They made a written agreement with the Jerome Manufacturing Company, to this effect;--that our Company should assume the liabilities of their old Company, which were stated at twenty thousand dollars, and Barnum was to endorse to any extent for the Jerome Company.

It afterwards proved that the entire debts of Terry & Barnum amounted to about seventy-two thousand dollars, which the Jerome Company were obliged to assume.

The great difference in the real and supposed amount of their indebtedness and the unsaleable property turned in as stock were enough to ruin any company.

It is a positive fact that the stock of the Jerome Company was not worth half as much, three months after Barnum came into the concern as it was before that time.

Some of the stock-holders did not like to have Terry own stock, and Barnum to satisfy them, bought him out, paying him twelve thousand dollars in cash--he in the end, making a grand thing out his Ansonia remains.