might more appropriately be called the great American prima donna. This most wonderful product of the negro race needs no special introduction at our hands to the reading and inquisitive people in the larger cities of Central and South America. As popular as she is, however, there are a great many thousands of all races who, quite naturally, know nothing of her. In this particular case we shall leave it to the press of the country to speak of her more knowingly and, therefore, more strongly than the author can possibly do. Up to our going to press we have been able to learn but little of her early life and education, but clip the following from an advertising sheet, which we offer upon its merit, since it is over the name of Major J. B. Pond, who was her manager in the great Madison Square Garden Concert in New York City:
Sissieretta Jones was born on January 5, 1868, at Portsmouth, Virginia, being twenty-four years of age at present writing, and in her fourth year her father and mother, Jerry and Henrietta Joyner, left Virginia and settled down in Providence, R. I., where they are still living. When a mere girl, Mrs. Jones evinced a great taste for music, and at the age of fifteen years she commenced her instrumental lessons at the Academy of Music, Providence, R. I., of which Mr. Monros and Baroness Lacombe, the latter an eminent Italian musician, were tutors.
At eighteen she commenced vocal training at the New England Conservatorium in Boston. She made such rapid strides in her studies that those who heard her sing at some private entertainments pronounced her as America's future colored Queen of Song, and in 1887 she was asked to sing at a grand concert in aid of the Parnell Defense Fund, on which occasion the audience numbered upwards of 5,000; she sang next in the Boston Music Hall, where she received the highest encomiums from her hearers. A grand star concert was next given by Mr. J. G. Burgeon, at which all of the best American colored singers