The times., 1898-09-28

into deep. though not at all bIissfuI
slumber
Yesterday morning. Samuel. after a hos
pitaI experience, had recovered sufficient
iy 10 De arraigned In the police court on
TWO charges. one Of disorderIy conduct
and one of assaultlng an officer. Judge
Scott assessed fine of s. for the dis
orderly conduct and dismissed the assault
case. The fine was paid by William
Dietz, one of the witnesses of the affair
and then an ambulance was called and
Samuel Alexander, convicted criminal be-
cause he had laughed at a special officer,
was sent home. Clifford Grant, special Of
ficer with a sensitive soul, returned 10
his beat.
1t is not very long ago since It was be-
lieved that the crepuscular period in the
existence OF the cake walk had arrived
but recent events indicate that the Afro
American pastime is in reviving state
and is about to come into more wide
spread favor than ever. Like the peculiar
melodies and the voOdoo superstitions OF
the blacks, the cake walks are something
similar to it,prObably having an origin in
the remote past of the Ethiopian race, bur
II is certainly only in very modern times
that IL has come TO the notice of the
public in the North and East as a form
of entertainment Col VIII Hull who is
in Washington in advance of Smyth x
Rice's Misfit Marriage Company. which
has its production in this city next week.
in speaking to a Times reporter yesterday
! said: THE institution was first utilized
as a theatrical exhibition in Louisville.
Ky, about ten years ago Col John
Whallen, variety manager of that town,
had long possessed a rough draft OF the
vaudeville sketch called Down on the
Plantation. An old negro delineator
named Charlie Howard, now dead, sug-
gested TO Cal. Whallen that the piece
might be elaborated and with the assis-
tance of two or three white artists and
company composed of negroes, a per-
formance given which would suit the
patrons of the Buckingham Theater. The
manager and the actor Immediately went
to work on il, and the result was a crude
but rather ingenious and not uninterest-
ing three-act play which they named
The South Before the War There was
not much continuity and certainly little
elegance to the drama. 1t was rather a
series of roughly hewn tabIeaus purpOrt-
ing to picture life as II existed among the
negroes in the days of slavery. The last
act was devoted to a cake walk a
phrase which at that time had not found
it's way into three newspapers in the
United States. a company of negroes was
organized right in Louisville. recruited
mostly from the famous Green Street,
/ and the piece was put on. IL met with
| great favor, and those of the audience
/ who were able to endure the potent frag-
/ rance which stOrmed the front Of the
/ house until the cake walk feature came
J on were rewarded by Witnessing new
/ diversion. The calk walk spread from the
J dingy stage of the buckingham Variety
/ Theater to nearly all parts Of the country
/ and had for three or four years quite a
vogue. The craze then subsided. and for
/ some years the promoters Of this species
( of amusement lost money and finally il
/ seemed as If IL had been abandoned The
: two best cake walkers in America Frog
/ Eye and King Richard, who had de-
/ velOped in Louisville and gone over the
/ country with great eclat returned TO that
/ town discOnsOlate and are there today.
But there is hope for them in the horizon.
, Col. Whallen afterwards elaborated his
! South Before the War and took il over
I the country with great profit Beyond
/ any question il is to him that the cake
walk. pickanniny band, buck and wing
I dancing, and other forms of negro sport
/ which have found their way into first
/ class theaters, owe their imeptus''