English pantomime, the extraordinary pantomime of the Hanlons, Pinauds, Renards, Leovils, Ramys, and Leopolds, is considerably influenced by these slave gaieties, by the monkey-like tricks of the negroes capering for the amusement of their cruel masters. Freedom has been granted, the whip no longer inspires the [p282] epileptic dances of the blacks, but their jerky gambols so greatly diverted the “massa,” that they have survived slavery itself in an essentially American and English institution: the _Christy Minstrels_. Visit _music halls_ you will find on occasional stages a curious chorus of men in evening dress, sitting in a semicircle, their faces blackened with soot. In St. James’s Hall the effect is particularly curious, for it is here that Messrs. Moore and Burgess, who have carried negro minstrelsy to the highest perfection, exhibit their company of coloured minstrels. The back of the stage is occupied by the orchestra. From an artistic point, no pains is spared to seek out and engage the best musicians who come before the public both vocal and instrumental. Among the vocalists may be reckoned some of the finest voices obtainable in England or in America. The singers are seated in a semi-circle, the comic men are placed at either end of the row, and these furnish the life and humour of the entertainment; they are the comic vocalists, the propounders of quips and tellers of droll stories; their instruments are the bones and tambourines. They play, sing, dance a jig and make jokes. This is the duty of the two leaders of the band, the jester and his butt. Messrs. Moore and Burgess confine their well-recognised original Christy Minstrel Entertainments to the St. James’s Hall. It is the key-note of their programme that they “never perform out of London.” On the other hand, their commonplace imitators become out of the London season itinerant humourists. In the summer you will find them on the sands [p283] of every sea side town. Banjo in hand, arrayed in the cotton trousers worn by the old slaves, always accompanied by the black dress coat, an eyeglass in one eye, straw hats on their blackened heads, they call themselves the _Ethiopian serenaders_. They travel in bands and perform in the open air. [Illustration] Very agile and supple, they repeat in violent dances a [p284] species of gymnastics which a little resembles the “_chahut_” of the lower classes in France. The great “split” is as familiar to them as the somersaults, etc; and these two exercises form the greater part of the pantomime, which the minstrels perform when they are tired of playing on the banjo. The acrobatic success of the minstrels pointed out a road for these clowns, who were anxious to place a girdle of somersaults round the terrestrial globe. The pirouette had the advantage of being understood by the spectators in every land. The clown therefore started without any other luggage.