The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-07-21
WHAT A CROWD!
City Railway Was Swamped Last
Night.
Six Thousand People Go to Vine
wood.
LARGEST OF WEEK.
All Anxious to Hear Innes Play
Ragtime.
Great Band Didn't Appear tC
Best Advantage.

The Topeka Railway company was
swamped last night. The crowds which
went out to, Vinewood park surged all
over the cars and buried them out OF
sight with their numbers. The biggest
crowd Of the week, 5000 in number went
out last night for the Innes concert.
The only other crowd which any way
resembled that of last night was the
one which went out for the opening,
Sunday; at that time the crowd was es-
timated at 5000.
The management of the street rail-
way did very well indeed with the
equipment that they had at their dis
poSal but it was entirely inadequate to
the demands. People started away
from their homes before o'clock and
s. upon arriving at the corner of Eighth
and Kansas avenues found a mob OF
people numbering upwards of 500 walt
ing and fighting to get on the outward
bound cars. The train loads of people
which were hauled away did not seem
to make any appreciable effect upon
the size of the crowd. And to those who
were standing and waiting it even look
ed as if the crowd was larger than
ever. People stood and waited and
there were any number of people who
passed an hour on the curbing and
street before they succeeded in fighting
cars loaded to the gates continued to
pour their contributions to the already
large crowd at the park until as late
as 9:45, an hour and half after the
programme had begun. On the return
conditions were even worse; those who
had a desire to get back to the city
at a seasonable hour left the park while
the band was midway in the pro-
gramme. The great mass of the people
did not get back until from 11:30 and
r,f
seats, passengers were only glad to get
standing room.
At the park itself the enclosure which
surrounds the sounding shell and
which contains the reserved seat section
for 1900 people was entirely sold out
People paid their way in who stood the
entire length of the programme. Others
who would have been only willing to pay
for the privilege of standing within the
enclosure could not get in on account
of the jam which already existed. Out
side the pleasure seekers pressed up to
the fence five deep and only after con-
tinued exertions could one wedge his
way inwards.
Rag time night of lines band week
for attendance. There are probably
some people still at the park waiting to
get away. At any rate it looked at half
after eleven o'clock last night as though
1t would take about that long to get
them home.
which rag-time night received there was
not a single piece of rag-time on the
programme played by the band. The
fact is that Mr.. Innes' musicians don't
play rag-time and the people who are
demanding it and insisting that they
ought to play>it because there is a pop
ular demand for it should bear in mind
the fact that a man can not be a good
musician, thoroughly trained and school
ed and capable of conducting an or
ganization like any of the best big
bands without being educated so far be-
yond the trash called popular that it
is as sickening to him to hear it or to
conduct it as it would be for any aver
age reader of good literature to wade
through Nick Carter or Laura Jean
Libbey novel. To one that likes rag
time and prefers it to good music is to
place ones self in a class, musically.
corresponding to that of the reader of
the cheapest yellow back school of
fiction. If Mr. Innes and his men were
not the excellent musicians that they
are, temperamentally and technically
quanhed to make I'D magnificent
band, they would probably like rag
time and other musical rot all right and
be playing it-with some low class, in
ferlor circus or minstrel band.
Because there was a demand for
IdSlILne programme during his Topeka
engagement and not being able to re-
spond to it. because his repertorv
doesn't include ragtfme, Mr.. Innes con-
scented to a compromise. He got UP
the best programme of simple popular
music that he could and played it last
night at Ninewood to an audience of
over five thousand people. But the
audience wasn't nearly so enthusiastic
nor so well pleased as it had been the
night before when a grand opera pro-
gramme including classics almost as
familiar to all the people as any
coon ditty, and more familiar to the
people who attend all the concerts at
the park and care for music and not
for the rough house attractions which
a "ragtime night seemed to promise
People who had clamored for "popu-
lar" music and who went out to the
park in droves to hear it had to con-
Tess that they weren't very well
pleased-that the programme seemed