With all his waggery he was subject at times to moods of the deepest despondency, bordering on insanity. Madness ran in his family. His brother, in a fit of frenzy, had blown his brains out. Henry himself had twice attempted his own life while in my employ in New York. Some time after our present journey to Havana, I sent him to London. He conducted my business precisely as I directed, writing up his account with me correctly to a penny. Then handing it to a mutual friend with directions to give it to me when I arrived in London the following week, he went to his lodgings and committed suicide. While we were in Havana, Bennett was so despondent at times that we were obliged to watch him [Illustration: _J. G. BENNETT AND HIS MONKEY._] carefully, lest he should do some damage to himself or others. When we left Havana for New Orleans, on board the steamer “Falcon,” Mr. James Gordon Bennett, editor of the _New York Herald_, and his wife were also passengers. After permitting one favorable notice in his paper, Bennett had turned around, as usual, and had abused Jenny Lind and bitterly attacked me. There was an estrangement, no new thing, between the editor and myself. The _Herald_, in its desire to excite attention, has a habit of attacking public men and I had not escaped. I was always glad to get such notices, for they served as inexpensive advertisements to my Museum, and brought custom to me free of charge. Ticket-taker Bennett, however, took much to heart the attacks of Editor Bennett upon Jenny Lind, and while in New York he threatened to cowhide his namesake, as so many men have actually done in days gone by, but I restrained him. When Editor Bennett came on board the “Falcon,” he had in his arms a small pet monkey belonging to his wife, and the animal was placed in a safe place on the forward deck. When Henry Bennett saw the editor he said to a bystander: “I would willingly be drowned if I could see that old scoundrel go to the bottom of the sea.” Several of our party overheard the remark and I turned laughingly to Bennett and said: “Nonsense; he can’t harm any one and there is an old proverb about the impossibility of drowning those who are born to another fate.” That very night, however, as I stood near the cabin door, conversing with my treasurer and other members of my company, Henry Bennett came up to me with a wild air, and hoarsely whispered: “Old Bennett has gone forward alone in the dark to feed his monkey, and d--n him, I am going to throw him overboard.” We were all startled, for we knew the man and he seemed terribly in earnest. Knowing how most effectively to address him at such times, I exclaimed. “Ridiculous! you would not do such a thing.” “I swear I will,” was his savage reply. I expostulated with him, and several of our party joined me. “Nobody will know it,” muttered the maniac, “and I shall be doing the world a favor.”