The Life of P.T. Barnum. P.T. Barnum
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you kindly’ is two and sixpence, and I ask only two shillings.” “Well, I’ll take the rest in cider,” responded Hubbard.
On one occasion he got up a lottery – capital prize ten dollars, tickets twelve and a half cents each. He sold out all his tickets in a few days and pocketed the money. Coming around in those parts a fortnight afterwards, his customers inquired about their prizes. “Oh,” replied Gen. Hubbard, “I am convinced this is a species of gambling, so I have concluded not to draw the lottery!” His customers laughed at the joke and lost their shillings.
Lotteries in those days were patronized by both Church and State. As a writer has said, “People would gamble in lotteries for the benefit of a church in which to preach against gambling.”
In 1819 my grandfather, Phineas Taylor, and three other gentlemen, were appointed managers of a lottery for such a purpose, and they met to concoct a “scheme.” My grandfather was anxious to adopt something new, so as, if possible, to make it peculiarly attractive and popular. He finally hit upon a plan which he said he was sure would carry every thing before it. It was adopted, and his anticipations were fully realized. The Scheme, as published in the “Republican Farmer,” Bridgeport, July 7, 1819, set forth that the lottery was “By Authority of the State of Connecticut,” for the benefit of the “Fairfield Episcopal Society,” and the inducements held out for the purchase of tickets were as follows:
“The Episcopal Society in Fairfield was at the commencement of the revolutionary war blessed with a handsome Church, completely finished, and painted inside and out, with an elegant set of plate for the communion service, and a handsome Library; also a large and elegant Parsonage-House, with out-houses, fences, &c., which were all destroyed by fire, or carried away at the time the town of Fairfield was burnt, in the year 1779, by the British troops under Tryon, which so impoverished the Society that they never have been able to reinstate themselves; and, as all other Ecclesiastical Societies, and individuals, who suffered losses by the enemy at that time, have long since, in some measure, been remunerated by the Hon. Legislature; and at their Spring Session, 1818, on the petition of the Wardens and Vestry of the Episcopal Church in Fairfield, to the Hon. General Assembly, they granted a Lottery that might in some measure remunerate them also for their so long omitted claims.”
The “Scheme” itself was considered a novelty, for it announced, “Not a Blank in the Lottery.” It was certainly attractive, for while the price of a ticket was five dollars, 11,400 out of a total of 12,000 prizes were set down at $2.50 each!
This favorable state of things justified the managers in announcing, (as they did,) that
“A more favorable Scheme for the Adventurer, we presume to say, was never offered to the public. The one now offered contains more high Prizes than Schemes in general of this amount; and it will be observed that a person can obtain two Tickets for the same money that will buy but one in a Scheme of any other description. Consequently the Adventurer will have two chances for the high Prizes to one in any other Lottery.”
Never was a lottery so popular, before it was drawn, as this. The fear of drawing a blank had hitherto been quite a drawback to investments in that line; but here there was “NOT A BLANK IN THE LOTTERY!” Besides, adventurers had “two chances for the high prizes to one in any other lottery!” Rather slim chances to be sure, when we observe that there were only nine prizes above one hundred dollars, in twelve thousand tickets! One chance in thirteen hundred and thirty-three! But customers did not stop to think of that. Then again, according to the Scheme, “a person can obtain two Tickets for the same money that will buy but one in a Scheme of any other description.”
The tickets sold with unparalleled rapidity. Scarcely a person thought of purchasing less than two. He was sure to draw two prizes of $2.50 each, and at the worst he could lose no more than $5, the ordinary price of a ticket! All the chances were sold some time previous to the day announced for the commencement of the drawing – a fact unprecedented in the history of lotteries. My grandfather was looked upon as a public benefactor. He sold personally more than half the entire number of tickets, and as each manager received a per centage on sales made by himself, there was profit in the operation.
The day of drawing arrived. My grandfather announced each prize as it came from the wheel, and during the twenty-four days required for drawing the twelve thousand numbers at five hundred each day, he called out “two dollars and fifty cents” eleven thousand four hundred times, and various other prizes, all told, only six hundred times!
Persons who had bought two tickets, being sure of losing not more than $5 at the worst, found themselves losers $5.75, for as the Scheme announced “all prizes subject to the usual deduction of 15 per cent.,” each $2.50 prize realized to the holder $2.12, “payable in 60 days.”
The whole country was in an uproar. “Uncle Phin Taylor” was unanimously voted a regular old cheat – the scheme, with “not a blank in the lottery,” was denounced as “the meanest scheme ever invented, and nobody but Phin Taylor would have ever thought of such a plan for deceiving the people!” In fact, from that date till the day of his death, he was called “old two dollars and fifty cents,” and many was the hearty laugh which he enjoyed at the thought thereof. As time wore away, he was declared to be the ’cutest man in those parts, and the public generally became reconciled to consider his famous “Scheme” as a capital practical joke.
The drawing of a State-Church Lottery (under other managers) was advertised in February, 1823, and “adventurers” were assured of this “farther opportunity of obtaining an easy independence for the small sum of $5.” The quiet unction of this announcement is peculiarly refreshing. One chance in only twelve thousand! Such bipeds as “humbugs” certainly existed long before I attained my majority.
My grandfather was for many years a “Justice of the Peace,” and became somewhat learned in the law. As lawyers were not then so plenty in Connecticut as at present, he was sometimes engaged in pettifogging small cases before a Justice. On one occasion he went to Woodbury, Ct., in that capacity. His opponent was lawyer Bacon, an attorney of some celebrity. Bacon despised the idea of contending against a pettifogger, and seized every opportunity during the trial to annoy my grandfather. If the latter objected to evidence introduced by the former as irrelevant or illegal, Mr. Bacon would remind the court that his adversary was a mere pettifogger, and of course knew nothing about law or the rules of evidence. My grandfather took this all very coolly; indeed it gratified him to annoy the learned counsel on the other side. At last Mr. Bacon became considerably excited, and looking my grandfather directly in the face, he said:
“Your name is Taylor, I believe, sir?”
“It is,” was the reply.
“It takes nine tailors to make a man,” responded the lawyer triumphantly.
“And your name is Bacon, I think,” said my grandfather.
“Yes, sir.”
“Bacon is the meanest part of the hog,” rejoined the pettifogger.
Even the court joined in the laughter which followed, and at the same time advised Mr. Bacon to refrain in future from remarks which were unnecessary and unbecoming. The learned attorney exhibited a ready willingness in acceding to the request of the Judge.
My grandfather was troubled with the asthma. One day while walking up a steep hill in company with Mr. Jabez Taylor, (father to Oliver,) an old wag of about his own age, my grandfather, puffing and breathing like a porpoise, exclaimed:
“I wish I could stop this plaguy breathing.”
“So do all your neighbors,” was the facetious reply.
One of our neighbors, “Uncle Sam Taylor,” as he was called, was an eccentric man. He always gloried in being on the contrary side. If a proposition was as plain as the sun at noon-day, Uncle Sam would never admit it. If a question had two sides to it, he would be sure to find the wrong one, just for the sake of the argument. Withal, he was a good-hearted man, and an excellent neighbor. Ask him to loan you his axe or hoe, and he would abruptly reply: “You can’t have it, I don’t lend my tools,” and