The popular songs of the day have provided the subject for many successful set pieces, and form a class of picture which derives much of its success from the band accompaniment and the opportunity for vocal effort on the part of the crowd.
The origin of this type of picture is worth recording. In 1889 the Shah of Persia visited the Crystal Palace, and fired a portrait of himself, electrically, from the Royal Box. A popular song of the day, "Have you seen the Shah?" was suggested to some musically inclined members of the audience, who commenced to sing it, and were soon joined by the whole of the spectators, numbering about 50,000.
The effect of this impromptu concert was so striking as to lead to the production of the popular song whenever there happened to be one suitable for pictorial rendering in fireworks.
In 1892 a mechanical Lottie Collins, 60 feet high, dancing to the then popular strain of "Ta-ra-ra-bom-de-ay," was enthusiastically received. A series of patriotic and sentimental songs at the time of the South African War, as "The Absent-minded Beggar" and "Good-bye, Dolly Grey," etc., were very successful. The "Honeysuckle and the Bee" provided the subject for a transformation picture, a design of honeysuckle changing to a girl's head with a mechanical bee twelve feet long.
In 1908 three songs were included in one piece—"Bill Bailey," "Farewell, my Bluebell," and "The Old Bull and Bush."
The smaller mechanical pieces form a history of locomotion during the half-century covered by the displays. Bicycles, motor cars, looping the loop, aeroplanes, costers' barrows, hansom cabs, fire engines, scooters have all been represented, and in 1895, on the occasion of the visit of the Railway Conference, two of the best mechanical pieces ever
