A Jubilee of Dramatic Life and Incident of Joseph A. Cave; Author, Manager, Actor, and Vocalist
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892* edition. Excerpt: ...thing to do, and that he was quite ready and willing to arrange a tour, which he felt ' Lantum Serenaders'--David Miller 107 sure would be both pleasing and remunerative. This I submitted to my colleagues, who hailed it as an inspiration, all save one, and this was Charles Mackney, who didn't care to leave England. This was a hitch certainly, but Schmidt pulled us through. Learning our difficulty, he suggested that the vacant place should be filled by his brother, who had just returned from Paris with quite a novel instrument which he, Schmidt primus, had named the Lantum. This novel and beautiful instrument was really a melophone, and was in shape not unlike a guitar; the neck formed the finger-board, and the sound was arrived at by pulling out and pushing in a metallic piston at the base of the instrument, not at all unlike the sucker arrangement in a squirt. The tone was very sweet and rich in quality, considerably stronger than that of the concertina, to which it bore some similarity. I don't think the melophone ever became general, it being a very difficult box of whistles to manipulate. We found young Schmidt to be an excellent performer, and, what was even more to our advantage, that the instrument gave a fine, broad effect to our entertainment. Schmidt, the acting-manager, suggested that we should call ourselves 'The Lantum Serenaders, ' and we forthwith set out for Glasgow, at which city we arrived safely by rail and boat. Schmidt had arranged an excellent engagement for us with David Miller, who had a capacious wooden theatre on the Mound, and who readily agreed to give us fifty per cent, of the gross receipts. We played to enormous business, and before our time was out our fame had very considerably spread. Among the first to hear of...