Struggles and Triumphs - P. T. Barnum (top 20 books to read txt) 📗

for I happen to know her, and that is more than you do; we are up to all these travellers’ tricks out here; it’s no go.”

I saw indeed that it was “no go,” and that I must try something else; “Look here, my dear fellow,” said I; “I am travelling every day on the railroads, on a lecturing tour throughout the West, and I really hope you will permit me to take a seat in the ladies’ car. I am Barnum, the Museum man from New York.”

Looking sharply at me for an instant, the altogether too wide-awake brakeman exclaimed: “Not by a d⁠⸺⁠n sight you ain’t! I know Barnum!”

I could not help laughing; and pulling several old letters from my pocket, and showing him the directions on the envelopes, I replied:

“Well, you may know him, but the old fellow has changed in his appearance, perhaps. You see by these letters that I am the ‘crittur.’ ”

The brakeman looked astonished, but finally said: “Well, that is a fact sure enough. I know you when I come to look again, but really I did not believe you at first. You see we have all sorts of tricks played on us, and we learn to doubt everybody. You are very welcome to go in, Mr. Barnum, and I am glad to see you,” and as this conversation was heard throughout the car, “Barnum, the showman,” was the subject of general observation and remark.

I fulfilled my entire engagement, which covered the lecturing season, and returned to New York greatly pleased with my Western tour. Public lecturing was by no means a new experience with me; for, apart from my labors in that direction in England, and occasional addresses before literary and agricultural associations at home, I had been prominently in the field for many years as a lecturer on temperance. My attention was turned to this subject in the following manner:

In the fall of 1847, while exhibiting General Tom Thumb at Saratoga Springs, where the New York State Fair was then being held, I saw so much intoxication among men of wealth and intellect, filling the highest positions in society, that I began to ask myself the question, What guarantee is there that I may not become a drunkard? and I forthwith pledged myself at that time never again to partake of any kind of spirituous liquors as a beverage. True, I continued to partake of wine, for I had been instructed, in my European tour, that this was one of the innocent and charming indispensables of life. I however regarded myself as a good temperance man, and soon began to persuade my friends to refrain from the intoxicating cup. Seeing need of reform in Bridgeport, I invited my friend, the Reverend Doctor E. H. Chapin, to visit us, for the purpose of giving a public temperance lecture. I had never heard him on that subject, but I knew that on whatever topic he spoke, he was as logical as he was eloquent.

He lectured in the Baptist Church in Bridgeport. His subject was presented in three divisions: The liquor-seller, the moderate drinker, and the indifferent man. It happened, therefore, that the second, if not the third clause of the subject, had a special bearing upon me and my position. The eloquent gentleman overwhelmingly proved that the so-called respectable liquor-seller, in his splendid saloon or hotel bar, and who sold only to “gentlemen,” inflicted much greater injury upon the community than a dozen common groggeries⁠—which he abundantly illustrated. He then took up the “moderate drinker,” and urged that he was the great stumbling-block to the temperance reform. He it was, and not the drunkard in the ditch, that the young man looked at as an example when he took his first glass. That when the drunkard was asked to sign the pledge, he would reply, “Why should I do so? What harm can there be in drinking, when such men as respectable Mr. A, and moral Mr. B drink wine under their own roof?” He urged that the higher a man stood in the community, the greater was his influence either for good or for evil. He said to the moderate drinker: “Sir, you either do or you do not consider it a privation and a sacrifice to give up drinking. Which is it? If you say that you can drink or let it alone, that you can quit it forever without considering it a self-denial, then I appeal to you as a man, to do it for the sake of your suffering fellow-beings.” He further argued that if it was a self-denial to give up wine-drinking, then certainly the man should stop, for he was in danger of becoming a drunkard.

What Doctor Chapin said produced a deep impression upon my mind, and after a night of anxious thought, I rose in the morning, took my champagne bottles, knocked off their heads, and poured their contents upon the ground. I then called upon Doctor Chapin, asked him for the teetotal pledge, and signed it. He was greatly surprised in discovering that I was not already a teetotaler. He supposed such was the case, from the fact that I had invited him to lecture, and he little thought, at the time of his delivering it, that his argument to the moderate drinker was at all applicable to me. I felt that I had now a duty to perform⁠—to save others, as I had been saved, and on the very morning when I signed the pledge, I obtained over twenty signatures in Bridgeport. I talked temperance to all whom I met, and very soon commenced lecturing upon the subject in the adjacent towns and villages. I spent the entire winter and spring of 1851⁠–⁠2 in lecturing through my native State, always travelling at my own expense, and I was glad to know that I aroused many hundreds, perhaps thousands, to the importance of the temperance reform. I also lectured frequently in the cities of New York and