considerable amount of journalistic work in that way in after years. I
can just remember a little of the prologue. These were the opening
lines:--

Sons of green Erin, we greet you this night!
And you, too, her daughters--how welcome the sight!
We come here before you, a minstrel band,
To carol the lays of our native land.

There was one particularly daring couplet in it, the contribution of
John McArdle:--

In your own Irish way give us one hearty cheer.
Just to show us at once that you welcome us here.

Had mine been the task to speak these lines, I must inevitably have
failed to get the required response, but in the mouth of the regular
reciter they never once missed fire. This was Mr. Barry Aylmer. He
afterwards adopted the stage as a profession, and became recognised as a
very fine actor, chiefly in Irish parts, as might be expected. He also
travelled with a very successful entertainment of his own, and it is but
a short time since he informed me that he spoke our identical "Emerald
Minstrel" prologue in New York and other cities in America, adapting it,
of course, to the circumstances of the occasion. I found that during the
many years which had elapsed since I had previously seen him until I met
him again quite recently he had been a great traveller, not only in this
country and America, but also in South Africa and Australia.

We had a number of harmonized choruses, including several of Moore's
melodies, Banim's "Soggarth Aroon," "Native Music," by Lover; McCann's