Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

IN CIVIL WAR TIME

55

The classic description of the great fire which consumed
Barnum's Museum in July of 1865 was written by a reporter named Nathan D. Urner. He managed to obtain
a point of vantage in a building in Ann Street, very likely
in one of the gambling-houses for "day games" which were
not uncommon then in that locality. Urner remained at
his window notwithstanding the intense heat, noting the
unique occurrences opposite. His vivid and humorous
account of the conflagration is marred only by the lack
of good taste shown in unsympathetic references to the
actions of the flame-tortured animals. Urner was a Bohemian of the most flagrant type. His poetical specialty
was devotional verse for the religious weeklies. Reginald
Heber could not touch more sweetly the sentiments that
respond to such appeal. Amos Cummings used to tell of
meeting Urner in Printing House Square and lending him
five dollars on his urgent profession of utter destitution.
An hour or two later, in the saloon under the Times office,
Cummings encountered his debtor in the act of tendering
a five-dollar bill across the bar.
"See here, Nathan," said Cummings, "do you think
this is quite square?"
"Hold on; Amos, hold on!" replied the aggrieved poet.
"Since I met you I've jerked out a superfine 'Little Mildred with the Folded Hands' for The Independent. This
five is she, not you."
From the ashes of Barnum's first museum few objects
fit for subsequent exhibition could have been removed.
But when I visited the second establishment, near Prince
Street, I found there in a case with other curiosities new
to me my old friend the bronze dagger, contorted and

scarred and pitiable to behold, but still recognizable by
one that had known it so well; and I have had meetings
with former acquaintances that gave less genuine satisfaction. What was the bronze blade's experience in the
second fire, when the former Chinese Museum building