and I engaged him for four weeks at three dollars a week, with all travelling and boarding charges for himself and his mother at my expense. They came to New York, Thanksgiving day, December 8, 1842, and Mrs. Stratton was greatly surprised to see her son announced on my Museum bills as “General Tom Thumb.”
I took the greatest pains to educate and train my diminutive prodigy, devoting many hours to the task by day and by night, and I was very successful, for he was an apt pupil with a great deal of native talent, and a keen sense of the ludicrous. He made rapid progress in preparing himself for such performances as I wished him to undertake and he became very much attached to his teacher.
When the four weeks expired, I re-engaged him for one year at seven dollars a week, with a gratuity of fifty dollars at the end of the engagement, and the privilege of exhibiting him anywhere in the United States, in which event his parents were to accompany him and I was to pay all travelling expenses. He speedily became a public favorite, and, long before the year was out, I voluntarily increased his weekly salary to twenty-five dollars, and he fairly earned it. Sometimes I exhibited him for several weeks in succession at the Museum, and when I wished to introduce other novelties I sent him to different towns and cities, accompanied by my friend, Mr. Fordyce Hitchcock, and the fame of General Tom Thumb soon spread throughout the country.
Two years had now elapsed since I bought the Museum and I had long since paid for the entire establishment from the profits; I had bought out my only rival; I was free from debt, and had a handsome surplus in the treasury. The business had long ceased to be an experiment; it was an established success and was in such perfect running order, that it could safely be committed to the management of trustworthy and tried agents.
Accordingly, looking for a new field for my individual efforts, I entered into an agreement for General Tom Thumb’s services for another year, at fifty dollars a week and all expenses, with the privilege of exhibiting him in Europe. I proposed to test the curiosity of men and women on the other side of the Atlantic. Much as I hoped for success, in my most sanguine moods, I could not anticipate the half of what was in store for me; I did not foresee nor dream that I was shortly to be brought in close contact with kings, queens, lords and illustrious commoners, and that such association, by means of my exhibition, would afterwards introduce me to the great public and the public’s money, which was to fill my coffers. Or, if I saw some such future, it was dreamily, dimly, and with half-opened eyes, as the man saw the “trees walking.”
After arranging my business affairs for a long absence, and making every preparation for an extended foreign tour, on Thursday, January 18, 1844, I went on board the new and fine sailing ship “Yorkshire,” Captain D. G. Bailey, bound for Liverpool. Our party included General Tom Thumb, his parents, his tutor, and Professor Guillaudeu, the French naturalist. We were accompanied by several personal friends, and the City Brass Band kindly volunteered to escort us to Sandy Hook.
My name has been so long associated with mirthful incidents that I presume many persons do not suppose I am susceptible of sorrowful, or even sentimental emotions; but when the bell of the steamer that towed our ship down the bay announced the hour of separation, and then followed the hastily-spoken words of farewell, and the parting grasp of friendly hands, I confess that I was very much in the “melting mood,” and when the band played “Home, Sweet Home,” I was moved to tears.
A voyage to Liverpool is now an old, familiar story, and I abstain from entering into details, though I have abundant material respecting my own experiences of my first sea-voyage in the first two of a series of one hundred letters which I wrote in Europe as correspondent of the New York Atlas. But some of the incidents and adventures of my voyage on the “Yorkshire” are worth transcribing in these pages of my personal history.
Occasional calms and adverse winds protracted our passage to nineteen days, but a better ship and a more competent captain never sailed. I was entirely exempt from sea-sickness, and enjoyed the voyage very much. Good fellowship prevailed among the passengers, the time passed rapidly, and we had a good deal of fun on board.
Several of the passengers were English merchants from Canada and one of the number, who reckoned himself “A, No. 1,” and often hinted that he was too ‘cute for any Yankee, boasted so much of his shrewdness that a Yankee friend of mine confederated with me to test it. I thought of an old trick and arranged with my friend to try it on the boastful John Bull. Coming out of my state-room, with my hand to my face, and apparently in great pain, I asked my fellow passengers what was good for the tooth-ache. My friend and confederate recommended heating tobacco, and holding it to my face. I therefore borrowed a little tobacco, and putting it in a paper of a peculiar color, placed it on the stove to warm. I then retired for a few minutes, during which time the Yankee proposed playing a trick on me by emptying the tobacco, and filling the paper with ashes, which our smart Englishman thought would be a very fine joke, and he himself made the substitution, putting ashes into the paper and throwing the tobacco into the fire.
I soon reappeared and gravely placed the paper to my face to the great amusement of the passengers and walked up and down the cabin as if I was suffering terribly. At the further end of the cabin I slyly exchanged the paper for another in my pocket of the same color and containing tobacco and then walked back again a picture of misery. Whereupon, the Merry Englishman cried out:
“Mr. Barnum, what have you got in that paper?”
“Tobacco,” I replied.
“What will you bet it is tobacco?” said the Englishman.
“Oh, don’t bother me,” said I; “my tooth pains me sadly; I know it is tobacco, for I put it there myself.”
“I’ll bet you a dozen of champagne that it is not tobacco,” said the Englishman.
“Nonsense,” I replied, “I will not bet, for it would not be fair; I know it is tobacco.”
“I’ll bet you fifty dollars it is not,” said John Bull, and he counted ten sovereigns upon the table.
“I’ll not bet the money,” I replied, “for I tell you I know it is tobacco; I placed it there myself.”
“You dare not bet!” he rejoined.
At last, merely to accommodate him, I bet a dozen of champagne. The Englishman fairly jumped with delight, and roared out:
“Open the paper! open the paper!”
The passengers crowded round the table in great glee to see me open the paper, for all but the Yankee thought I was taken in. I quietly opened the paper, and remarked:
“There, I told you it was tobacco—how foolish you were to suppose it was not—for, as I told you, I put it there myself.”
The passengers, my confederate excepted, were amazed and the Englishman was absolutely astounded. It was the biter bitten. But he told the steward to bring the champagne, and turning to my confederate who had so effectually assisted in “selling” him, he pronounced the affair “a contemptible Yankee trick.” It was several days before he recovered his good humor, but he joined at last with the rest of us in laughing at the joke, and we heard no more about his extraordinary shrewdness.
On our arrival at Liverpool, quite a crowd had assembled at the dock to see Tom Thumb, for it had been previously announced that he would arrive in the “Yorkshire,” but his mother managed to smuggle him ashore unnoticed, for she carried him, as if he was an infant, in her arms. We went to the Waterloo Hotel, and, after an excellent dinner, walked out to take a look at the town. While I was viewing the Nelson monument a venerable looking, well-dressed old gentleman volunteered to explain to me the different devices and inscriptions. I looked upon him as a disinterested
