Read more about the article Humbug

Humbug

Humbug the fraud, the hoax, the mint candy.

A humbug is another name for a hoax, a trick, a fraud, something that presents as one thing but is really something else. It was a mid 18th century English slang word that today is perhaps most closely associated with the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s 1843 A Christmas Carol (the most famous Christmas ghost story of all time).

humbug is associated with Ebeneezer Scrooge

When Scrooge barks “Bah! Humbug!” he’s commenting on how Christmas is duplicitous, that he feels Christmas tells people they should be happy when they may have nothing to be happy about. To Scrooge, Christmas presents a face of cheer when beneath the surface the world is still as corrupt and as problematic as before. Scrooge the misanthrope, Scrooge the cantankerous grump. His “Bah! Humbug” establishes a baseline of Scrooge’s dislike of the season, his dim view of humanity, and how much work the three spirits will have to do to redeem him.

Humbug was a popular term for hoaxes and charlatans
While today we think of the word “humbug” mostly with A Christmas Carol, it used to be a popular word for charlatans, fraudsters, and hoaxes.

P.T. Barnum, the Prince of Humbug

One man who knew a thing or two about fraud was P.T. Barnum. Nicknamed the Prince of Humbugs, Barnum drew a fine line between what was and wasn’t an acceptable deception. He felt humbugs were acceptable tricks, that it was fine to trick the audience as long as they received something fun in return. One example of this was the Fiji Mermaid which he advertised as a beautiful woman rather than the monstrous animal hybrid he had on display (which was fake either way). If the ends justified the means it was all ok in Barnum’s opinion.

Barnum’s 1865 book The Humbugs of the World documents historic deceptions and the universality of hoaxes. For Barnum his style of humbug tricks were acceptable (not surprisingly) but hoaxes that tricked people out of their money with nothing in return were wrong. He spoke out publicly against psychics and other frauds who tricked and hurt people.

humbug candy
Humbug the striped candies have been popular since the 19th century, but unfortunately were the source of a poisoning scandal in 1858.

Mint Candy

Something that’s not a trick, but is a treat, are humbug candies. Humbugs are striped candies, typically mint flavored, most commonly found in English speaking countries (except the US). While they are probably English in origin, and have existed since at least the 1820s, it’s unknown exactly who invented them or why they are called humbugs.

In the mid 19th century humbugs gained an unwanted spotlight. On October 30, 1858 a batch of humbugs in Bradford, England were accidentally made with arsenic trioxide instead of daft (a filler agent made with powdered limestone & plaster of Paris, used as a sugar replacement to cut cost). A junior druggist scooped the wrong powder and gave it to the assistant candy maker who didn’t notice. This mistake killed 20 people (13 of whom were children) and poisoned an additional 200 people. One positive is this led to the Pharmacy Act of 1868 which, among other things, required poisonous substances to be specially marked to avoid confusion.

A look back at how humbugs were made in 1967.
Read more about the article Fiji Mermaid

Fiji Mermaid

The taxidermy oddity that attracted thousands of people to P.T. Barnum’s American Museum.

In 1841 P.T. Barnum opened his American Museum in New York City. For 31 years the museum had been Scudder’s American Museum which was part science museum, part zoo, part history museum, and part collection of oddities. After Barnum bought it he took these ideas and amped them up to become one of the most popular attractions in America. With around 500,000 items in the collection the museum was both educational and entertaining – it was history and spectacle. Over its 14 year run the Barnum American Museum had 38 million customers at a time when the population of the US was only around 32 million.

Being a P.T. Barnum enterprise, marketing was a critical tool to its success. He transformed the facade of the building into a giant billboard for the museum itself. He had posters advertising (and exaggerating) the attractions inside. One of the first attractions he marketed, using most of the front of the building to do so, was the Fiji mermaid.

Barnum’s American Museum was one of the most popular attractions in America at the time.

The Little Mermaid

The Fiji mermaid was brought to America in 1842 by Dr. J. Griffin of the British Lyceum of Natural History. It was the mummified remains of a mermaid from the Fiji islands in the South Pacific. Barnum generated interest in the mermaid by sending anonymous letters to various newspapers talking about it. He even cooked up a story that he was trying to convince Dr. Griffin to exhibit the mermaid and that Griffin was reluctant. It was a sensation before it was ever even exhibited to the public.

Barnum negotiated to display the mermaid for one week but it proved to be so popular that it went on the road, touring southern states. Dr. Griffin gave lectures about mermaids and cited the ancient Greek idea that everything on land had a counterpart in the sea. At a time when new species were being discovered in the remote areas of the world perhaps a mermaid had finally been found.

Eventually the Fiji mermaid split its time between Barnum’s American Museum and the Boston Museum. Its fate is unknown as it went missing but it was most likely destroyed in either the fire that consumed Barnum’s museum in 1865 or the fire that consumed the Boston Museum in 1880.

The Fiji mermaid has become one of Barnum’s most famous humbugs (ie. hoaxes). It looked nothing like the beautiful mermaids in the advertisements.

A sucker born every minute

In truth, the “mermaid” was Barnum’s first hoax at his American Museum (his very first hoax was when he exhibited Joice Heth, a woman he bought, and claimed she had been George Washington’s former nurse … which she hadn’t been). At about 3ft long the mermaid was the taxidermy combination of a monkey torso and the tail of a fish (most likely a salmon). Far from being the beautiful humanoid mermaid seen in Barnum’s advertisements, it was a ghastly animal mashup. The Charleston Courier wrote that “… the Feejee lady is the very incarnation of ugliness.”

Instead of originating in the Fiji islands, the mermaid actually was one of many created by Japanese fishermen. This particular mermaid was bought by the American sea captain Samuel Edes in 1822 whose son sold it to Moses Kimball of Boston in 1842. Kimball then leased the mermaid to Barnum for his museum. As for Dr. J. Griffin, he was actually Barnum’s associate Levi Lyman who was in on the ruse from the very beginning, pretending to vouch for the mermaid’s authenticity. Also there’s no such thing as the “British Lyceum of Natural History”. Nothing about the Fiji mermaid was real except the public’s excitement.

Humbug

There is a Barnum-esque blurry gray area between “hoax” and “entertaining joke”. While Barnum liked to categorize things like the Fiji mermaid as “humbugs” (which are things designed to deceive), he felt they were always in playful fun. Barnum wanted the audience, even when deceived, to still have a good time. He did not like deception at the expense of the public. For example he spoke out publicly (and testified in court) against spiritual mediums who tricked people out of money, lying to them about communicating with deceased loved ones.

Over the years numerous other Fiji mermaids have made the rounds in museums, curiosity shops, sideshows, and private collections. They’re made from all manner of materials (animal parts, wood, papier-mâché, wire, plastic, etc). You can find higher-quality ones for sale in shops that specialize in curious objects, but there are also cheaper ones on ebay. You can also learn to build your own.

Added info: The Jenny Haniver is a related taxidermy hoax. It’s a sea animal, frequently a ray or skate, that’s been modified to look like the mummified remains of a demon, angel, basilisk, etc.

Also, P.T. Barnum never said “There’s a sucker born every minute.” It was said by banker David Hannum who had purchased a hoax giant which he charged the public to see.

Barnum Museum curator Adrienne Saint-Pierre discusses the Fiji mermaid.

Learn some tips & tricks to building your own Fiji mermaid.

In the X-Files episode “Humbug” Agent Scully enters a curiosity shop where the Fiji mermaid gets mentioned. The owner of the shop also has a clever humbug of his own in the style of Barnum’s famous signage leading people to the Egress.