Struggles and Triumphs · Chapter 31 (1/3)

Seeing the necessity of making more money to assist in extricating me from my financial difficulties, and leaving my affairs in the hands of Mr. James D. Johnson⁠—my wife and youngest daughter, Pauline, boarding with my eldest daughter, Mrs. Thompson, in Bridgeport⁠—early in 1858, I went back to England, and took Tom Thumb to all the principal places in Scotland and Wales, giving many exhibitions and making much money which was remitted, as heretofore, to my agents and assignees in America.

Finding, after a while, that my personal attention was not needed in the Tom Thumb exhibitions and confiding him almost wholly to agents who continued the tour through Great Britain, under my general advice and instruction, I turned my individual attention to a new field. At the suggestion of several American gentlemen, resident in London, I prepared a lecture on “The Art of Money-Getting.” I told my friends that, considering my clock complications, I thought I was more competent to speak on “The Art of Money Losing”; but they encouraged me by reminding me that I could not have lost money, if I had not previously possessed the faculty of making it. They further assured me that my name having been intimately associated with the Jenny Lind concerts and other great moneymaking enterprises, the lecture would be sure to prove attractive and profitable.

The old clocks ticked in my ear the reminder that I should improve every opportunity to “turn an honest penny,” and my lecture was duly announced for delivery in the great St. James’ Hall, Regent Street, Piccadilly. It was thoroughly advertised⁠—a feature I never neglected⁠—and, at the appointed time, the hall, which would hold three thousand people, was completely filled, at prices of three and two shillings, (seventy-five and fifty cents,) per seat, according to location. It was the evening of December 29, 1858. Since my arrival in Great Britain the previous spring, I had spent months in travelling with General Tom Thumb, and now I was to present myself in a new capacity to the English public as a lecturer. I could see in my audience all my American friends who had suggested this effort; all my theatrical and literary friends; and as I saw several gentlemen whom I knew to be connected with the leading London papers, I felt sure that my success or failure would be duly chronicled next morning. There was, moreover, a general audience that seemed eager to see the “showman” of whom they had heard so much, and to catch from his lips the “art” which, in times past, had contributed so largely to his success in life. Stimulated by these things, I tried to do my best, and I think I did it. The following is the lecture substantially as it was delivered, though it was interspersed with many anecdotes and illustrations which are necessarily omitted; and I should add, that the subjoined copy being adapted to the meridian in which it has been repeatedly delivered, contains numerous local allusions to men and matters in the United States, which, of course, did not appear in the original draft prepared for my English audiences: