Morning journal and courier., 1884-09-18
MUSIC AS A NERVINE.
Effect of a Wrong Tune and Bad
 Brandy.

EHeCI OH a '" FOh% anu DAW
 Brandy
 From the St. Louis Republican,
 'tNow, I'll tell you," said the circus man, 'swhen music is 8 nerve tonic and a necessi- ty, that is to the rope and wire men who learn the business by music beats, One, two, three: tum, tum, ii tiddle, and you drop, seeI
 'FCircus people wouldn't think of going into the ring without fddles and trombones. Why, just think of doing all that climbing and swinging in mid-air to dead silence It ain't natural, it ain't. The funniest part of it is that we have to have the same music year in and year out. Folks say, Lord, why don't they get new tunes? I'm dead tired of that old trapeze waltz. But if they knew the reason they wouldn't. Nothing breaks a man all up like new music. It's worse than getting a strange partner on the bar. I've had enough of it anyway. Feel this lump under my shirt. Well, that's broken collar bone aleng O not having my regular show tune shant forget it in a hurry. It laid me up in Albuquerque, N M., better'n two months last year, and cost me all the rocks 1 had put by for rainy weather. A chap as did the brother act with me through Texas once mighty nigh got away with me, out of spite, and that settled it so far as the broth CT act and me was concerned. But last year the manager got it into his head that I ought to have a woman on the sofa with me, it would draw better and all that I reared about it a while and gave in, when he fetched in 8 pale knock-kneed little woman with one glass eye. She was pretty piece of wo- mankind in figure as you ever saw, but ugly as homemade sin. A cowboy had murdered her husband in Denver, and her name was Roxana Coleman, but she was billed as Mile. Camargo, the Queen of the Air
 "Queen of nothing! She was the clum- siest mortal ever struck but I worked with her like horse, getting her in harness. E'She shaky at the last rehearsal as cat with St. Vitus' dance That settled me and I began to pass in brandy. The worst you ever tackled More brandy is generally my rule when set in, and the took me to one side about Coleman's little one-eyed widow. But I just had to have more-that was all there was to it. Here is where the music comes in lively. A fellow goes by the tune, and knows at a certain note how to change hands, go backward, 6c When the cynbals clash you drop head down and scare all the women plumb into connip- tion fits He's all O. K. with the old tune, you see, but new ones make him wild and panicky. I'd have been all right myself reckon, but had to watch Roxaan, and she was as crazy as bedbug at the sight of that COWOOJoJ dlu SISdo- CTS yelling like devils. As for me, the lights all fared together, there was birthstone over the whole show, Reddys voice sounded like fog horn. I went up the rope to the bar like greased lightning, kicking off my saw dust moccasins as Roxie came up hand over fist.
 'EThat internal band began to play the mu- sic for Mime. Dalton's menage act with four white horses. It knocked me off my box en- tirely. Roxana how I fumbled at and missed every trick, and she screamed in my ear: Look out, Jim! don't drop me, for the Lords sake! You'll murder me right here if you do'
 'rI came tarnal nigh not catching her feet as she dropped between mine. The music whanged away, and I could see the four white horses with pink eyes and wavy tails cavorting round the ring. Roxana seemed stuffed doll in red trunks and spangled fringe. quit counting and listened to the horse tune, grabbing the Widow Coleman anywhere that came handy. I fancied peo- pie were shouting to from below and Bill stood aghast. Roxana's heart beat time with the drum. could hear it all at once and that tickled me. I knew she was praying when she slid down my body and fell, lock ing her feet in mine, the old flash trick. There's place, you know, where in this double act both performers let go from oppo- site sides of the bar, when the cymbals clash and catch in the knee-socket on The bar. I was as happy as a negro in feather bed. I forgot to lock my knees over, and down went the Queen of the Air with loud shriek, and me after her. Well, sir, it's funny how fast a man can think when he's falling. I remem- Der that I smiled as I thought of how the widows glass eye would be stove up; then I quit thinking at all, for about six sweeks, it seemed to me. You see, to get even with me, the first violoncello got on spree and ran away with my trapeze music. I mauled him for it in Frisco this summer
 ''But the Queen of the Air, what became of herr" asked the reporter breathlessly.
 ''Who2 Roxana? An, you can't kill half breed Mexican woman. She got anoth- CT eye and had her ankles both tinkered up. She gave up the business, though. Lost con- fdence in it somehow. The last time heard of Roxana she was doing the Hindoo prin- cess, feeding snakes and juggling with boas in dime museum. She's dead gone on the show business, but not the trapeze. carry my little old tune in my grpsack now, you can bet; don't do any more funny busi- ness on the trapeze to horse music, not for Jim. haven't got more'n half my share of collar bones leftn