Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. BarnumBarnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
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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 thoroughly understood the art of advertising, not merely by means of
printer’s ink, which I have always used freely, and to which I confess
myself so much indebted for my success, but by turning every possible
circumstance to my account. It was my monomania to make the Museum the
town wonder and town talk. I often seized upon an opportunity by
instinct, even before I had a very definite conception as to how it
should be used, and it seemed, somehow, to mature itself and serve my
purpose. As an illustration, one morning a stout, hearty-looking man,
came into my ticket-office and begged some money. I asked him why he did
not work and earn his living? He replied that he could get nothing to do
and that he would be glad of any job at a dollar a day. I handed him a
quarter of a dollar, told him to go and get his breakfast and return,
and I would employ him at light labor at a dollar and a half a day. When
he returned I gave him five common bricks.
“Now,” said I, “go and lay a brick on the sidewalk at the corner of
Broadway and Ann Street; another close by the Museum; a third diagonally
across the way at the corner of Broadway and Vesey Street, by the Astor
House: put down the fourth on the sidewalk in front of St Paul’s Church,
opposite; then, with the fifth brick in hand, take up a rapid march
from one point to the other, making the circuit, exchanging your brick
at every point, and say nothing to any one.”
“What is the object of this?” inquired the man.
“No matter,” I replied; “all you need to know is that it brings you
fifteen cents wages per hour. It is a bit of my fun, and to assist me
properly you must seem to be as deaf as a post; wear a serious
countenance; answer no questions; pay no attention to any one; but
attend faithfully to the work and at the end of every hour by St. Paul’s
clock show this ticket at the Museum door; enter, walking solemnly
through every hall in the building; pass out, and resumé your work.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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