Struggles and Triumphs by P.T. Barnum — Read

Peale's Museum -- Mysterious Mesmerism -- Yankee Hill -- Henry Bennett -- The Rival Museums -- The Orphean and Orphan Families -- The Fudgee Mermaid -- Buying Out My Rival -- Running Opposition to Myself -- Abolishing Theatrical Nuisances -- No Checks and No Bar -- The Museum My Mania -- My First Interview with Charles S. Stratton -- General Tom Thumb in New York -- Re-Engagement -- An Apt Pupil -- Free from Debt -- The Profits of Two Years -- In Search of a New Field -- Starting for Liverpool -- The Good Ship "Yorkshire" -- My Party -- Escort to Sandy Hook -- The Voyage -- A Tobacco Trick -- A Bragging John Bull Outwitted -- Arrival at Liverpool -- A Gentleman Beggar -- Madame Celeste -- Cheap Dwarfs -- Twopenny Shows -- Exhibition of General Tom Thumb in Liverpool -- First-Class Engagement for London.

The president and directors of the "New York Museum Company" not only failed to buy the American Museum as they confidently expected to do, but, after my newspaper squib war and my purchase of the Museum, they found it utterly impossible to sell their stock. By some arrangement, the particulars of which I do not remember, if, indeed, I ever cared to know them, Mr. Peale was conducting Peale's Museum which he claimed was a more "scientific" establishment than mine, and he pretended to appeal to a higher class of patrons. Mesmerism was one of his scientific attractions, and he had a subject upon whom he operated at times with the greatest seeming success, and fairly astonished his audiences. But there were times when the subject was wholly unimpressible and then those who had paid their money to see the woman put into the mesmeric state cried out "humbug," and the reputation of the establishment seriously suffered.