Page:The Story of the Jubilee Singers (7th).djvu/104

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During July and August, months usually unfavourable to concert receipts, their appointments at various places in Wales and the South of England drew, generally, good audiences. It was, however, after the fall work began in Scotland that it was most manifest how wide-spread and hearty was the interest with which their return was awaited. Applications for concerts poured in from every quarter of the kingdom. Full houses met them everywhere. At Inverness, where they appeared under the patronage of the Provost Magistrate and other leading citizens, the Music Hall was much too small to accommodate the eager crowds that thronged the doors on two successive evenings.

At Aberdeen, Lord Kintore was active in efforts to make their visit a great success. At Dundee, Provost Cox presided at their concert, and the receipts were larger than on their first visit to that city in the high tide of enthusiasm two years before. At the first concert in Glasgow, given in the Kibble Crystal Palace, the receipts for tickets and the profits on the sale of books for the one evening amounted to nearly £325. At Edinburgh, where the chair was taken on one evening by Lord-Provost Falshaw, hundreds were turned away from the doors of the Music Hall, even after all standing-room had been exhausted.

The religious effect of their concert-work was never more gratifying nor manifest. Several of their new songs, particularly, seemed to have a peculiar power in reaching the hearts of their audiences. After one of the concerts in Glasgow, an unknown friend placed £15 in the hands of one of the Singers, as a contri-