Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1888-11-01
Helena Montana. Thursday, November 1888.
DECLINE OF MlNSTRELSY.
The Negro of Ante-Bellum Days Co
from the Amusement Stage.

The Negro of Ante-Bellum Days Gone
from the Amusement Stage.
How many readers remember the old
Christie minstrels, which created such 9
furore during the year succeeding the
war? If there are many, and of course
there is no doubt that there are, they will
remember the old plantation scenes, the
| genuine negro of the south, wise in q
| crude way, full of humor and mirth, and
| the quintessence of unalloyed happiness
in spite of his rags and plain food. They
gave US the dialect of the southern plan
tation, with all the local coloring and GUS
toms. They sang us the negro songs,
which linger in the brain as a delightful
reminiscence of true melody. 1t is pity
that they are no more.
The negro of the south in the ante-war
days has disappeared from the amuse-
ment stage. We have now in negro min
strelsy an entirely different kind of burnt
cork artist. He is dressed up in garb so
fantastic as to put to shame the tailor's
flights of Imagination, if he ever has any.
He talks a jargon which is no more the
language of the cotton picking slave than
it is of Greece. He acts boisterously and
his fun is of the noisy kind; the moro
noise he can create the better it seems to
be. We have our minstrels dressed like
courtiers in the time when court CO.'S
tune was carried to the extreme. We
have them dressed in apparel that seems
to be cross between today and yester-
day, the present and the past. Some.
times the cork is unceremoniously left off
and we have our negro minstrels in
whitel
There is hardly trace in the present
minstrelsy of the good, old fashioned
negro minstrel of twenty years ago. BY
process of evolution he has come out a
being which Christie and Backus and the
rest of the pioneers on the minstrel stage
would never recognize. He is lusus ma
ture of minstrelsy. Negro minstrels in
those days was a study, The negro Of
the south during the time preceding the
war was peculiar institution. He was
indigenous to the soil He was study
and there was some delight in studying
him. The present relic Of the minstrel is
purely modern invention, brought into
being to satisfy the everlasting desire on
the part of the public for change and
novelty. We do not criticise the man
ayers of the minstrelsy of today for this
radical innovation. They want to make
money and they cater to the prevailing
taste to get it.
Another regret that one feels who looks
back upon the minstrelsy of the days of
Christie is caused by the music. The
present minstrel is ballad singer. So
was the minstrel of the past. But now
he sings ballads of a lot of mushroom
composers who exist solely for the pur-
pose of writing ballads to be sung by the
minstrel performers. There is no indi-
viduality about the music. 1t is senti-
mental, sometimes sickly sentimental,
and no more. An infinite variety of ten
der subjects is covered and drawn upon
If America ever had a class of music
which can be strictly called American, it
is the music that Stephen G. Foster COM
posed. He was the author of my Old
Kentucky Home, ""Ellen Bayne," "Way
Down Upon the Suwanee River" willie,
We Have Missed You," Hard Times"
"Oh, Susanna" Nancy Till" and hosts
of others. Fosters melodies were an il
lustration of slave life. They were not
only cast in the best mold of pure melody,
but they were, with their words, full of
pathos and the healthiest kind of senti-
ment. Fosters music ought to be pre-
served because it is so distinctly Ameri-
can music. The tunes covered a variety
OF styles. Some were rollicking in their
rhythmic effects. Some were perfect
ldyls. Some were love songs which never
have and never can be excelled The
charm of simplicity and innocence hung
over them all. 1t is pity that we have
lost this music as a feature of our min
strelsy of today.-Detroit Free Press.