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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
H
ERE is an object lesson for business
men—words spoken by a well-known
manufacturer: "Another mistake I made
was my failure to advertise.
Had I used
printers' ink I would not have had to sus-
pend."
What an eloquent tribute to the
value of printers' ink! Still there are men
to-day who decry the use of trade papers.
I notice, however, that the men who are
doing the business are the ones who carry
liberal advertisements in the trade papers.
That reminds me of a little story. Some
time ago I was in the office of a member of
the music trade. The conversation turned
to trade papers. He spoke slightingly of
them, and added as a final damnatory sen-
tence, the words: "Well, I never read them,
anyhow." A few minutes later the con-
versation turned upon different matters, in
the discussion of which he had produced
some papers from a small note book which
he carried in his upper vest pocket. I saw
some clippings—at times my eyesight is
fair—and I knew that they came from THE
MUSIC TRADE REVIEW—extracts from
the
department of "Legal Decisions," which
have run so long.
I said, referring to
our conversation of a moment ago, "Can
you tell me how you came by those clip-
pings?" He looked at me and at the clip-
pings, and saw that he was caught, but in-
stead of owning up manfully, he replied,
"Well, there was a little decision on some
mortgage laws in Min—"
"Yes, but I thought you said you did not
read the papers."
That time he dropped, and in telling him
what I thought of his statement and the
contrast with his actions, I used one or two
choicely selected adjectives.
* *
The public seems never to tire of the
great world's fairs. No sooner is one fin-
ished than another is projected on a vaster
and more magnificent scale, involving a
corresponding outlay.
The New York
papers are already talking of one, to be held
in the near future, that shall outshine the
great effort of Chicago. All seem agreed
that an exposition is a great boon—for
trade, for education, and for recreation.
Yet the preparations for the great French
Fair of 1900, which have alread) T begun,
do not, it seems, hold out a joyful prospect
to all Parisians.
In a striking article in
Le Figaro, Paris, recently, entitled "Ob-
jections of a Moralist to the Exposition of
1890," Jules Lemaitre strives to show that
manifold evil results follow these great
bazaars—that they not only are nuisances in
the cities where they are held, but morally
baneful to the country at large. After
painting in dark colors the overcrowded
condition that always results where a great
fair is in progress, with the consequent dis-
comfort to the citizens, and asserting the
debasing influence of the architecture com-
mon to most world's fairs, fitted as it is for
the most ephemeral structures, he goes on
as follows:
"At bottom, an exposition is only an
enormous kermesse. There are two styles
(of architecture)—that of the railway sta-
tion and that of the pastrycook. The deer-
ration is that of the casino, the music hall.
The architecture is of low grade and ephe-
meral—fitted for pleasures that are rapid,
brutal, and for the moment only. Lost in
this vast medley one feels one's self treed
from ordinary restrictions.
Every one
makes allowance for the traveler, who, far
from home, gives himself a free rein. An
exposition is essentially a place for foreign-
ers and provincials. In 1889, on certain
warm evenings, Paris had the appearance
of a city that was going entirely to the bad._
The same carnal fever must have possessed
the good city of Nineveh when the prophet
Jonah entered it.
"1889 has left us as a legacy all the va-
rieties of the danse du venire, which is a
direct incitement to debauch. From this
dance are derived the exhibitions that have
filled our cafes concerts. We have seen in
six years an extraordinary recrudescence of
low spectacles in music halls; exhibitions
of nude flesh, with indecent songs. Every
exposition is followed by a diminution of
public modesty.
"The crowd demands more and more
direct excitement, and becomes incapable
of any other kind of amusement. Diver-
sions that require mental effort are too
laborious for them.
Comedy already has
much trouble in holding its own; you will
see that in 1900 there will be a place in the
theatres only for acrobatic vaudevilles and
pieces where women are exhibited. Expo-
sitions are the death of dramatic art.".
*
It is customary nowadays, and wisely
so, for social gentlemen—dudes chiefly—to
put "Mr." on their cards, doubtless that
they may be readily distinguished from
women.
*
"There is no character howsoever good
and fine but it can be destroyed by ridicule,
howsoever poor and witless. Observe the
ass, for instance; his character is about
perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all
the humbler animals—yet see what ridicule
has brought him to. Instead of feeling
complimented when we are called an ass,
we are left in doubt."—Pudd'nhcad Wil-
sons Calendar.
* *
*
Why are some trade papers like earth-
quakes? Give it up? Why, it is easy. Be-
cause an earthquake is not made up of
blows at all. It is a continuous series of
intricate twistings and oscillations in all
possible directions, up and down, east and
west, north and south, of the irregularity
both in intensity and direction. Frequent-
ly it is quite impossible to find among these
any single impulse at all adequate to do
the damage which is actually observed.
This damage is "not done by a blow. It is
done by the combination of many small
motions and twistings taking place in
many directions.
The resemblance is really striking, don't
you think so?
* *
I concluded, when I examined the Singer
piano, that it was destined to achieve
success;—it is marching right toward it
with a big S; going by leaps and bounds,
too.
Well, it is an instrument worthy of suc-
cess. By the way, note the alliteration—
Steger, Singer, Success.
* *
*
It is not generally known, perhaps, that
there is an historic connection between
music and strikes. It is recorded that the
first stiike among what are called wage-
earners took place in 309 B. C , when the
defection of the Roman flute players took
place. At that the musicians of Rome
were formed into colleges and flute players,
trumpeters, singers, etc.
Each of these
colleges had a common chest and certain
privileges as a co-operate body. A burial
ground dating from 30 B. C , of the col-
leges of the singers who performed in the
public games, is still in existence near the
Latin Gate in Rome. Under the Empire,
Greek musicians were imported to Rome
as slaves, to minister to the pleasures of the
Roman populace. Music in the "Eternal
City" at that time was regarded with no
slight degree of indifference, and even con-
tempt, as being an effeminate occupation,
unfit for a nation whose crowning glory
was military skill and supremacy. But
when the goddess of fashion set her appro-
bative seal upon it, all classes became in-
terested in the "sweet" concord of sounds,
and even Emperors manifested a love for
it, real or feigned. Indeed, to such an ex-
tent did the musical "fad" of that da)^ find
favor with the nobility, that famous mon-
archs, including Nero the terrible, culti-
vated music as an art or accomplishment,
and even appeared in the theatres and other
places of public amusement as singers and
instrumentalists, and even dancers. While
music as a fine art has become a vastly
different thing to what it was in the days
of the Roman Empire, the "strike" of to-
day is probably inspired in very much the
same spirit as that which prevailed among
the flute-players of Rome, with the excep-
tion, perhaps, that it is not confined en-
tirely to the disaffected class who make a
specialty of the above instrument.
*
The glorious spring time and the ubi [ui-
tous piano-organ men are in our midst.
The young men's thoughts of love, as the
poets have it, or perhaps more practical
matters, are rudely interrupted by the
agonizing creations of the popular song
writer which fall upon the ear. The piano-