San Francisco Minstrels

“Notwithstanding the Lenten Season commenced the past week, the San Francisco Minstrels appeared to equally as large audiences as during the preceding week. Some serious people may lament that the burnt-cork profession should still retain such an undeniable hold on the public mind, but the truth must be chronicled, and the result is attributable to the innate excellence of this troupe in their peculiar line. There can be no doubt that if we seek the source of their popularity, we find it chiefly in the love of the substratum for the grotesque and ludicrous. The burlesque of ‘Under the Kerosene Lamp,’ which has been sanding the audiences away in the best of good humor the past three weeks, continues the present attraction, and, with the other laughable acts in the olio, as well as the first part, helps to make an attractive programme.”