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That "her ladyship" was an attractive feature, may be inferred from these facts and figures:

The receipts of the American Museum for the four weeks immediately preceding the exhibition of the mermaid, amounted to $1272. During the first four weeks of the mermaid's exhibition, the receipts amounted to $3341.93. (2)

In the year 1853, the receipts amounted to $136,200, being in one year, more than in the six years above quoted. It will of course be understood that the expenses of the Museum increased in a corresponding ratio.

The New-York Museum Company, having failed in selling their stock, let their establishment, known as Peale's Museum, to Yankee Hill. After a management of a few months, he failed. Mr. Henry Bennett then took charge of it, reduced the price to one "York shilling," and endeavored to thrive by burlesquing whatever I produced. Thus, when I exhibited the Fejee Mermaid, he stuck a codfish and monkey together and advertised the Fudg-ee Mermaid. When I announced a company of talented vocalists, well known as the "Orphean Family," Bennett advertised the "Orphan Family." It was an invention creditable to his genius, and created some laughter at my expense, but it also served to draw attention to my Museum.

After the novelty of Bennett's opposition died away, he did a losing business, and on the 2d of January, 1843, he closed his Museum, having lost his last dollar. The entire collection fell into the hands of the proprietor of the building, on a claim of arrearages of rent amounting to six or eight thousand dollars. I purchased it privately for $7000, cash, hired the building, and secretly engaging Bennett as my agent, we run a spirited opposition. I found profit in the arrangement by attracting public attention, and at the end of six months, the whole establishment, including the splendid Gallery of American Portraits, was transferred to my American Museum.

I do not here intend to disparage Bennett's ability nor to glorify my own. Independently of any thing personal to either of us, I had superior advantages; and if the result of the real strife between us had at any time been doubtful, my lucky stars soon put me in possession of a means of overwhelming all opposition.

Being in Albany on business in November, 1842, the Hudson River was frozen tight, and I returned to New-York by way of the Housatonic Railroad. I stopped one night in Bridgeport, Ct., my brother, Philo F., keeping the Franklin Hotel at the time.

I had heard of a remarkably small child in Bridgeport; and by my request my brother brought him to the hotel. He was the smallest child I ever saw that could walk alone. He was not two feet in height, and weighed less than sixteen pounds. He was a bright-eyed little fellow, with light hair and ruddy cheeks, was perfectly healthy, and as symmetrical as an Apollo. He was exceedingly bashful, but after some coaxing he was induced to converse with me, and informed me that his name was CHARLES S. STRATTON, son of Sherwood E. Stratton.

He was only five years old, and to exhibit a dwarf of that age might provoke the question, How do you know that he is a dwarf? Some license might indeed be taken with the facts, but even with this advantage I really felt that the adventure was nothing more than an experiment, and I engaged him for the short term of four weeks at three dollars per week -- all charges, including travelling and boarding of himself and mother, being at my expense.

They arrived in New-York on Thanksgiving Day, Dec. 8, 1842, and Mrs. Stratton was greatly astonished to find her son heralded in my Museum bills as Gen. TOM THUMB, a dwarf of eleven years of age, just arrived from England!

This announcement contained two deceptions. I shall not attempt to justify them, but may be allowed to plead the circumstances in extenuation. The boy was undoubtedly a dwarf and I had the most reliable evidence that he had grown little, if any, since he was six months old; but had I announced him as only five years of age, it would have been impossible to excite the interest or awaken the curiosity of the public. The thing I aimed at was, to assure them that he was really a dwarf -- and in this, at least, they were not deceived.

It was of no consequence, in reality, where he was born or where he came from, and if the announcement that he was a foreigner answered my purpose, the people had only themselves to blame if they did not get their money's worth when they visited the exhibition. I had observed (and sometimes, as in the case of Vivalla, had taken advantage of the American fancy for European exotics; and if the deception, practised for a season in my dwarf experiment, has done any thing towards checking our disgraceful preference for foreigners, I may readily be pardoned for the offence I here acknowledge.