, 1906-03-28

the "Anvil Chorusn from I'll Trova-
tore;u we had a little anvil with US and
a couple of hammers and the rendition
of the piece called forth much applause
and an encore was demanded and
given. Following this, | was to sing a
new song which had just come out and
which would have its first rendition in
Canada at that concert. 1t was called
mo Irish Need APPLY In England
someone had advertised through the
London Times for "a servant and had
put a notice at the bottom of the ad,
mo Ifish need apply;n this line had
given the song writer an opportunity
to compose the song wherein it was
shown that when England wanted a
man to conquer Napoleon or when Sir
John Franklin's body was to be found
or when any great deed was to be PER-
formed, she did not say "NoIrish need
apply but readily called upon the
Irish and the Irish were always very
willing and in every case able to do the
work. Hence the man who found Sir
John Franklin's body was not an
Englishman but an Irishman and the
nan who conquered Napoleon at
Waterloo was also a native of the
Emerald Isle. The music was catchy,
the words were witty and f~orceful and
the Ong made a great hit and was
often sung two or three years after it
came out. | stepped forward to the
front of the stage and the orchestra
behind me commenced to play the in
PRODUCTION, when all at once | was
greeted with a burst of hand clapping
and applause that tickled my vanity
beyond measure, but when it came TO
my cue to sing, | couldn't make my
self heard for the cheering and yelling
so perforce stopped, held upmy hand
and thus obtaining silence, said, that
| had no knowledge that my reputa-
ton as a singer had preceded me so far
away from London as Ingersoll, but
they couldn't tell whether | deserved
the applause they were giving me or
not unless they CAV me an opportunity
to prove it by singing No Irish Need
Apply the song assigned to me on the
propramme.o | then motioned to the
orchestra to play the introduction over
again. They started, but before it was
finished, Lewis H. Rink rau up to me
and in his impertuous and nervous
manner said, "You big fool you. Look
at your coat-tail." | looked, and was
Mortified to find that the two raw eggs
which | had been nursing carefully
since leaving London had broken in
my frock coat pocket probably from
the crush in getting to our places and
as / had walked about the stage, the
two yellow yolks and the accompany
ing mass of albumen had been trick
ling in "A steady stream in IA somewhat
wavy fashion down to the floor, and
even at that moment the stream of
yellow and white was still sinuously
my back TO the audience, they saw it
even more plainly than when | was
facing them. | need not say that
there was no singing for me that night
for upon my every appearance the
audience went off into fits of laughter
and applauded in such a vociferous
fashion that Brignoli himself, had he
been there, could not have made him
self heard. So both the pieces that /
was to have sung had to be cut out and
instrumental ones substituted in their
place.
Time rolled along and during the
Centennial year, 1876, it happened |
was in business at the corner of Tenth
and Market Streets, Philadelphia,
when a clerk came to me and said that
a party wanted to buy some goods for
shipment to Ingersoll, Canada, and
asked if he should take the order. |
saw the people, a farmer and his wife,
and explained to them that there
would be no difficulty in shipping any
goods that they might want to buy, we
would attend to them and guarantee
their safe delivery. Having settled this
matter satisfactorily, | said to the man,
"Have you lived long in Ingersoll?
He replied, 1--WE live just outside of
Ingersoll on a farm and we have lived
there all our lifetime.n 81 know a good
bit about Ingersoll; | remarked l have
been there on several occasions. The