LIFE'S VICISSITUDES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVIII, Issue 8943, 18 December 1907, Page 3

LIFE'S VICISSITUDES.

ERSTWHILE FAMOUS SONG-

WRITER

NOW BLIND AND IN POVERTY

Tom Maguire. the blind composer of "The Soldier's Letter. " "Spare the Old Mud Cabin," and many other once popular songs, has fallen on evil days.

He lias been reduced to playing the concertina in the streets ami peddling his own music, and on September 11th. with his wife Frances by his side, he was charged at Bow street with obstructing the pavement outside Drury Lane Theatre. Mrs Magnire, a little woman neatly dressed in black, led her blind and now nearly stone-deaf husband across the court, and a constable told how they had ottered song-books for sale to the waiting crowds. Maguire handed up to Sir Albert de a pedlar's license, taken out himself two years ago, and a number of songs he had written and composed. "Are these yours?" asked the magistrate, recognising the familiar titles, and Magnire, when his wife shouted in his ear Sir Albert' question, raised his head and said quietly "I am Tom Maguire, the composer. I wrote most of these songs twenty years ago. I was very famous then, but now I'm in the gutter." Sir Albert discharged Maguire and

his wife. Iv the tiny "first floor back" in Northampton street, Clerkenwell, where Mr and Mrs Maguire now live, an Express representative found the couple. The room was hung with framed copies of popular songs which the blind musician liad written. Maguire is cheerful in spite of his troubles, and Mrs Maguire's face lit up with smiles as she told of the days when her husband's music echoed through every London street. "I have written dozens of songs," said Mr Maguire, "but, as you see, I have not made much raoney out of

them. Some of the best known are: j^-'Bold Robert Emmett,' 'Three of Shamrock,' 'The Sweetest Sweetheart of All,' 'Spare the Old Mud Cabin,' 'The Soldier's Letter.' Thousands of copies of those songs have been sold and sung all over the world, but I always sold my work outright, and I have not reaped the royalties. The most I ever received for a song was £8, for 'Three Leaves of Shamrock,' sung by the late Harry Moukhouse at the Old Gaiety, and 'Spare the Old Mud Cabin' ouly brought me £5. Another well-known air, 'The Soldiers' Letter,' I parted with for £4. Hundreds of pounds have been made out of them, I hear. I wrote the words and music of 'Oh, Jeremiah,' the first published song Miss Marie Lloyd, now so famous, ever had, and I also wrote 'After the Pantomime's Over' for the same artist. If I only had a good concertina iv place of this cracked old instrument, I think I could make a fresh start on the inusic-hal] boards."