The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-02
Songs Of Other Days Their Author, Arthur Wells French, is Now the Bard
 of Monroe and
 Still at 1t
Erstwhile Familiar Figure of Local NewspaperdOm Whose Sweet MeIo- dies Have Been Sung In
 Many Clim es.

song writer, more or less for the past four decades, has awakened the muse again, this fall and has written by re- quest, for a New York Music Pub fishing house. a colonial type bal lade'' entitled: lyme May Steal Ye Prettie Roses
 A day there was. just before MT. French began his, twenty years as- s1gnment as a newspaper reporter in Bridgeport, he had acquired a na- tional and over seas repnta ton as writer of song verses. MT. French was interviewed about it iall, lately, when he had left his country house in Monroe center, as per usual, to come down and see how; this city was working the expansion stunt To said:
 This sketch of a song making and writing career,-mostly Made in Bridgeport by the way ought to be started off with little prologue or curtain raiser. Here it is. Back in or developed the habit of making rhyme lines. It was here sditary Or in the family, or something. My father did 1t and so did his sisters and some more. Even my maternal grandmother had the habit. There you are. I
 
 My first song to appear in sheet music form was printed in a New York paper. to which I COT ltributed. A prominent composer adapted music and published it. He bo nght more, others followed and the "t t.areer'' was initiated. Up to date, my priginations number several hundred heet music songs. As many more have, been writ ten for secular and sacred song books and otherways. I also wrote many topics, motto and kindred songs for the then so-called, stage V Rriety per. formers, including a number of the headliners of the past. Unlike nova days, these songs were seldom pub lished After being sung out they went into the discard.
 Also, I have written the book or words to several operettas and can rolien Queen and the sa cred work, Coming of the Bridegrooni'
 The speaker then paused in his re- lating dictation and showed a roll of lined foolscap paper, six inches wide and over twenty feet in length, pasted in a strip sheets. saying. There's what I call curiosity, my memory roll It llarks back some. Evefy name of my sheet music songs and the mueic com7 poser's name is here, with the excep- ton of a few thrown away As to most popular song Mir. French said that there were several which had been widely sung and sold up into the thousands of copies. Others reach- ed the fair seller class "a nd some are. selling and being sung yet. stayers, as they say.
 ."sThese are instances we'll known and SO it is needless for me to recount them. To quote the title of my song, Memory Bells are Softly Ringing, I hark back to Little Sweetheart''1 which was publicly appreciated to the extent of several hundred thousand sold copies, helped on greatly by it's being long sung by Dave Wambold, the once famous minstrel tenor singer. In fact in the olden days, my songs ran the gamut of rendition by all the minstrel, concert and variety singers, who certainly had some class to their vocalism. Briefly I recall such as Speak to Me Speak" ''Enie Dear,'' .TTake Me Back to Home and Mother {"When Will Baby Lisp Her Name" ''Ellignone,'. Faces We Never For get" "Conne Back Kathleen, '' sShylie O'More,' '' Hinder the Silvery Stars and then a few more Drops in the songs. Of the many appreciated, I re- call Little Soldiers of the Cross" Just Inside the Gates of Gold,' Home Beyond the Stars, Land of Grain.'s "Shore to Shore ~Sing the H
 Some leading composers have found my song writings fit for musical adap- tation, such as Thomas Banks, Tue ker, Root White. Winner, Gianetti, ] Campigliv, Huntley, Dana, Persley, Hayes.
 Now, while I possess a plentitude of what might be called humorous gray matter, it never went into songs to any great extent So my song muse leaned towards the 'en senti-st merftale Several infantilei ballads, I managed to adapt my own music to l
 I am pardonab1y proud when I re- call a number of my songs which had l music adapted to them by compos- | CTS over the seas and published; doing | we'll, was written Will C.. Sims, mus | ical director at Victoria theatre, Lon | don. composed the music of the very l popular our ballad, Softly Smiles | Love" Golden Summer and others, and briefly, Carl F. Hansen, ineStOck- i holm, Sweden, composed the music and published. with a large sale, he said, of Home is Home However lin the composer being Herr M Schoppe, was entitled: "Ein Blumen- uber der, zeen (One flower over the | Sea) Three or four were published in Melbourne, Australia. sent there via London, to a mail acquaintance. But I'll refer to that later on.'
 Asked if there were any incidents connected with his song writing, MT. French said: "Yes, booklet full, for that matter In the first place, the hunting, the digging and delving and what not to get a subject or a com bination of words, to make a taking title-yet that and all is easy-is the hardest proposition to meet As to in- cidents, here's some. Little Sweet heart was hurriedly made up and written, one rainy afternoon in the reading room of the old Sterling ho- tel, for William H. Brock, the compos- CT, then travelling with Bryant's min strels.
 I rent a song I had faith in with others. for inspection. to the Kearney publishing firm in San Francisco. It came back. Off it went again beg ging in all parts of the country, un- til Composer George B. Root of Chi cago made quite song of fiat least the west.
 Joe Cherrie, once noted as a writer and composer, mostly of London mus ic hall songs, picked up straylet of mine from the New York Clipper and set it to jingling it's turn in the music halls, it being called Your Pocket book is Your Best Friend"
 Charles E. Pratt once a capable composer and for whom I wrote some back in the "seventies' acted as mus ical director of the lima Di Murska Concert Company during their trip