5,500 per night for expenses and my services, the balance shall be
equally divided between us.”
Jenny looked at me with astonishment. She could not comprehend my
proposition. After I had repeated it, and she fully understood its
import, she cordially grasped me by the hand, and exclaimed, “Mr.
Barnum, you are a gentleman of honor: you are generous; it is just as
Mr. Bates told me; I will sing for you as long as you please; I will
sing for you in America--in Europe--anywhere!”
Upon drawing the new contract which was to include this entirely
voluntary and liberal advance on my part, beyond the terms of the
original agreement, Miss Lind’s lawyer, Mr. John Jay, who was present
solely to put in writing the new arrangement between Miss Lind and
myself, insisted upon intruding the suggestion that she should have the
right to terminate the engagement at the end of the sixtieth concert, if
she should choose to do so. This proposition was so persistently and
annoyingly pressed that Miss Lind was finally induced to entertain it,
at the same time offering, if she did so, to refund to me all moneys
paid her up to that time, excepting the $1,000 per concert according to
the original agreement. This was agreed to, and it was also arranged
that she might terminate the engagement at the one-hundredth concert, if
she desired, upon paying me $25,000 for the loss of the additional fifty
nights.
After this new arrangement was completed, I said: “Now, Miss Lind, as
you are directly interested, you must have an agent to assist in taking
and counting the tickets”; to which she replied, “Oh, no! Mr. Barnum; I
have every confidence in you and I must decline to act upon your
suggestion”; but I continued:
“I never allow myself, if it can be avoided, when I have associates in
the same interests, to be placed in a position where I must assume the
sole responsibility. I never even permitted an actor to take a benefit
at my Museum, unless he placed a ticket-taker of his own at the door.”
Thus urged, Miss Lind engaged Mr. Seton to act as her ticket-taker, and
after we had satisfactorily arranged the matter, Jay, knowing the whole
affair, had the impudence to come to me with a package of blank printed
affidavits, which he demanded that I should fill out, from day to day,
with the receipts of each concert, and swear to their correctness before
a magistrate!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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