A WONDERFUL SHOEBLACK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 580, 30 March 1870, Page 3

A WONDERFUL SHOEBLACK.

(From Once a Week.) Some day we may hear of a great pianist, byname Charles Knubel. The youth, for he is now fourteen, has been delighting all hearers at the recent exhibition of the American Institute by his performances on the piano and the electric organ. One day he was a disregarded shoeblack, the next an admired artist. The transformation occurred in this way. The secretary of the exhibition, having his boots blacked by a barefooted youngster one morning, happened to tell him that if he would wash his face, and presented himself at the building the next day, he should be admitted to the show. On the morrow the youth appeared with soap-shone countenance, and the secretary kept his promise, and had him passed into the exhibition. Half-an-hour after there was seen a crowd of people listening to a brilliant performance upon one of the exhibited piano-fortes; and the secretary, making way to the instrument, beheld with astonishment that the player was no other than his shoeblack protege I Talent soon found patrons in the persons of the manufacturers whose piano the youth had so ably manipulated. . He was professionally clad, and every evening afterwards his performances constituted one of the attractions of the fair. The boy is an orphan. His father, a German musician, taught his infant son to play, but died before he could give him a start in the world. What could such a child of misfortune do with his talent? Nothing: so he. blacked boots for- a crust. And he might have beeu polishing still, but for that one lucky customer.