A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    636/700 (page 606)
    in The Newcomes, the 'Canterbury Hall' in Lambei and Weston's Music Hall in High Holborn. A speciality of London music-halls until the 'seventi was the obscene burlesquing of sacred institutions. |j instance, in the notorious ' Rotunda' in Blackfriars Roa the rites of the Church were parodied in the most shamele manner, while divorce cases before the courts were als parodied, the most scandalous details being speciall emphasised. One of the most notorious music-halls was th ' Coal Hole Tavern ' in the Strand where ' Baron ' Nicholso staged all the scandals of the 'fifties and 'sixties. Another peculiar phenomenon was the appearance o negro singers. It was in 1830 that real negroes first came to London froir America in order to appear on the music-hall stage a* singers. The song about ' Nelly Gray' was brought from America by a troupe of negro singers, known as Christie's! I Minstrels, who first appeared at St. James's Hall and scored a great success with their negro songs. Since then a black < face, a tall collar of white cardboard, blue and white 1 striped trousers, a guitar and tambourine have become a popular ' get up ' for singers, and ' nigger minstrels ' with artificially blackened faces, which belong to genuine Londoners, and sometimes to Germans, can now be seen in the London streets singing strange songs. In the first half of the nineteenth century it was cus tomary among men of the 'upper classes' to visit a music hall after an opera performance for ' supper and song'. A music-hall of evil repute was ' Little Tom's Tavern ' in Whitechapel. But all music-halls during the first half of the nineteenth century had a bad reputation owing to the obscene songs performed in them. Most of these songs were written by William West, a London artist and publisher, whose principal activities [606]