Arizona republican., 1895-05-02
A MUSICAL MARVEL.
Blind Tom, the Pianist, and His
 Wonderful Talent.
The Discovery Of His Remarkable Gift and Its Developmsnt-Eceentr of the Sfghtless Master of
 the Piano.

The recent death Of ten. Bethune,
 the original owner of the musical negro
 slave boy known as Blind Tom" has
 aroused much public curiosity as to the
 disappearance of Tom from view The
 best information I have been able to
 obtain is that he is passing the closing
 days of his life in a lunatic asylum, his
 vagaries having taken on too dangerous
 a form to admit of his going freely
 about as heretofore
 Tom was born in Muscogee county,
 Ga., says writer in Kate Fields
 Washington. His fathers name was
 Mingo, and his mother was called by
 her owner Aunt Charity. While he
 was still a boy, and supposed to be a
 mere idiot as well as sightless, he used
 to conceal himself in his masters house,
 Ftnd after midnight creep into the par
 lors and play the same airs with
 which his young mistress had enter
 tained her guests few hours before,
 being cautious to suppress his notes by
 holding llis foot on the soft pedal. He
 NTas soon detected, however. and repri-
 manded A nilder view was taken of
 his shortcomings when his master dis
 covered that the boys gift might be
 turned to profitable account; mean
 while, the children of the household,
 delighted with his marvellous powers,
 had not hesitated to defy the discipline
 of their elders and encourage him to
 play for them on the sly.
 Besides being remarkable player of
 other peoples music, Tom was a con-
 poser himself. He was near enough to one of the battlefelds of the civil war to catch the sounds from it, and these he wove into a piece which his mana ger entitled, for popular effect: ''The Battle of Manassas" In it the piano is made to imitate the music of the flies and drums, the charges of the cavalry, the thunders of a battery, the groans of the wounded and dying, and all the incidents of a great fight so faithfully as to call up panorama of the scene before the minds eye of the listener.
 One of the feats which Tom was ac- customed to perform in public to the arnazement of his audiences was the imitation of any piece of music per formed il his hearing by stranger. Some Of these pieces made so great an impression on him that he carried them in his mind for long period and then could reproduee them at will. A story which seems somewhat apocryphal was told me by teacher of music in young ladies seminary in Maryland, representing Tom as having carried in his memory for twenty-one years, note for note, a German waltz which had been played before him by my inform ant ill order to test his ability and which, as far as known, he never attempted again during all that period. When suggested that there was possibility of Toms having heard the same piece. played by other hands in the interval and thus kept his memory refreshed the professor assured me that this could not be so, because before playing it to Tom he had rewritten the waltz. adapt ing it from it's original German form to one which contained a number of varia- tions and fancy touches of his own. Tom reproduced all these incidentals with absolute faithfulness.
 The theory that Tom must be of a gentle disposition because so given to music would be very misleading. Sound, rather than harmony, was what ap- pealed to his intellect, such as it was, and his reproductions were governed | by the rules of accuracy rather than inspired by artistic genius. It used to | be said of him that the crying of a | child afforded him keen delight, and 1 when he could not draw forth as much | sound as he wanted from his young | companions by ordinary processes, he | would bite and pinch them for the pur- pose of hearing their shrieks of pain. l As he matured he developed a power ful bone frame and great muscular strength, which he exerted to the se- rious discomiture of anybody who op- posed his wishes. If kept away from a piano when he wanted to play, he would bang his head against the wall | and throw chairs around the room Once, while staying at hotel on one of his concert tours, he insisted on playing loud piece of music in the middle of the night, regardless of the comfort of the other guests. His agent to check him, but was seized by Tom and thrown out of the room with great violence. On another occasion in Washington he was visited by man whose presence was distaste- ful to him, and he manifested his dis like by pitching the poor fellow down stairs
 Possibly Toms present seclusion has other reasons behind it besides his in creasing eccentricities The legal con- trol of his time and services has been for some years the subject or litiga- tion in the courts. Gen. Bethune