The islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1891-1899, 1894-08-30
STREET MINISTRIES.
Ill ENGLAND THE WANDERING sINo-
ER3 MAKE GOOD WAGES.

Ten or Fifteen Dollars u Week Ia No. =.
Unusual Amount for O Good weel,.
Vork-An Interesting Interview with thu
Leader of a Travelling Band.
1t was In little court off the Strand
where caught "Brudder Johnsingn with
his three minstrel friends. They were inst
moving off from that particular pitch, to
another, where the police were not so any.
ious that they should move on"
That's the worst of our perfession ere -
began Mr.. Johnsing, as the end men call
him. mo sooner are you well fixed on q
good pitch. than the bobby comes and moves
yer on. OF course If we can make our col.
lection before he comes it doesn't much
matter" And here he chuckled.
"Then where can you make most money!"
"Oh, at the seaside; but that is only dur
ing the summer In the late autumn and
winter we make for London. There we find
quiet street off one of the big thorough
fares, or a square in Bloomsbury, or far
ther away in the suburbs pays us best.
Our day is long one, and ! don't know
how many times we repeat our songs and
jokes. The money we collect on pitch
varies greatly. Sometimes we make IA
much as five shillings or six shillings.
which is not bad business for half an hours
work. But then we may go from pitch to
pitch for a whole afternoon or night with
out getting more than few coppers from
each"
But at what do you average your week
ly takings?"
We'll, that depends. A bad, wet season
keeps the average low. But, after all. -
first rate company like ours we generally
manage to make at least two or three pounds
a week. That means working many hours
a day without rest When we are at the
seaside we may even beat these earnings,
but if we do it's good business. Wealways
do well in Bloomsbury. You see, there are
lot of foreigners who lodge there, and they
are always coming and going. Our pro
gramme there of course never falls fiat"
What caused you to turn to this bust
ness?"
why, because I had failed at everything
else But | had a little talent as a singer
of comic songs and played on the banjo,
and one day | became so desperate at my
i'll luck that it occurred to me to go into
the streets with blackened face and try
my hand at negro minstrelsy. Well, the
first days earnings produced Is. 311sd. You
laugh, but it was godsend to me. The
next day did even better, and my earnings
for the first week came to twenty-fOur
shillings.
1.-THE next week l bought an old fancy
negro minstrel costume from secondhand
dealer, and as a result did better and bet
ter In a month had got together one or
two pals, and we then determined to storm
Brighton. We did so and made lot of
money. Each of us was twenty pounds in
pocket at the end of the season. We had
bought concertina, tambourine and bones
for the fray, and these, with my banjo,
painted the town red
Here's something which you may or
may not like to put down. Not long ago
we always made pitch opposite house
In Bayswater and performed our full pro
gramme for the benefit of little consump-
tive boy, whose mother wanted to please
him. We went there every day for month
every time doing something new. The
day after the end of the month we again
went to the house, but the blinds were
down. A servant came out and told us that
the mother had left us ten pound note.
She had taken her little boy to Torquay,
where he was expected to die. | shall never
forget the merry way in which the young
ster laughed at our jokes" And '%Brudder
j ohnsing" looked as sad as he could with
coal black face.
How long are you going to keep up your
street work."
''Oh, us long rs it pays. We have to con-
tinually find something fresh to sing, and
if you've joke or two about you we should
be glad to use them Sometimes we gag as
much rs Arthur Roberts, and other of our
jokes we discover in the comic papers
Talking of Arthur Roberts reminds me
that many street MINISTRIES have gone onto
the music hall stage. One man | know
makes quite ten pounds a week in winter
in taking turns at the halls spending the
summer time at the seaside. where he earns
quite as much. Some day hope to try his
kind of business.
What kind of songs do we sing? Oh.
any that are popular. You see, we may
sing as many as we care, whether they are
or not and | know man in the
same line as myself who can always get q
crowd around him by singing some of Gil
bert and Sullivan's songs from the Savoy
operas But some of Chevalier's songs go
down quite as well. No, there are not
many troops of minstrels who perform in
the streets, although there are number Of
single performers on the banjo who go
around the 'publics' and take their luck in
earning copper"
By this time the troop had reached an
other pitch, where / left 'Brudder John
sing" who was at that moment endeavor-
ing to explain to the obtuse 'Brudder
Bones" an easy conundrum of which ev-
erybody else at once saw the solution
London Million.