A curious Empire reputation, this of
Mr. Williams!
Yesterday, for instance, a nigger troupe visited the hospital. To be
exact, they were the Metropolitan Police Minstrels ("By Permission of
Sir E.R. Henry, G.C.V.O., K.C.B., C.S.I., Commissioner"); but no member
of the audience, I imagine, could picture those jocose blackamoors, with
their tambourines and bones, as really being anything so serious as
traffic-controlling constables. That their comic songs were accompanied
by a faultless orchestra was understandable enough. One can believe in a
police band. One is not surprised that the police band is a good band.
To believe that the ebony-visaged person with the huge red
indiarubber-flexible mouth who sings "Under the archway, Archibald," and
follows this amorous ditty with a clog dance is--in his washed
moments--the terror of burglars, requires unthinkable flights of
imagination. As I gazed at this singular resurrection of Moore and
Burgess and breathless childhood's afternoons at the St. James's
Hall--the half circle of inanely alert faces the colour of fresh
polished boots--the preposterous uniforms and expansive
shirt-fronts--the "nigger" dialect which this strange convention demands
but which cannot be said to resemble the speech of any African tribe yet
discovered--I found that by no effort of faith or credulity could I
pierce the disguise and perceive policemen.
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