Mr. P. T. Barnum will find the House of Representatives a most excellent advertising medium, in case he is elected to Congress. He will certainly not forget the high duties to his country devolving upon him, and it will be a pity if he forgets his private worldly affairs,—a genuine pity if his justly-famed sagacity fails to point out to him how he can dove-tail business and patriotism together to the mutual benefit of himself and the Great Republic. I am informed by the Spirits that his first speech in Congress will read as follows:
“Mr. Speaker—What do we do with a diseased limb? Cut it off! What do I do with a diseased curiosity? Sell him! What do we do with any speculation of any kind whatever that don’t pay? Get rid of it—get out of it! Of course. Simply because I have got the most superb collection of curiosities in the world—the grandest museum ever conceived of by man—containing the dwarf elephant, Jenny Lind, and the only living giraffe on this continent, (that noble brute, which sits upon its hams in an attitude at once graceful and picturesque, and eats its hay out of the second-story window,)—because I have got these things, and because admission is only thirty cents, children and servants half-price, open from sunrise till 10 P. M., peanuts and all the other luxuries of the season to be purchased in any part of the house,—the proprietor, at enormous expense, having fitted up two peanut stands to each natural curiosity,—because I have got these things, shall I revel in luxurious indolence when my voice should sound a warning to the nation? No! Because the Wonderful Spotted Human Phenomenon, the Leopard Child from the wilds of Africa, is mine, shall I exult in my happiness and be silent when my country’s life is threatened? No! Because the Double Hump-backed Bactrian Camel takes his oats in my menagerie, shall I surfeit with bliss and lift not up my voice to save the people? No!—Because among my possessions are dead loads of Royal Bengal Tigers, White Himalaya Mountain Bears, so interesting to Christian families from being mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures, Silver-striped Hyenas, Lions, Tigers, Leopards, Wolves, Sacred Cattle from the sacred hills of New Jersey, Panthers, Ibexes, Performing Mules and Monkeys, South American Deer, and so-forth, and so-forth, and so-forth, shall I gloat over my blessings in silence, and leave Columbia to perish? No! Because I have secured the celebrated Gordon Cumming collection, consisting of oil portraits of the two negroes and a child who rescued him from impending death, shall I wrap me in mute ecstacy and let my country rush unwarned to her destruction? No! Because unto me belong the monster living alligator, over 12 feet in length, and four living speckled brook trout, weighing 20 pounds, shall these lips sing songs of gladness and peal no succoring cry unto a doomed nation? No! Because I have got Miller’s grand national bronze portrait gallery, consisting of two plaster of Paris Venuses and a varnished mud-turtle, shall I bask in mine own bliss and be mute in the season of my people’s peril? No! Because I possess the smallest dwarfs in the world, and the Nova Scotian giantess, who weighs a ton and eats her weight every forty-eight hours; and Herr Phelim O’Flannigan the Norwegian Giant, who feeds on the dwarfs and ruins business; and the lovely Circassian girl; and the celebrated Happy Family, consisting of animals of the most diverse principles and dispositions, dwelling together in peace and unity, and never beheld by the religious spectator acquainted with Eden before the Fall, without emotions too profound for utterance; and 250,000 other curiosities, chiefly invisible to the naked eye—all to be seen for the small sum of 30 cents, children and servants half price—staircases arranged with special reference to limb displays—shall I hug my happiness to my soul and fail to cry aloud when I behold my country sinking to destruction and the grave? No!—a thousand times No!
“NO! Even as one sent to warn ye of fearful peril, I cry Help! help! for the stricken land! I appeal to you—and to you—and to you, sir—to every true heart in this august menagerie! Demagogues threaten the Goddess of Liberty!—they beard the starry-robed woman in her citadel! and to you the bearded woman looks for succor! Once more grim Treason towers in our midst, and once more helpless loyalty scatters into corners as do the dwarfs when the Norwegian giant strides among them! The law-making powers and the Executive are at daggers drawn, State after State flings defiance at the Amendment, and lo! the Happy Family of the Union is broken up! Woe is me!
“Where is the poor negro? How hath he fared? Alas! his regeneration is incomplete; he is free, but he cannot vote; ye have only made him white in spots, like my wonderful Leopard Boy from the wilds of Africa! Ye promised him universal suffrage, but ye have given him universal suffering instead! Woe is me!
“The country is fallen! The boss monkey sits in the feed-tub, and the tom-cats, the raccoons and the gentle rabbits of the once happy family stand helpless and afar off, and behold him gabble the provender in the pride of his strength! Woe is me!
“Ah, gentlemen, our beloved Columbia, with these corroding distresses upon her, must soon succumb! The high spirit will depart from her eye, the bloom from her cheek, the majesty from her step, and she will stand before us gaunt and worn, like my beautiful giantess when my dwarfs and Circassians prey upon her rations! Soon we shall see the glory of the realm pass away as did the grandeur of the Museum amid the consuming fires, and the wonders the world admires shall give place to trivialities, even as in the proud Museum the wonders that once amazed have given place to cheap stuffed reptiles and pea-nut stands! Woe is me!
“O, spirit of Washington! forgotten in these evil times, thou art banished to the dusty corridors of memory, a staring effigy of wax, and none could recognize thee but for the label pinned upon thy legs! O, shade of Jackson! O, ghost of gallant Lafayette! ye live only in museums, and the sublime lessons of your lives are no longer heeded by the slumbering nation! Woe is me!
“Rouse ye, my people, rouse ye! rouse ye! rouse ye! Shake off the fatal stupor that is upon ye, and hurl the usurping tyrant from his throne! Impeach! impeach! impeach!—Down with the dread boss monkey! O, snake the seditious miscreant out of the national feed-tub and reconstruct the Happy Family!”
Such is the speech as imparted to me in advance from the spirit land.
March 5, 1867