Explore "The Humbugs of the World" by P.T. Barnum on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A religious humbug on John Bull -- Joanna Southcott -- The second Shiloh.
Joanna Southcott was born at St. Mary's Ottery in Devonshire, about the year 1750. She was a plain, stout-limbed, hard-fisted farmer lass, whose toils in the field -- for her father was in but very moderate circumstances -- had tawned her complexion and hardened her muscles, at an early age. As she grew toward woman's estate, necessity compelled her to leave her home and seek service in the city of Exeter, where for many years, she plodded on very quietly in her obscure path, first, as a domestic hireling, and subsequently as a washer woman.