The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All AgesBarnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
General
The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
Impostors and imposture
suggested from the knowledge of the authors of current politics, of the
vagaries of some of the more visionary reformers, and from their own
native wit.
The book was at first written in a most cursory manner the chapters got
up without any order or reference to each other, and afterward arranged.
As the impression sought to be conveyed was a serious one, it would
clearly not do to commence with the extravagant and absurd theories to
which it was intended that the reader should gradually be led. The
scientific portion of the work was therefore given first, and was made
as grave and terse and unobjectionable as possible; and merely urged,
by arguments drawn from science and history, that the blending of the
different races of men resulted in a better progeny. As the work
progressed, they continued to "pile on the agony," until, at the close,
the very fact that the statue of the Goddess of Liberty on the Capitol,
is of a bronze tint, is looked upon as an omen of the color of the
future American!
"When the traveler approaches the City of Magnificent Distances,"
it says, "the seat of what is destined to be the greatest and most
beneficent power on earth, the first object that will strike his
eye will be the figure of Liberty surmounting the Capitol; not
white, symbolizing but one race, nor black, typifying another, but
a statue representing the composite race, whose sway will extend
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, from the Equator to the
North Pole--the Miscegens of the Future."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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