In our recent article, “Illinois Shaped Cornflake Fetches $1350 on e-Bay“, we mentioned the phrase, ‘there’s a sucker born every minute’.

It was attributed to famed American showman, P.T. Barnum, one of the founders of the Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Then it was pointed out by DBKP’s own RidesAPaleHorse that this was an error: Barnum never said the phrase. He was completely right. In fact, it’s been pointed out that Barnum’s philosophy was more along the lines of “there’s a customer born every minute”.

RAPH sent along a link to an interesting history site, History Buff.com which had an article dedicated to the “sucker born every minute” phrase.

The article was so engaging, we decided to reference part of it–in the spirit of historical accuracy–below.

P. T. Barnum is most often associated with the circus sideshow and the display of freaks. While this is true, he is also the founding force behind one of America’s most famous circuses: Barnum & Bailey Circus. Barnum is also affiliated with the famous quote “There’s a sucker born every minute.” History, unfortunately, has misdirected this quotation. Barnum never did say it. Actually, it was said by his competitor. Here’s the incredible story.

[continued from There's a Sucker Born Every Minute: Not PT Barnum's Saying]

From 1866 until 1868 Mr. George Hull, of Binghamton, New York studied archeology and paleontology. Over this period of time Hull contemplated how to pull off a hoax. It seems that many an evangelist at the time had been preaching that there were giants in the earth. In June of 1868 Hull traveled back to Fort Dodge, Iowa where there was a gypsum quarry he had recalled seeing two years earlier. Even then, he had noticed that the dark blue streaks running through the soft lime rock resembled human veins. Realizing this its appearance was tailor-made for his hoax and it was easy to carve, Hull hired a group of quarry workers to cut off a slab measuring twelve feet long, four feet wide and two feet thick.

In November, Hull had his gypsum wrapped in canvas and hoisted onto a wagon. Since the nearest railroad was forty miles away, it proved to be a long, difficult job. He then had the slab of gypsum shipped by rail to Chicago where he had hired a stone cutter named Edward Burghardt to carve a giant. Burghardt and his two assistants, were sworn to secrecy and agreed to work on the piece in a secluded barn during their off hours and Sundays. The instructions were to carve the giant as if it had died in great pain, and the final result was an eerie figure, slightly twisted in apparent agony, with his right hand clutching his stomach. All of the details were there; toenails, fingernails, nostrils, sex organs and so forth. Even a needlepoint mallet was used to add authentic-looking skin pores. When the carving was done, sulfuric acid and ink were used to make the figure look aged.

Interesting, huh?

You can read the rest of this over at History Buff.com: P. T. Barnum Never Did Say
“There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute”.

We’ll not spoil the ending, but the author of the piece, R. J. Brown, Editor-in-Chief at History Buff.com, winds up his post by noting:

“Thereafter, [David] Hannum’s name was lost to history while Barnum was left with the misplaced stigma of being the one to say “There’s a sucker born every minute.”"

We’ll end this by noting that presidential candidates of the Democrat persuasion–Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton–continue to argue over the fine points of a national health care system and all of the benefits such a Utopian plan will confer on the USA.

Any candidate that subscribes to this view–that a federal government that can’t get much of anything right is going to magically bring lower prices and better service to health care (think of it as the Post Office with band-aids)–then they truly do believe “there’s a sucker born every minute”.

We would answer with another time-tested saying: TANSTAAFL.

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”

by Mondoreb
images:
* montaradventures
* upload this
* DBKP poster files
Sources:
* There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute: PT Barnum Didn’t Say it
* P. T. Barnum Never Did Say “There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute”


Back to DBKP/Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.
Also posted at DBKP at Blogger and DBKP Wordpress.