BARNUM, PIIINEAS TAYLOR., American showman, was b. at Conn., July 5, 1810. His father was a tavern-keeper; and while young B. attended the village school, he traded with and played practical jokes upon his father's customers. At the age of 13, he was employed in a country store; and about five years afterwards. Went largely into the lottery business. When only 19, he married clandestinely, and then moved to Danbury, where lie edited The Herald of Freedom, and was imprisoned 60 days for a libel. In 1834, he removed to New York, hearing of Joyce Heth, nurse of gen. Washington, lie bought her for $1000, and with the aid of forged documents and puff ing, exhibited her to considerable profit. Reduced, again to poverty, he sold Bibles, exhibited negro dancers, and wrote for newspaper's, until he bought the American 3Iuseum in "New York, which he raised at once to prosperity by_ exhibiting a..Tapauese mermaid, made of a fish and monkey, a white negress, a horse, and finallY, noted dwarf, styled gen. Tom Thumb, whom be exhibited in Europe in 1844. In 1847,
lie offered Mademoiselle Jenny Lind $1000 a night for 150 nights. and received $700;000 —the concert tickets being sold at auction, in one case for $.650 for a single ticket. lie built a villa at Bridgeport, in imitation of the Brighton pavilion, and engaged in various speculations, one of which—a clock-factory—made him bankrupt. Settling with his creditors in 1857, he engaged anew in his career of audacious enterprises, and made another fortune. In 1866. he stood as a candidate for a seat in congress, but was unsuc cessful. IIis Autobiography (1854, since greatly enlarged) has the merit at least of frank ness. In 1865, he published `the Hundmos of the World;..and and Triumphs in 1860. In 1S71, he again returned to the business of showman, from which in 1868 he had withdrawn. His exhibition of a "petrified man" in 1878 was not a success.