Identifier: theatricalcircus00je (find matches)
Title: Theatrical and circus life;
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Jennings, John Joseph, 1853-1909. (from old catalog)
Subjects: Theater Circus
Publisher: Chicago, Laird & Lee
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Text Appearing Before Image:
everywhere, and so great was the rage for ministrelsy
that the troupes were obliged to give morning concerts.
The entertainment has been one of our public amuse-
ments ever since, and a good company of burnt cork
artists can command a good house anywhere. Follow-
ing the spirit of enterprise of the age and the tendency
to gigantic proportions in everything, minstrelsy has
developed into Mastodon Megatherion and other
mammoth organizations. End men by the dozens, song
and dance men by the scores and no less than forty
(" count "em") artists now amuse the public that was
satisfied with four in '41. By the way it was in this
year on July 4th, that bones were first played before an
audience, the player being Frank Brower of the Vir-
ginia Serenaders.
George Christy, who was the most celebrated Ethio-

370 THE MINSTREL BOYS.

pian performer the world knew in those days was
born in Palmyra, State of New York, November 3,
1827. He was sent to school at an early age, and
although he excelled in all the branches of education
Text Appearing After Image:
GEORGE CHRISTY.

peculiar to boys of his age, after school hours the
master often found him at the head of a party of boys
whom he had assembled together for the purpose of
giving theatrical entertainments, or, as they called it,

THE MINSTREL BOYS. 371

a show. George was, as he ever has been, the very
head and front of this species of amusement; and
subsequently, under the auspices of E. P. Christy,
made his debut as Julius, the bone-player, in the
spring of 1839, and afterwards attained to the very
first rank in his profession. He survived his name-
sake many years.
The only fault to be found with the minstrelsy of the
present day is the coarseness that pervades many of the
sketches and crops out in the songs and funny sayings.
The old-time negro character has been sunk out of
sight and the vulgarity of the gamin has taken the
place of the innocent comicalities that were in vogue
forty years ago. It is true that the negro character
has undergone a change and that the black man now
vies with his white

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