P. T. Barnum：Struggles and Triumphs, Additional Excerpt 643

The only safe inhabitants of a free country are educated citizens who vote. The gentleman from Milford lives near the old Washington toll-bridge, which spans the Housatonic River, and he doubtless remembers, as I do, when the Boston and New York stages crossed that bridge, and the coachman would always denounce the “infernal bridge monopoly” which compelled him to pay a dollar every time the stage crossed. The passengers would generally laugh and say: “Let him pay, it’s nothing to us; we are only passengers.” Some twenty years ago, one of the gentlemen accustomed to travel in that stage, was crossing the Atlantic in a steamship. At the hour of midnight, when nearly all were wrapt in sleep, the fearful cry of “fire” rang through the ship. There were the poor passengers, threatened by the devouring element, and only a plank between them and death. Our passenger, not half awake, rubbed his eyes and probably fancying he was in the old stage-coach, cried out: “Fire away, I am only a passenger!” Fortunately, it was a false alarm; but when the gentleman was wide awake, he discovered that there could be no disinterested passengers on board a burning ship.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50115
Locator：Additional excerpt 643 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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