FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



newspapers as well as Societies. So I got the 

 run of their columns for " booming " purposes, 

 and, thus encouraged, I wrote an article on the 

 subject that possessed my mind, and secured its 

 insertion in leading-article type, in an influential 

 Oxford paper. I knew the liking of country-folk 

 for an old saying, so I headed my anonymous 

 contribution, " There's Life in the Old Dog yet," 

 and it can be imagined how the text was applied. 

 This caught on, so I had a large number of copies 

 struck off and circulated in all likely quarters. 



It will be seen, as I proceed, from what small 

 beginnings genuine and spontaneous enthusiasm, 

 as we suppose it to be, is created, and how much 

 it owes to the working of the bellows to keep the 

 flame alight. If anyone fancies nowadays that 

 any particular world upon which he has set his 

 heart is to be conquered by a policy of judicious 

 reticence, he is likely to fall a victim to that 

 hope deferred which maketh the heart sick. At 

 the same time, there is infinite truth in Barnum's 

 dictum : "If you have got hold of a real good 

 thing, you can hardly spend too much in adver- 

 tising it, but, if it does not answer to this description, 

 it will never, in the end, pay for exploiting it." 



Since writing the foregoing exposition of the 

 policy I pursued in compassing a certain end, I 

 have had the extreme pleasure of discovering 

 that fifty years ago I was by anticipation the 

 unconscious disciple, in a very humble way, of 

 the present Prime Minister. In a recent great 

 historic speech he said : "I made up my mind 

 to take risks, and I took them in order to arouse 

 public sentiment." "It is not easy," Mr. Lloyd 



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