The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-09-13
DECLINE OF MlNsTRELsY.


Tho Negro OF Ante-Belium Days Conc
from the Amusement Stage.
How many readers remember the old
Christie minstrels, which created such
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
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 delightful
"Reminiscences 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, II he ever has any.
He talks q 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
be. We have our minstrels dressed like
courtiers in the time when court cos.
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 of
and we have our negro minstrels In
whitei
There is hardly trace in the present
minstrelsy of the good. old fashioned
negro minstrel Of twenty years ago. BY
q process of evolution he has come outsA
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 nlinstrels In
the south during the time preceding the
indigenous to the soil He was study
and there was some delight in studying
him The present relic of the minstrel is
a 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
sgers 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 o.
Christie is caused by the music. TIT
present minstrel is a ballad singer. s.
was the minstrel of the past But nov
he sings ballads of lot Of mushroom
composers who exist solely for the pur
pose of writing ballads to be sung by tn,
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
II America ever had a class of must
: which can be strictly called American, !
is the music that Stephen G. Foster com
posed. He was the author of "My Oh
: Kentucky Home, ELLEN Bayne, Wa
u Down Upon the Suwanee River, /" "Willie
J We Have Missed You," lizard Times,
"Oh, Susanna" Nancy Till" and host
of Others Fosters melodies were an i
+ lustration Of slave life. They were nc
only cast in the best mold Of pure melody
but they were, with their words, full G
pathos and the healthiest kind Of sent
ment. Fosters music ought to be prt
served because it is so distinctly Amer
can music. The tunes covered q variet
of styles. Some were rollicking in the
!. rhythmic effects Some were perfet
~ idyls Some were love songs which neve
d have and never can be excelled. tt
d charm of simplicity and innocence hun
n over them all. It is pity that we ha,
= lost this music as feature Of our mil
y strelsy of today.-Detroit Free Press.