The Humbugs of the World

Originally published in 1866, this book explores somes of the most bizarre hoaxes, adverts and scams of the nineteenth century.

P. T. Barnum (Author)

9781108044356, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 March 2012

328 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm, 0.42 kg

Ebenezer Scrooge's cry of 'Humbug!' is well known throughout the English-speaking world. But what did he mean? In this entertaining book, P. T. Barnum (1810–91), defines 'humbug' as 'glittering appearances by which to suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear'. A showman himself and the creator of 'The Greatest Show on Earth', Barnum was famous for his own tricks, and describes here some of the most fascinating and outrageous examples perpetrated in his time. He explores the cases of Mr Warren, who wrote an advertisement in enormous letters on the pyramids of Giza, and the Fox daughters, who caused a stir among spiritualists in New York when they held seances with tapping spirits - in fact their own cracking knee joints. First published in 1866, this tour of Victorian humbug, fraud, superstition and quackery will appeal to social historians and readers interested in nineteenth-century popular culture.

Publisher's note
Introduction
Part I. Personal Reminiscences: 1. General view of the subject
2. Definition of the word humbug
3. Monsieur Mangin, the French humbug
4. Old Grizzly Adams
5. The golden pigeons
6. The whales, the angel fish, and the golden pigeon
7. Pease's horehound candy
8. Brandreth's pills
Part II. The Spiritualists: 9. The Davenport brothers, their rise and progress
10. The spirit-rapping and medium humbugs
11. The 'Ballot-test'
12. Spiritual 'letters on the arm'
13. Demonstrations by 'Samson' under a table
14. Spiritual photographing
15. 'Banner of light'
16. Spiritualist humbugs waking up
17. The Davenport brothers shown up once more
Part III. Trade and Business Impositions: 18. Adulterations of food
19. Adulteration in drinks
20. The Peter Funks and their functions
21. Lottery sharks
22. Another lottery humbug
23. A California coal mine
Part IV. Money Manias: 24. The petroleum humbug
25. The tulipomania
26. John Bull's great money humbug
27. Business humbugs
Part V. Medicine and Quacks: 28. Doctors and imagination
29. The consumptive remedy
30. Monsignore Cristoforo Rischi, or Il Créso, the nostrum-vendor of Florence
Part VI. Hoaxes: 31. The Twenty-seventh-street ghost
32. The moon hoax
33. The miscegenation hoax
Part VII. Ghosts and Witchcrafts: 34. Haunted houses
35. Haunted houses
36. Magical humbugs
37. Witchcraft
38. Charms and incantations
Part VIII. Adventurers: 39. The Princess Cariboo, or, the Queen of the Isles
40. Count Cagliostro, alias Joseph Balsamo, known also as 'Cursed Joe'
41. The diamond necklace
42. The Count de St Germain: sage, prophet, and magician
43. Riza Bey, the Persian envoy to Louis XIV
Part IX. Religous Humbugs: 44. Diamond cut diamond, or, Yankee superstitions
45. A religious humbug on John Bull
46. The first humbug in the world
47. Heathen humbugs
48. Modern heathen humbugs
49. Ordeals.

Subject Areas: Physical anthropology [JHMP]