The Humbugs of the World by P. T. Barnum (best contemporary novels .TXT) 📕

of wine or liquor for twenty-five cents to a dollar a gallon, there are annually made and sold thousands of gallons of wine and brandy that never smelt a grape.

Suppose a wholesale liquor-merchant imports genuine brandy. He usually “rectifies” and adulterates it by adding eighty-five gallons of pure spirits (refined whisky,) to fifteen gallons of brandy, to give it a flavor; then colors and “doctors” it, and it is ready for sale. Suppose an Albany wholesale-dealer purchases, for pure brandy, ten pipes of this adulterated brandy from a New York importer. The Albany man immediately doubles his stock by adding an equal quantity of pure spirits. There are then seven and a half gallons of brandy in a hundred. A Buffalo liquor-dealer buys from the Albany man, and he in turn adds one-half pure spirits. The Chicago dealer buys from the Buffalo dealer, and as nearly all spirit-dealers keep large quantities of pure spirits on hand, and know how to use it, he again doubles the quantity of his brandy by adding pure spirits; and the Milwaukee liquor-dealer does the same, after purchasing from the Chicago man. So, in the ordinary course of liquor transactions, by the time a hundred gallon pipe of pure brandy reaches Wisconsin, at a cost of five or perhaps ten dollars per gallon, ninety-nine gallons and one pint of it is the identical whisky that was shipped from Wisconsin the same year at fifty cents per gallon. Truly a homeoopathic dose of genuine brandy! And even that whisky when it left Wisconsin was only half whisky; for there are men in the whisky-making States who make it a business to take whisky direct from the distillery, add to it an equal quantity of water, and then bring it up to a bead and the power of intoxication, by mixing in a variety of the villainous drugs and deadly poisons enumerated in this chapter. The annual loss of strength, health, and life caused by the adulteration of liquor is truly appalling. Those who have not examined the subject can form no just estimate of the atrocious and extensive effects of this murderous humbug.

XX

The Peter Funks and their functions⁠—​The rural divine and the watch⁠—​Rise and progress of mock auctions⁠—​Their decline and fall.

Not many years ago, a dignified and reverend man, whose name is well known to me, was walking sedately down Broadway. He was dressed in clerical garb of black garments and white neckcloth. He was a man of great learning, profound thought, long experience, unaffected piety, and pure and high reputation.

All at once, a kind of chattering shout smote him fair in the left ear:

“Narfnarfnarf! Three shall I have? Narfnarfnarfnarfnarf! Going at two and a half! Gone!!”

And the grave divine, pausing, beheld a doorway, over which waved a little red flag. Within, a company of eager bidders thronged around an auctioneer’s stand; and the auctioneer himself, a well-dressed man with a highly respectable look, was just handing over to the delighted purchaser a gold watch.

“It would be cheap at one hundred dollars,” said he, in a despondent tone. “It’s mere robbery to sell it for that price. I’d buy it myself if ’twas legal.”

And while the others, with exclamations of surprise and congratulation, crowded to see this famous purchase, and the buyer exhibited it with a joyful countenance close by the door, the divine, just out of curiosity, stepped in. He owned no watch; he was a country clergyman, and poor in this world’s goods; so poor that, to use a familiar phrase, “if steamboats were selling at a dime a piece, he would hardly be able to buy a gangplank.” But what if he could, by good luck, buy a good gold watch for two dollars and a half in this wonderful city!

Somehow, that watch was snapped open and closed again right under his ministerial nose about six times. The auctioneer held up another of exactly the same kind, and began to chatter again.

“Now gentlemen, what ’moffered f’this first-class M. I. Tobias gold English lever watch⁠—full jeweled, compensation-balance, anchor-escapement, hunting case? One, did I hear? Say two cents, won’t yer? Two and a half! narfnarfnarfnarfnarf and a half! Two and a half, and three quarters. Thank you, Sir,” to a sailor-like man in the corner.

“Three,” said a tall and well-dressed young gentleman with short hair, near the clergyman, adding, in an undertone, “I can sell it for fifty this afternoon.”

“Three I am offered,” says Mr. Auctioneer, and chattered on as before: “And a half, did you say, Sir? Thank you, Sir. And a halfnarfnarf!”

The reverend divine had said, “And a half.” The Peter Funks had got him! But he didn’t find it out quite yet. The bidding was run up to four dollars; the clergyman took the watch, opened and examined it; was convinced, handed it back, ventured another half, and the watch was knocked down to him. The auctioneer fumbled in some papers, and, in a moment, handed him his bargain neatly done up.

“This way to the clerk’s office if you please, Sir,” he added, with a civil bow. The clergyman passed a little further in; and while the sales proceeded behind him, the clerk made out a bill and proffered it.

“Fifty-four dollars and a half!” read the country divine, astounded. “Four and a half is what I bid!”

“Four and a half!” exclaimed the clerk, with sarcastic indignation; “Four dollars and a half! A pretty story! A minister to have the face to say he could buy an M. I. Tobias gold watch, full jeweled, for four dollars and a half! I’ll thank you for the money, Sir. Fifty-four, fifty, if you please.”

The auctioneer, as if interrupted by the loud tones of the indignant clerk, stopped the sale to see what was the matter. On hearing the statement of the two parties, he cast a glance of angry contempt upon the poor clergyman, who, by this time, was uneasy enough at their scowling faces. Then, as if relenting, he said half-sneeringly:

“I