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Music Trade Review.
The Only Music Trade Paper in America, and the Organ of the Music Trade of this Country.
Founded
VOL. IX. No. 15.
PUBLISHED * TWICE * EACH * MONTH.
CHARLES AVERY WELLES
AND
JEFF. DAVIS BILL,
EDITOBS AND PBOPRIETOBS.
22 EAST 17th STREET, NEW YORK.
SUBSCBIPTION (including postage) United States and Canada,
$3.00 per year, in advance; Foreign Countries, $4.00.
ADVBRTIKKMENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per insertion;
unless inserted upon rates made by special contract.
Entered at the New Fork Post Office as Second Class Matter.
WHEELER VS. INGERSOLL.
UR old friend, our earliest journalistic acquain-
tance, and one of the first to direct our un-
fledged efforts in newspaper writing, Mr. A. C-
Wheeler (Nyn Crinkle), of the New York World, has
entered the lecturer's field, and, with his duties as a
critic, mingles the congenial work of demolishing the
arguments of Mr. Bob Ingersoll, the talented clown
of the lyceum platform. Every man is entitled to
his own religious belief, and the man who has no
religious belief whatever has as much right to his
opinions as the greatest fanatic, and is entitled to
respect so long as he expresses his views with a due
regard for other people's feelings and beliefs, or
modestly keeps them entirely to himself. Mr. Inger-
soll is a blatant mountebank, who, for the sake of the
almighty dollar (the only almighty power he admits)
as is his flippant flings at all that other people hold
most sacred. He would undermine a mountain with
a sneer and demolish a cathedral with a puck of fire-
crackers.
Mr. Wheeler has a large acquaintance in the music
trade, and according to the New York World, made
his first appearance as a lecturer on the evening of
Saturday, Feb. 27. The World says :
Mr. A. C. Wheeler, of New York, appeared to-night
on the lecture platform, under the management of J.
M. Hill, and made a strong and telling reply to the
methods of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll in his tirade on
Christianity.
Mr. Wheeler disavowed any evangelical champion-
ship. He declared himself to bo a man of the world,
with a secular training, but wiili a profound belief in
the divine origin, the benignity and the perpetuity of
Christianity, and he came into this field with the
conviction that statistics were better weapons than
casuistry, and so indeed they proved in his hands.
He punctured Mr. Ingersoll s errors of statement
mercilessly, burlesqued his rhetoric, paraphrased his
rhapsodies, and, to quote his own words, showed that
all his lies were postulates. This man, he said, puts
up a proposition in the air and thinks he has pre-
empted a claim ; all the skylarks of sentimentalism
and the turkey buzzards of despair come together to
roost on it. You knock out thepropand down comes
the whole roost, flock and all. The following pas-
sages, reported verbatim, will give a fair idea of Mr.
Wheeler's style and treatment of his subject. ' 'These
fellows want things fixed so that everything will be
comfortable and jolly and nice, and pink and warm,
don't you know. You tell them that they've got to
deny themselves and suffer in this world, and they'll
tell you we don't want to—it hurts. Now, religion
of any honest brand makes that kind of a man wince.
They probably got too much of it when they were
little. Their mothers made them sit in a cold pew
and read the catechism and the whole duty of man.
Why, I never hear a lecture on the cruelty of
Christianity but I detect the echo of a robust Calvin-
istic spuk running all through it. But it will not do
to pout ull your life at the moral law, because your
mother trounced you when you were young and
pagan. A modern infidel is great on prehistoric
times. A modern little Christian, like myself, is
content to go by the little record, but the moment
O
1879.
NEW YORK, MARCH 5 TO 20, 1886.
$3.00 PER YEAR.
SINGLE COPIES, 16 CENTS.
the crank the paper is unrolled over a set of reeds
through which a current of air passes. When the
air rushes through a hole, a note is produced."
"How far away do you sond these things?" asked a
reporter for the Mail and Express.
"Among a few of the markets ^1 might mention
Russia and Chili."
"Do the Russians and Chilians admire the same
music as Americans do?"
"To a certain extent. They go in for Gounod,
Verdi, Meyerbeer, and some more of that class.
China is a good place for orguinettes too. We send
lots of instruments to Shanghai and Hong Kong, and
they are scattered all over the Flowery Kingdom. I
hear it is no uncommon thing out there to hear a
mandarin grinding out some of the airs that are pop-
ular over here. Sometimes we sond the pigtails
some of their own tunes. Just listen and I will play
one for you."
The young man took a scroll down from a shelf.
He adjusted it on a small-sized orguinette, and turn-
NOVEL NOTIONS.
ed the crank. In a second the reporter heard the
strains of a lively march, rather monotonous and!
HE following extract from an article with the choppy, it is true, but with a thread of melody run-
ning through it.
above heading in the London Queen, is a queer
"That," said the player, "is called The Haunt of
example of the notions, not only novel, but Pleasure, and is a popular tune in China. We had a
nonsensical, which are expressed by people afflicted Chinaman in here one day and the air was played to
him. He recognized it at once and sang the first verse
with the ultra decorative mania:
for us. We cut out Hindoo airs, too, but have none
" A grand piano is rather a cumbersome article of in stock now. You would not think South Africa a
furniture, and not very ornamental as a general rule. good market for our goods, would you? Well, sir,
Still, with a little judicious management, it may be the Dutchmen at Port Elizabeth, on the southeast
made to contribute color and effect to the appearance coast of the Dark Continent, are insatiably fond of
of the room, by tastefully disposing either a rich- music. Within three months we sent them 1,000 or-
colored piece of plush, an Indian shawl, or a piece of guinettes and 200,000 feet of music.—N. Y. MaiL
embroidery as a table cover over the end, or by and Express.
having a plush cover fitted to the top, thesides being
embroidered and festooned up. Then a small screen
placed in the curved side so as to make a nook for a
low seat, with a palm towering above it, and the
THE MUSIC STOOL.
ungainly pianoforte becomes picturesque rather than
otherwise."
*
*
*
*
"Cottage pianos were doubtless originally designed A weary old man with a puzzled face
to be placed with the backs to the wall, but it is well Went wandering up the market-place,
known that the sound is much improved by reversing And he muttered, " I won't be made a fool,"
the position of the instrument, so that the back shall And tightly he grasped a music-stool.
be towards the audience, and for singing especially
this is desirable, as the musician, while singing and He entered a stately furniture-store,
playing her own accompaniment, at the same time And he set the music-stool down on the floor,
faces her audience. It is therefore becoming a gen- And he said to the clerk, "You may think you're
eral practice to place a cottage piano a TOSS the cor-
funny;
ner of a room, or in somesuch position that the back But here's this cheat, and I want my money !"
of the piano, and not of the musician, shall be to-
wards the centre of the room. Thisgives great scope "What's the matter, my friend?" asked the gra-
for taste in utilizing and turning to advantage for
cious clerk;
decoration the back of the instrument. It must not " Is anything
wrong ? Can't you make it work?"
be too thickly draped so as to muffle the sound, but Said the ancient
customer : " What did you say?
a pretty and effective way of treating it is to fix a I did not buy it to
work, but to play.
light brass rod along the top to receive a small pair
of curtains of Eastern embroidery, which, nearly " It was ticketed plain—why, any fool
meeting at the top and looped back at the centre,
disclose a handsome piece of embroidered satin or Could have read the ticket, 'A music-stool,'
rich-colored piece of stuff tastefully draped An old- And I bought it yesterday afternoon,
fashioned high-backed seat placed against this, will For we're all of us fond of a right good tune.
not only relieve the flatness and break the straight
lines, but will also add to the com'ortable furnished " I took it home careful, as you may see,
appearance of the room. Instead of a seat, this will And they all were pleased as they could be,
form a convenient position for the back of a small And I thought there was nothing at all to learn,
writing table, and instead of a piece of embroidery, So I set it up and gave it a turn.
an ornamental date calendar, miniatures, photo-
graphs, &c, may be displayed between the curtains, " And I tell you, sir, that, upon my word,
and some of the hundred and one things one loves to A squeak like a mouse's was all we heard !
The missus, she looked a little vexed,
have at hand may be put here.
But she says, quite pleasant, ' Let me try next.'
you hold up that record your infidel bounces into the
unknown darkness of Egypt, or the unmemorial
glooms of India, or the unrecorded back-ground of
China. Shake a well-attested fact at him, and he
begins to burrow under the groves of Central America
or dive into the idolatrous crypts of Asia. The par-
ticularly agile and prehistoric gentleman that we are
considering says the myth of the Garden of Eden was
universal. Thousands of years before Noah was
born this legend of the Garden of Eden was current
among men. Here we throw up our hands at once,
for our friend is the only contemporaneous man who
knows what was current among men thousands of
years before Noah was born. There is always this
advantage in getting beyond the reach of human ex-
perience—that you needn't be afraid of human experi-
ence getting after you. A capital way to defeat
argument is to tire it out with your own agility and
effrontery at the start.
T
YANKEE GENIUS ON TOP.
A NOVETi MUSIC BOX WHICH FINDS A READY SALE
ALL OVER THE GLOBE.
*ES, sir, our instruments go everywhere. You
see, any one can play them, and we sell
music by the yard."
The speaker was a young man, and he was
-arrangingT>rgTrtllettee of various shapes and sizes in
an uptown store.
"They are a great success," he added, as he turned
the crank of one of the instruments. "You see, they
have many advantages over a common hand-organ.
In these the player can change the tune as often as
he wishes by simply taking out one roll of heavy
paper and inserting another. The paper is punched
in holes of different lengths. As the player turns
" Well, to cut it short, we all of us tried—
There's six of the children—and some of 'em cried ;
We worked all the rest of the afternoon,
But I'm blest if it gave us the ghost of a tune !
" And I tell you, it's no more a music-stool
Than the old woman's wash-bench. I'm perfectly
cool,
But you needn't talk none of your butter and honey;
Here it is, I say, and I want my money !"
Said the clerk with much gravity, " Let me explain,"
" No, sir! you'll please give me my money again !
I haven't a doubt you can talk like a book,
But I am not so verdant, my friend, as I look !"
MARGARET VANDEGBIFT,
In the Century for March.