“When I went out pitching first I could sing a good song; but it has ruined my voice now, for I used to sing at the top—tenor is the professional term.
“It wasn’t everybody as could be a nigger then. We was thought angels then. It’s got common now, but still I’ve no hesitation in saying that, keep steady and sober, and it works well to the present day. You can go and get a good average living now.
“We could then, after our ‘mungare’ and ‘buvare’ (that’s what we call eat and drink, and I think it’s broken Italian), carry home our 5s. or 6s. each, easy. We made long days, and did no night-work. Besides, we was always very indifferent at our business, indeed. I’d be blowed if I’d trust myself out singing as I did then: we should get murdered. It was a new thing, and people thought our blunders was intended. We used to use blacking then to do our faces—we got Messrs. Day and Martin to do our complexion then. Burnt cork and beer wasn’t so popular then.
“I continued at the nigger business ever since. I and my mate have been out together, and we’ve gone out two, and three, or four, up to eleven in a school, and we’ve shared better when eleven than when we was two. The highest we’ve got in a day has been 1l. 6s. each, at the Portsmouth review, when Napier went out with the fleet, above two years ago. We walked down to Portsmouth a-purpose. We got 14s. 6d. each—and there was five of us—at the launch of the ‘Albert.’
“The general dress of the nigger is a old white hat and a long-tailed coat; or sometimes, when we first come out, in white waistcoats and coats; or even in striped shirts and wigs, and no hats at all. It’s all according to fancy and fashion, and what takes.
“When we go to a cheap concert-room, such as the Albion, Ratcliffe-highway, or the Ship and Camel, Bermondsey, our usual business is to open with a chorus, such as ‘Happy are we,’ though, perhaps, we haven’t had a bit of grub all day, and been as wretched as possible; and then we do a song or two, and then ‘crack a wid,’ as we say, that is, tell an anecdote, such as this:—
“Three old niggers went to sea on a paving-stone. The first never had any legs, the next never had any arms, and the other was strip stark naked. So the one without any legs said, ‘I see de bird;’ so the one without any arms took up a gun and shot it, and the one without any legs run after it, and the one that was strip stark naked put it in his pocket. Now, you tell me what pocket that was?
“Then another says, ‘In his wainscoat pocket.’ Then I return, ‘How can he if he was naked? Can you give the inflammation of that story? Do you give it up?’ Then he says, ‘No, won’t give it up.’ Then I say, ‘Would you give it up if you had it.’ Then he says, ‘Yes!’ and I reply, ‘The inflammation of that is the biggest lie that ebber was told.’
“Sometimes we do conundrums between the songs. I ask, ‘Can you tell me how to spell blind pig in two letters?’ and then he, remembering the first story, answers, ‘Yes, the biggest lie that ebber was told.’ ‘No, that’s not it.’ Then I continue, ‘P, g; and if you leave the i out it must be a blind pig, Jim.’
“Then we go on with the concert, and sing perhaps, ‘Going ober de Mountain’ and ‘Mary Blane,’ and then I ask such conundrums as these: