A Poor Pole, The Queen of Song.

Southland Times, Issue 16051, 31 May 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

A Poor Pole, The Queen of Song.

Many years ago a poor little Polish girl, illiUad, ill-led, cold and weary, was devoured by a desire to hear the singing of Adelina .Patti, the greatest soprano of her time, says Household Word The poor little Polish girl could not afford to buy a reserved seat for the performance, yet somehow she felt she must hear it, for perhaps never again would the queen of kouji; come to shine upon the far-away little city, and so the poor little Polish girl gathered up the savingr of many months, which she had earned by sleepless nights and pitiable drudgery, hammering her iiotie nngers to numbness playing dance music for

well-to-do people. Wiui tne meagre hoard clutched in those same tired

fingers she stood for five hours in the bitter cold with the line of people waiting for the gallery to open. Then with the crowd, pushing and panting, she .was thrown, trampled, beaten up the stairs, her little savings gone, and the precious ticket given up, till she found herself huddled away in a corner of tne gallery. And then she heard Patti, and for two brief hours the sordid earth became a paradise— such a paradise as the poor little Polish gixl hoped to reach perchance, beyond the portals of the grave. To-day Aclelina Patti

is growing old and has left the oper-

atic stage, and the poor little Polish girl is everywhere acclamated as the

greatest woman singer of me time, for the cold, tired, hungry, eager little Marcella Kokhansky is now the famous Marcella Sembrich, the queen of song. The child who once could barely save tne price of admission to a Patti performance now receives £300 for each appearance in opera, and has been paid as much as £2uu to sing two songs in a concert.