Other cities besides Louisville claim Jim Crow. Francis Courtney Wemyss, in his _Autobiography_, says he was a native of Pittsburg, whose name was Jim Cuff; while Robert P. Nevin, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for November, 1867, declares that the original was a negro stage-driver of Cincinnati, and that Pittsburg was the scene of Rice's first appearance in the part--a local negro there, whose professional career was confined to holding his mouth open for pennies thrown to him on the docks and the streets, furnishing the wardrobe for the initial performance. [Illustration: THOMAS D. RICE.] Rice was born in the Seventh Ward of New York in 1808. He was a supernumerary at the Park Theatre, where "Sam" Cowell remembered him in _Bombastes Furioso_ attracting so much attention by his eccentricities that Hilson and Barnes, the leading characters in the cast, made a formal complaint, and had him dismissed from the company Cowell; adding that this man, whose name did not even appear in the bills, was the only actor on the stage whom the audience seemed to notice. Cowell also describes him in Cincinnati, in 1829, as a very unassuming modest young man, who wore "a very queer hat, very much pointed down before and behind, and very much cocked on one side." He went to England in 1836, where he met with great success, laid the foundation of a very comfortable fortune, and professionally he was the Buffalo Bill of the London of half a century ago. Mr. Ireland, speaking of his popularity in this country, says that he drew more money to the Bowery Theatre than any other performer in the same period of time. Rice was the author of many of his own farces, notably _Bone Squash_ and _The Virginia Mummy_, and he was the veritable originator of the _genus_ known to the stage as the "dandy darky," represented particularly in his creations of "Dandy Jim of Caroline" and "Spruce Pink." He died in 1860, never having forfeited the respect of the public or the good-will of his fellow-men. [Illustration: JAMES ROBERTS.]