Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-12-14

TIVE Tenderoin-New Yorl1's vicious unrestrained
Tenderloin of thirty-five years ago-was waking
to its nightly revel. Lights flashed here and
there from windows where throughout the day shades
were tightly drawn Ribald shouts, laughter the dis
cordant medley of saloon pianos, mingled with the
drumming Of banjo and guitar, hoated out into the
dinly lighted streets. The night life of New York was
sounding its call
Through the heart of the district walked negro
a guitar under his Suddenly he paused, to
raise his head and listen. From behind the closed
doors of little secondhand furniture store the
pure clear notes of violin. For time the lis
tened to the musician, then went on his way
Negro ex-slave though he was, John Douglas talent
fell little short of genius and his trained ear had caught
that in the voice of the hidden violin which cannot be
bought or sold the spirit of music.
Within the closed shop obvious to all but the melody
his untutored bow drew from his beloved violn sat
small pain-racked boy, the ache in the sickly slender
body forgotten under the spell his music wrought
pathcacaly cheap, inadequate pine fiddle it was; but
no Stradvarius gave its greater happiness
From babyhood David Names had craved the JOY of
drawing bow the vibrant, singing strings of
VIOLIN and had made his first futile attempt fash
toned from old cigar box, with bow of hair surrep
ttiousy pucked from the tails of horses standing the
street. but the virtue of roSn unknown to the five
year-old lad and his childish efforts unrewarded
Then, when he eight years old, the hand of Fate
fell heavily the boy Playing with younger brother
he slipped to toppe backward into cadron of boiling
water in which clothes being scaded When he
rescued the flesh had been literally boiled from his back
and years aterward the from the unheaed
wounds ceaselesS.
Unable to attend school, David sat apathetic with
pain and misery until the day his father realizing at
last how great the need of his injured boy placed
the slender trembling hands the long craved violin
There were no music settlements in those days.
An instructor for David almost beyond the family
purse. There few lessons from an uninterested
musician: afterward the boy left to his own de-
vices But the simpler mysteries of the instrument
had now been solved and by day and night David
and his violin talked together, the eventful night
when John Douglas CHANGED to pass.
A FEW days later Mrs. Names answered. a ring at
her bell, to look with alarm into the face of
negro she had twice noticed following her home from
marketing. The sound of violin with her the
opened door, and Douglas in excellent German, asked
who playing. little treasured by the of her
mother tongue, Mrs. Names replied that it her
son. and at Douglas earnest request led him to the
room where David was playing on his fiddle.
That morning marked the beginning of strange,
sweet comradeship between the whose alone
debarred him from becoming world famous volinist,
and the poor, suffering boy Astudent of Rapodi, him
self master OF violin, harmony and technic Douglas
had returned to America after of study abroad
find musical ostracism awaiting him among the
with whom he should have ranked. Driven by poverty
he had laid aside the rejected VIOLIN the pub
lie with the accepted instruments of his race the banjo
and guitar With fine irony the negro transposed for his
many of the most difficult of musical classics and
smiled grimly as he thrummed out the works Of the
great masters in the reekng dives where he forced
to earn his bread