Barnum used to tell the story of 'an unscrupulous showman who pass|ad ofl a precocious youngster as a pigmy wild man of the woods by j sewing him in a hairy shin. The youth seamed to imagine, says Sir Fortune Free in the " Penny Magazine,” he had found a comfortable billet for life. But he giew fat, and one day burst all the stitches so shockingly that he gave the imposture away. That was bis downfall, and the showman dismissed him with ignominy and went hunting for another youngster as his attraction. ■‘The moral of that Is,” said Barnum, "that you should not forget you will grow up. A good many folk appear to manage to forget it very comfortably till they realise it in a very disagreeable fashion.” The situation that may be good enough for to-day may prove a broken reed to-morrow.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NORAG19081005.2.73
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Northland Age, Volume V, Issue 7, 5 October 1908, Page 8
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144Untitled Northland Age, Volume V, Issue 7, 5 October 1908, Page 8
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