Arizona republican., 1901-05-18
DECAY OF MINsTRELsY.
old Milt" Barlow Tells of the Days
 That Are Gone By.

One of the greatest minstrels who ever blacked his face is now in Balti- more with the Uncle Toms Cabin" company at the Holiday Street theater. The old-timer is "Milt" Barlow, who plays the part of Uncle Tom in a man ner which has gained him praise wherever he has appeared. MT. Bar low is between tifty-flve and sixty years old, smooth shaven. an agreeable talker and gentleman of the old school" He was seen yesterday at the Hotel National and talked Interestingly of his experiences on the stage. He said:
 Modern blackface minstrelsy retains nothing of the old except the name. Tn my days we had some sixteen men in the company, each one of whom was a specialist whose style was familiar to the public. They were fond of their work and proud of the stuff that they originated. The result was that while there was not SO much quantity in our shows. they were all quality. A gen. tleman called upon me when I was in Baltimore some years ago and in talk ing over old times said he remembered that as soon as the posters of a we'll known minstrel company were put up the people began to smile and engaged their seats in advance. When they saw the show the wittlcisms were i'm pressed upon them and a smile would break out now and again for weeks after as the memeory of some eape- cially good thing fitted through the mind. Nowadays the minstrel posters lack the genuine comic character and are more like oil paintings. nor do the people have the same pleasant remin- scences of the visit.
 "Tle downfall of minstrelsy began when Thatcher raised the number of his company from sixteen to forty. Ar ter he get the pace the rest of us had to follow suit or fall behind. The effect of the Increase of numbers was to ob- tain quantity at the expense of qual- ity. In my day the salaries of our small shows came to a total nearly as large as that of the present large ones. and the consequence Is that you find a few artists surrounded by mediocre men whose shortcomings detract from the work of those who are better.
 You see an octet get up and instead of the splendid volume Of sound which you would expect from eight good sing CTS you find that several of them are soldering and that hardly more than half of them are really singing. Or you see sixteen buck dancers come out on the stage and in the entire collection there will not be more than two or three who can Go more than the ordi- nary steps. and the really accomplished dancers have to tone down their work to suit that of their fellows.
 Many of the present niinstrels also have no conception of the real darky, and while they blacken their faces they do nothing more to enact the character. Taken altogether the modern minstrel show is little more than a vaudeville performance and bears practically no resemblance to that which used to be seen.
 "A man who has not studied the ne- gro cannot give a truthful picture of him on the stage. Naturally the negro is the funniest man in America today. but he does not realize 1t. I do not speak of the city darkies who have learned to read and write and cipher. but of the kind that were known to southerners before the war and are now rapidly dying out.
 'The negro f.. in many respects but an ape minus the tail. and in no way does he SO resemble the ape as in his love of mimicry. If you watch darky ard he becomes aware of the fact he immediately tries to act and becomes forced, without being in the least bit funny, but observe when unrestrained and you see character worthy of the close attention of the best actors. '- Baltimore Sun.