WPA  (CONT)

the third.

Josie Washburn used to run a house on south ninth and we played there some, and it was orderly enough but every so often the police would pull them all and take them up and fine them. That was the way they collected their license fees.

The colored people had some big dances and get to gathers. They threw some big oyster suppers and Rach Chapman and myself used to play some for them and go to the feeds.

When Burlington Beach was opened it was quite a big event. They built a pavillion out over the lake, built a steamboat and toboggan slide and had things fixed up in great style. Big 'carry alls' pulled by four horses, hauled the people back and forth. The first woman who dared to slide down the toboggan into the lake was to get a $50.00 prize. Just before she make the attempt they had up on a slack wire act and the wire was left hanging over the water at the bottom of the toboggan. She made the slide in a toboggan boat and didn't see the wire. It caught her under the chin and broke he neck.

I did lots of ballyhoo and some pitch work for the fairs, carnivals and museums. Gene Coyle had a museum and hired me for front man and spieler entertainer. He had one of the first phonographs with the rubber tubes that you placed in your ears. People paid a nickel to hear those old cylinder records.
The first street fair in Lincoln in 1899 was a grand success with all sorts of booths and stands, "grifters," 'Kiester men", 'toy balloon vendors,' 'fortune tellers' and a 'lot of pit shows' and wax works, house of horrors'. 'Street was roped off and no horse rigs were allowed.

The 'Trocadero' in Omaha was one of the best known cabarets of the nineties. They call them "night clubs" and road houses now. We played there and I also played the first [Aksarbon?] and for 15 years thereafter that old song, 'She Was Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage' was a big hit and hung on a long time, about 1898 to 1901.

'Skip Down' was a 72 hour 'window sleeper' for Flint the hypnotist in those days and the Swiss Bell singers put on an act at the Eden Muses.

The Medical College had a dissecting room down by the Rock Island tracks and they used to keep a lot of 'stiffs' there. One time a fellow by the name of Williams wanted to go through and see how they did it. So a couple of students took him in and were going to show him the works. They had one negro corpse in there and the room was only dimly lighted with old gas flame jets. One of the students lifted and bent the body into a sitting position and then tied it there with a strap, which he fastened below the table. He got down in under there and waited . The other fellow steered Williams around and over to this corpse. Then he slipped away behind Williams and out of sight. He saw the stiff sitting there in the dim light and thought it was one of the boys so he started to talk to it. The other fellow hid under the table pulled on the strap and then let it go loose. The corpse settled back and one arm flew up. Williams grabbed at it and then he yelled and ran. He just about jumped through a window but the boys got to him and let him out.

Wyuka had one grave robbery while John Ruff was sexton there. In those days the Medical colleges couldn't get the bodies as easy as they do now, so they sometimes just stole them. The body they got was a big healthy looking chap who dropped dead on "N" street. They didn't know much about him but he was buried in Wyuka. Now John Ruff used [to?] make the rounds of the cemetery day and night and along midnight he came by this new grave and saw that it had been disturbed. Right then and there he called a grave-digger and they opened it up. The body was gone and the signs pointed to the Cotner Medical College. They got the law and went out there early in the morning. The students got real tough and tried to hold them off but it was no go and they found the body and took it back. Nothing much was ever said about this but it happened all right.