Partly Practical 89 



slowly. They have minstrel shows, vari- 

 eties, concerts and the circus, and the 

 quack medicine vender with his banjo- 

 player and Indians, and the talented 

 "family," whose head is manager and 

 tenor singer ; materfamilias, soprano and 

 accompanist ; Miss Arvaletta, cornet solo- 

 ist; Master Jacob, violinist and clog- 

 dancer ; and Master James, aged six, elocu- 

 tionist. Oh, how they suffer in the 

 provinces, if only they knew it ! They are 

 about where the towns were thirty-five 

 years ago. Does anybody remember the 

 Peak family of bell-ringers, the Hutchinson 

 family of singers, the Rev. Mr. Fletcher, 

 first of the uncounted multitude of stere- 

 opticon lecturers, "Temperance" Dodge, 

 "That Comical Brown," Philip Phillips, 

 " the singing pilgrim," and all those people 

 who had star engagements and red-lettered 

 bills in the cities ? Their counterparts are 

 struggling precariously through the back- 

 woods. One entertainer who, in his day, 

 was nearly as well known as Booth, I came 

 upon recently in a village, where, with the 

 aid of two other singers and a manager, he 



