Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1894 — Chinese Minstrelsy. [ARTICLE]

Chinese Minstrelsy.

When I had finished eating my evening meal, the beggar’s son told me that his father was a noted minstrel, and wished to regale me with one of his songs. Having received leave, he tuned a dilapidated banjo, and broke out in a wild screech, accompanied by many grunts, much sniffling, and the most horrible grimaces, rolling his sightless eyes about. In a nearly unintelligible jargon he told of the life and exploits of a great, good, and honest official—a mythical personage of whom one often hears in China. It was long, very long, and very painful to listen to.” When he had finally brought his song to an end, and the good official had received from the emperor a coral button of office, a yellow riding-jacket, and a patent of nobility with retroactive effect, ennobling his parents and his grandparents to the third and fourth generations, he asked leave to sing another ditty; but I bribed him to desist, and he went to another hovel, and charmed the inmates with his songs far into the night.—[Century.