John Brown died that the slave might be free,
electrified the audience; and ‘never,’ said a spectator, ’shall I forget Mr Gladstone's rapt enthusiastic attention. His form was bent forward, his eyes were riveted; all the intellect and soul of his great nature seemed expressed in his countenance; and when they had finished, he kept saying: “Isn't it wonderful? I never heard anything like it!”’
After spending three months in London, the Jubilee Singers proceeded to give a round of concerts in the principal towns of England and Scotland; being everywhere well received by large and appreciative audiences. Financially, the excursion was eminently successful. Nearly ten thousand pounds had been raised for the Fisk University, besides special gifts for the purchase of philosophical apparatus, and donations of books for the library. The money collected first and last by the singers now amounted to about twenty thousand pounds, which went a considerable way towards the building of the University, which assumed shape and was opened in 1875. To reinforce the funds, another visit to Great Britain was determined on. We cannot go into an account of this second visit; it is enough to say that the singers again made their appearance in all the principal towns of England and Scotland, and were able to take back the sum of ten thousand pounds; making in all as a result of their labours the sum of thirty thousand. Since this time, the party have made various excursions, always increasing the funds for the erection of college buildings; but of the exact particulars we have no account. One of the objects in view is to erect a building called the Livingstone Missionary Hall, designed, as we understand, for the special preparation of missionaries for Africa. The latest statement we see on the subject is that the Jubilee Singers have gone on a visit to Germany, to secure funds to complete this building and further equip the University for missionary work.
The vicissitudes of travelling at home and abroad during several years led to changes in the company of singers. When members were obliged to retire, others equally qualified took their place. At different times twenty-four persons in all have belonged to the company. All of them have been slaves or of slave parentage. Excepting a few mulattoes, all have been of a pure negro type; and their respective histories offer some interesting facts concerning the condition of people of colour in the slave states up till the period of general emancipation. It is gratifying to know that the extraordinary change of life from privation and contumely to comfort and public respect has not uplifted the feelings, or materially altered the habits of the members of the corps. In their moral and religious obligations they have ever been irreproachable. We are told that none of them uses tobacco; and their English friends, whose hospitalities have been so abundant, are equally surprised, if not gratified, to find that they are inveterate abstainers from alcoholic liquors. Considering the temptations and buffetings of their early life, there is not a little to admire in the conduct as well as in the accomplishments of the several individuals composing the party. The energetic yet modest way they have acquitted themselves in the routine of the very peculiar duties imposed on them, is probably not often met with in parties of higher pretensions.
We have now in brief told the story of the Jubilee Singers, and it is more than ordinarily remarkable. A handful of freed negro slaves undertaking by voluntary efforts to collect funds wherewith to establish and support a University, having for its object the higher education of the coloured population in the United States. The enterprise has had no parallel. These negroes do not beg, nor do they trouble people for subscriptions. They only try to raise funds by the exercise of their talents in an honest line of industry, by communicating pleasure to countless audiences. Amidst the frauds and commercial rascalities of pompous pretenders that are becoming a scandal to the age, the unselfish and noble endeavours of these humble melodists stand out in marked contrast, as something to applaud and to redeem human nature. The marvel of the enterprise has been its universal success. High and low are equally pleased. Professing no particular knowledge in music, but yielding to none in an ardent admiration of the simpler class of national ballads and songs, we have listened to the melodies of the Jubilee Singers with heartfelt delight. Whether with or without instrumental accompaniment, the melodies might be described as supplying a new relish. It has been remarked that the greater number of the pieces are in the same scale as that in which Scottish music is written, with the fourth and seventh tones omitted. This would only indicate the untutored nature of their origin, and the wonder is greater at the effects produced. Nothing is left for us to add but an advice to our readers. It is, to take the earliest opportunity to go and hear the Jubilee Singers.
W. C.
[HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.]
CHAPTER II.—AT CARBERY CHASE.
The horseman, at whose approach the interesting inmate of The Traveller's Rest had so abruptly withdrawn from the place of observation whence he was contemplating the Elizabethan front of Carbery Court, had scarcely recognised in the lounger smoking his pipe beneath the elm, the bronzed seafaring fellow whom he had frequently of late encountered. But as the man moved off with hasty step and an evident dislike to observation, the rider's eyes for a moment followed him.