In Jail

John Philip Sousa, dean of brass band leaders, lent his services as con ductor to the inmate-musicians at the Eastern Penitentiary, Philadelphia. The audience also consisted almost exclusively of inmates. They looked at the performance through barred and crowded windows; they listened in corridors through the burly backs of uniformed guards drawn up in rigid files and phalanxes. Applause was prohibited; the close of each number was thus received in stolid silence. Four pieces were played; two of them composed by John Philip himself. At times, the dashing martial strains were suspended in midair, while the leader gave the performers the benefit of his own personal interpretation of exacting passages. At the close of the third number, Sousa was presented with a cane, manufactured in the institution out of bits of paper tightly rolled together and held together by silver bands, the product of hours and hours of patient toil. Also a box of cigars-- but whether these were made in the same fashion was not stated.