The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-07-06
BILLY EMERSON SICK.
Famous Minstrel Man Laid Up in a
Chicago Hotel.


CHICAGO, July 5.-Sick and alone in a
little stuffy room in third-class Clark
street hotel, Billy Emerson is still "as
happy as a big SunfioWer." He is not
looking for sympathy, and as for money,
he says there is quarter of million
awaiting him in San Francisco any time
he wants it, and all he would have to do
in the words of the song would be to
telegraph his baby If he needed funds
Emerson is suffering from a fever and
has been compelled to cancel all his sum-
mer dates. While not exactly stranded
he is not surrounded by the luxury in
which he rolled for years, and the trunks
full of swell and dapper suits that used
to delight the hearts of his female ad-
rnirers are not in evidence. Three months
ago in Evansville, Ind, while with w. g.
CleVeland's minStrels, he sprained his
ankle and had just recovered from it
When his present sickness came upon
him. People who recall the time when
Billy Emerson sent all Chicago, and the
country for that matter, crazy with his
songs and dances, and who know of the
hundred of thousands of dollars that
poured into his pockets, shook their heads
and looked sad yesterday when they saw
the untldy room where the comedian Is
confined, and told of the days when he
bet his money upon a horse race like a
prince
Billy Emerson has undoubtedly made
more money than any comedian in his
line, and yet he has not a dollar of his
own today Married to very rich Wom-
an OF San Francisco, he prefers travelling
about the country and appearing on the
vaudeville stage to living at home in ease
and luxury. Such men as Tom Foley,
Harry Powers and Jay Rial tell of his
haIcyon days and declare that he was the
king of them all in the song and dance
line, and that he has made in his time
several million dollars. Only the old-tim-
ers remember Billy Emerson in the davs
before the great fire, when he was in
partnership with Billy Manning in the
Dearborn theater on Dearborn street. be-
tween Madison and Washington streets.
Summer and winter he and Manning
whose reputation was second to none. ran
minstrel show, and Tom Foley saws
there was not night when the standing
room sign was not hung out at the little
playhouse. This continued until the fire
swept the building away and left Billy as
poor as he was before the box office re-
Ceipts began pouring into the treasury
IL was Billy Emerson who originated ar
t1stlc dancing in connection with singing
ana ms every move upon the stage was
full of the poetry of motion. His stage
career began when he was almost TOO
young to remember. In Baltimore in 1852
under the management of John Rial. he
was singing Willie, We Have Missed
You" Soon after he took up minstrel
work he came to Chicago and with the
late R. M. Hooley organized the Megi-
tharian mfnstrels, which toured the coun-
try in opposition to Rice's Mastodons
emerson was end man and got $500 q
week and a generous percentage of the
receipts.
Emerson considers his greatest success
the song, II Am as Happy as a Big Sun
flower, for the public kept him singing
1t for over ten years. Even now it is fire.
quently called for, and 'Moriarity." >"
Mary Kelly's Beau" and Love Among
the Roses have neraly as great a charm
as ever.