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70     THE CRISIS

¶ The 138th annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage and the Improvement of the Condition of the African Race was held in Philadelphia.

The society is at present looking after the educational and moral development of the colored race in Philadelphia by supporting the Spring Street Settlement, 1223-1225 Spring Street, a neighborhood work under the superintendency of Ellwood Heacock, secretary of the society. In an appeal the society is asking for $10,000 to make some much-needed improvements.

MUSIC AND ART.

THE Negro melodies sung by miss Eleanor Hazzard Peacock, an American soprano, at a recital at Bechstein Hall in London, have elicited much praise from the English critics.

¶ As to the selections for the music events at Chautauqua, N. Y., this summer, the musical director writes:

"This being both the Wagner and Verdi centennial year, I am anxious to give them both prominence on the program. I wish also to give a work of Coleridge-Taylor's, whose untimely death a short time ago robbed the world of a great genius. Other works to be given are: 'Bonbon Suite,' Coleridge-Taylor; 'Golden Legend,' Sullivan; 'The Messiah,' Handel."

¶ At the closing concert, on April 17, of the Cecilia Society, of Boston, Mass. (Dr. Arthur M. Mees, conductor), Palestrina's "Tenebrae Factae Sunt" was sung in memory of the late William Apthorp, musician and music critic, while the "Death of Minnehaha," after Longfellow, was given as a tribute to its composer, the late lamented Afro-American musician.

¶ "A Georgia Lullaby," "Lindy," "You'll Get Day in de Morning" and "A Spirit Flower" were the Negro songs in a costume recital of characteristic international melodies given in Syracuse, N.Y., by two American artists–Paul Dufault and Mrs. Proctor C. Welsh. 

¶ The Misses Turner, of Georgia, and Barbee, of Kentucky, have given an entertainment, consisting of unpublished and little-known Negro melodies and Southern stories, at the Toy Theatre, Boston, Mass. 

¶ Mr. Sidney Woodward, tenor, has established a studio in Atlanta, Ga., and also conducts classes in vocal instruction at Clark University. 

¶ Mrs. Maud Cuney Hare, pianist, and Mr. William H. Richardson, baritone, of Boston, have returned from an extended south-western tour, where they were engaged in lecture recitals. The program of the lecture recitals by Mrs. hare gave a general and historical survey of Negro music, from the folk music of Africa and America to the achievements of the present-day musicians of color. Burleigh, Charlton, Cook, Johnson and the late Coleridge-Taylor were among the composers represented. Mr. Richardson was praised for the beauty and range of his voice, the distinctness of his diction and the art of his presentation. 

¶ "Hiawatha" was rendered by the Mozart Society of Fisk University, by the white Choral Society of Harrisburg, Pa., and by other organizations.

¶ An "all-star" program of Coleridge-Taylor music was rendered in the Metropolitan A. M. E. Church at Washington, D. C. The proceeds of the concert will be forwarded to the widow of the composer. 

¶ At Western University, Kansas City, Kan., students of Virgil have presented a dramatic program based on the Æneid.

THE GHETTO.

MR. MOORFIELD STOREY and a majority of the Massachusetts local council of the American Bar Association are conducting a campaign for the repeal of the resolution looking toward the prohibition of colored membership which was surreptitiously introduced and unconstitutionally passed at the association's convention in Milwaukee last August. Meantime the existing colored members are urged not to resign. 

¶ Colored girls employed in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing are protesting against an order of Director Ralph requiring them to sit at separate tables in the lunchroom. 

¶ Richard Cain, "a hard-working, honest Negro, a splendid horseshoer," left his home in Allendale, S.C., and found employment at Dublin, Ga. The police of this place say they do not know who placed at the door of 



ALONG THE COLOR LINE      71

Cain's workshop a coffin-shaped box inscribed: "Negro, you will be dead in forty-eight hours in you do not vacate this town. This is your picture if you stay here.-- (Signed) Twelve citizens." 

¶ The Southern Women's Club, of Chicago, assembled on a hurry call to amend a line in their constitution which read: "A woman of Southern birth." The amended constitution makes membership open only to "A white woman of Southern birth."

¶ The Harlem Hospital, an institution maintained by the city of New York, has been charged with gross ill treatment and neglect of colored patients. 

¶ The Levy bill, making is a crime to advertise racial discrimination by signs or printed matter, has become a law in New York. 

¶ Montana prohibits boxing matches between white and colored men. 

¶ Nebraska is the only state to yield to the recent wave of "Jim Crow" legislation by declaring its preference for concubinage instead of marriage between whites and Negroes, Japanese, or Chinese. An amendment to the original bill excludes Indians from the provisions of the law. Illinois is perhaps awaiting the result of the Jack Johnson case to decide on the pending marriage law. 

¶ The full-crew bill was passed in Oklahoma, but, largely due to the efforts of the Illinois Protective League and the Chicago branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, it was defeated in Illinois. The separate-car law was also defeated in this State. 

¶ At St. John's Church, Washington D.C., two ladies, one a stranger in the city, went to attend a service on Good Friday. The usher told them to go to the mission maintained by this church for Negroes. The rector, Rev. Roland Cotton smith, writes to Mr. James C. Waters:

I regret to say that the incident took place But there is no rule empowering such an act, and I shall do everything in my power to prevent it ever happening again."

¶ In a case defended by W. Ashbie Hawkins, Esq., Judge Elliott, of Baltimore, has declared the segregation law incapable of enforcement. 

¶ The Norfolk, Va., police  court has to decide whether a drug store owned by white people can be opened in a segregated Negro district. "If we are not mistaken" says a local colored paper, "a member of the council, who is identified with the Hebrew element of our population, was the chief exponent of the segregation law when it was in it inception. As most of the merchants who would be affected, if the law is enforced, are of the Hebrew race, this short-sighted politician can now see how he has allowed personal ambition, commercial greed, and petty jealousy to inflict a sever hardship upon his brethren, who are entirely the unwilling and innocent victims of his political genius."

¶ A Jewish student led the affirmative and, by a vote of 61 to 41, won a debate as to whether a colored man and woman should be included in the picture of the graduating class at Loyola Medical College, Chicago.

¶ Mr. Richard J. Cope, a white man, has been asked to move out of a home which he recently purchased in the exclusive residence district of Gresham at Chicago Mrs. Cope is colored. "Dark threats of a mysterious something that is going to happen if the colored people do not move are going the rounds of Gresham. Meanwhile the offending family is sitting quietly by, doing and saying nothing." 

¶ Negroes of Dallas, Tex., have asked the municipal commission to relieve black folk from the nuisance of smoking, which is now permitted just in front of the seats assigned to colored people in street cars. 

¶ The colored people are allowed to use the tennis court in Cherokee and Iroquois Parks at Louisville, Ky. 

¶ The North Washington Citizens' Association of Washington, D.C., at its last meeting adopted resolutions that no member should sell or rent property to colored persons unless forced to do so by virtue of the fact that the adjacent property was already occupied by colored tenants; and, further, that they should not deal with any real-estate agent who tried to place colored persons in their neighborhood. It is especially stated that the association is not actuated by race prejudice, but solely by economic considerations.