Barnum and Van Amburgh’s Museum

“The very complete and wonderful menagerie continues to be an attraction at Barnum’s, but the dramatic novelty this week is a very stupid reduction to dialogue of that immortal legend of boyhood, Robinson Crusoe. The want of a heroine in the story is supplied by the dramatist, who marries Robinson at an early age, makes him desert his wife for adventure, and introduces that forlorn female with a grown-up son, as the victims of buccaneers, who bring them to Robinson’s island, where it has been decided to leave the unfortunate pair—while those amiable cut-throats propose to go on a yachting expedition after plunder, in the vessel which they have seized from Mrs. Crusoe, and Crusoe, Jr. But this little family arrangement is thwarted by Robinson, Sr., and his man, Friday, and Friday’s father, who burst upon the pirates, and engage them in a grand broadsword combat of ten, in which Mrs. Crusoe and Crusoe, Jr., participate. It is needless to say that the buccaneers are vanquished. Vanquished, but faintly expresses [sic] their condition after the fateful conflict. Let us simply say that they are all as dead as could be expected. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson fly to each others arms. Robinson, Jr., takes Friday by the hand, and Friday’s father and a faithful ship’s steward, who has cut many comic mugs through the earlier scenes, miscegenate to the extent of an embrace—and upon this picture of domestic felicity, which is a pledge od future happiness for all parties concerned, descends a curtain (the greatest curiosity Barnum has got!) which is covered with inscriptions calculated to blast all the hopes excited by the tableaux it hides from view. These in[s]criptions direct the attention of those who may have become interested in the romance just acted, to every malady of the human frame, with many unclean suggestions for their cure. The audiences which have just applauded the reconciliation of husband and wife are told where to get trusses for rupture, and those who may have envied Robinson his easy rough-skin boots are informed where they may have corns and bunions cured. These are respectable, beside some of the advertisements which are thrust into the face of the public from this offensive drapery, and which force the unpleasant confession from us, that although the Museum may be the most moral institution in the city, this curtain is not, and the sooner Mr. Barnum gets rid of it, the better.”