Template:American Humbug

BARNUM: Let me read this manifest

What is worst and what is best?

What is it that could be hidden in the belly of this groaning ship?

All broken biscuits and china cups

Perfumes and parchments

Canvases and tweeds

A length of hemp and a sack of hops

A quantity of fine oak beams

A box of bulbs and seeds

Eleven of the rarest orchids still living under glass

A quantity of Belgian lace

Twenty phials of dragon's blood

Pictures and periodicals

Tin tubes and rubber plants

Pamphlets and iron jackets

Cherries and immigrants

Stamped and sealed documents

Red velvet drapes

A range of leather harnesses

Some silver plate that tarnishes

Two barrels of mercury

One barrel of the cold black earth

Who will take this string of pearls and tell what they are worth?

Coloured ribbons and dried flowers

A roll of printed Chinese silks

Fourteen pairs of soft kid gloves

The finest cork is Portuguese

Tins of mussels and Spanish anchovies

Cases of vinegar

Vermouth and opium

Bottles of German hock

Finest French cognac

Goat's skin and peacock plumes

Fine purple twine

The chimes from six grandfather clocks

A mynah bird that sometimes talks

Two barrels of mercury and one barrel of the cold black earth?

Who will take this string of pearls and tell me what it is worth?

In among the motley and the mess

There must be one precious cargo

She will be my triumph with the first rank of society

I bring you, singer of great renown, of purest piety

The crowned heads of Europe are walking in a trance

Their glance is dimmed as if trimmed by some sleeping drug or draft

Accolades and faint applause are no match for catch sprung by the King of American Humbug

Frauds and freaks walk incognito

Curiosities that seem to speak

Now from the man who brought you:

The Fiecee Mermaid!!!

Made from a monkey's torso and a desiccated fishtail

George Washington's nursemaid!!!

Who was really a blind and penniless slave

I buried the bill of sale

Or the tiny Tom who was General Thumb

Who rode in a coach and Shetland Four through each and every court

The New York throng are rarely wrong

They are not taken in by hoaxers and fakers

Or bootleggers who end their days as kingmakers

Jenny sailed from Liverpool having thrilled both one and all inside the Philharmonic Hall

Victoria and her German cousins by the gross and by the dozens wept into their ermine robes as sainted Jenny sailed around the globe

The cheers became hysterical and frantic as she descended from the S.S. Atlantic

The multitude called loud and long

Almost seven thousand strong

To hear her first American song

How, but by trickery alone could so many hear her silver tones?

Twenty Turkish strongmen will exhale to waft the breeze unto the ears of every swell and hale

20,000 butterlies will beat their wings until they die to send Italian melodies way up into the galleries

30,000 silk worms spin a web of gauze as her voice soars high above the wild applause

50,000 glow worms or more will illuminate the curtain that will rise upon each encore

Sold for 625 dollars to Mr. Ossian F. Dodge, the auctioneer hollers

So, gentle folk beg to consider, tickets to the highest bidder

Pay once more and pay no less

"This way to the egress"

Find yourself where you began

In what seems a tiny span

The study of this lizard-like man...