Struggles and Triumphs by P.T. Barnum — Read

From London to Baden-Baden -- Trouble in Paris -- Strasbourg -- Scene in a German Customhouse -- A Terrible Bill -- Six Cents Worth of Agony -- Gambling at Baden-Baden -- Suicides -- Golden Prices for the General -- A Call from the King of Holland -- The German Spas -- Hamburg, Ems and Wiesbaden -- The Black Forest Orchestrion Maker -- An Offered Sacrifice -- The Seat of the Rothschilds -- Difficulties in Frankfort -- A Pompous Commissioner of Police -- Red-Tape -- An Alarm -- Henry J. Raymond -- Call on the Commissioner -- Confidential Disclosures -- Half of an Entire Fortune in an American Railway -- Astounding Revelations -- Down the Rhine -- Departure for Holland.

After a pleasant and successful season of several weeks in London and in the provinces, I took the little General into Germany, going from London to Paris and from thence to Strasbourg and Baden-Baden. I had not been in Paris since the times of King Louis Philippe, and while I noticed great improvements in the city, in the opening of the new boulevards and the erection of noble buildings, I could see also with sorrow that there was less personal liberty under the Emperor Napoleon III, than there was under the "Citizen King. " The customhouse officials were overbearing and unnecessarily rigid in their exactions; the police were over-watchful and intolerant; the screws were turned on everywhere. I had a lot of large pictorial placards of General Tom Thumb, which were merely in transitu, as I wished only to forward them to Germany to be used as advertisements of the forthcoming exhibitions. These the French customhouse officers determined to examine in detail, and when they discovered that one of the pictures represented the General in the costume of the First Napoleon, the whole of the bills were seized and sent to the Prefecture of Police. I was compelled to stay three days in Paris before I could convince the Prefect of Police that there was no treason in the Tom Thumb pictures. I was very glad to get out of Paris with my baggage and taking a seat in the express train on the Paris and Strasbourg railway I soon forgot my customhouse annoyances.