Barnum's Own Story by Barnum P. T.;

Author:Barnum, P. T.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2017-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXII

CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN

AFTER five concerts in St. Louis, we went to Nashville, where we gave our sixty-sixth and sixty-seventh concerts in this country. At the first ticket auction in that city, the excitement was considerable and the bidding spirited, as was generally the case. After the auction was over, one of my men, happening in at a dry-goods store in the town, heard the proprietor say, “I’ll give five dollars to any man who will take me out and give me a good horse-whipping! I deserve it, and am willing to pay for having it done. To think that I should have been such a fool as to have paid forty-eight dollars for four tickets for my wife, two daughters, and myself, to listen to music for only two hours, makes me mad with myself, and I want to pay somebody for giving me a thundering good horsewhipping!” I am not sure that others have not experienced a somewhat similar feeling, when they became cool and rational, and the excitement of novelty and competition had passed away.

While at Nashville, Jenny Lind, accompanied by my daughter Mrs. Lyman, and myself, visited “the Hermitage,” the late residence of General Jackson. On that occasion, for the first time that season, we heard the wild mocking-birds singing in the trees. This gave Jenny Lind great delight, as she had never before heard them sing except in their wire-bound cages.

From Nashville, Jenny Lind and a few friends went by way of the Mammoth Cave to Louisville, while the rest of the party proceeded by steamboat.

While in Havana, I engaged Signor Salvi for a few months, to begin about the 10th of April. He joined us at Louisville, and sang in the three concerts there, with great satisfaction to the public. Mr. George D. Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, and his beautiful and accomplished lady, who had contributed much to the pleasure of Miss Lind and our party, accompanied us to Cincinnati.

A citizen of Madison had applied to me, on our first arrival in Louisville, for a concert in that place. I replied that the town was too small to afford it, whereupon he offered to take the management of it into his own hands, and pay me $5,000 for the receipts. The last concert at Louisville and the concerts at Natchez and Wheeling were given under a similar agreement, though with better pecuniary results than at Madison. As the steamer from Louisville to Cincinnati would arrive at Madison about sundown, and would wait long enough for us to give a concert, I agreed to his proposition.

We were not a little surprised to learn upon arriving that the concert must be given in a “pork house”—a capacious shed which had been fitted up and decorated for the occasion. We concluded, however, that if the inhabitants were satisfied with the accommodations we ought not to object. The person who had contracted for the concert came $1,300 short of his agreement, which I consequently lost, and at ten o’clock we were again on board the fine steamer “Ben Franklin” bound for Cincinnati.

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