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A Melodeon Artist
A Melodeon artist on the Barbary Coast advertised a
benefit for himself last week in a popular dive, and being of a frugal turn of
mind he stuck up small yellow advertising posters all round the premises, and at
the appointed hour took his seat in the box office. After waiting
patiently till the hour of opening, he was chagrined to find that not even his
brother artists had put in an appearance, while, as for the general public,
neither man, woman nor child had passed the door, either up or down, the whole
evening. Being anxious to discover the cause, he stood at the entrance and
was surprised to notice that all the passers-by suddenly turned back when near
the door of the dive. Feeling that he was the victim of some deep-laid
plot, he locked up the shebang, and, amid a volley of self-uttered imprecations,
was about to proceed to his home under a wharf. Before leaving, however,
he commenced tearing down his yellow posters, when the shrill voice of a
neighboring hag was heard above the evening sou-wester: "Young man, if you pulls
down them small-pox notices you'll get ninety days surer than nuffen."
San Francisco News Letter
July 29, 1876
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