Marie Lloyd (1870-1922)
Marie Lloyd (1870-1922)
(The Daily Mail [London] - 24th May, 1897)
MISS MARIE LL0YD RETURNS
HER INTERVIEW WITH MR. KRUGER
("Daily Mail" Special.)
Any one not aware of the reason for the scene which occurred at Waterloo yesterday might easily have imagined the wild excitement to be due to the arrival of a party of Royal visitors for the Jubilee. The occasion was the home-coming of Miss Marie Lloyd, who has been filling a short but splendidly successful season in South Africa.
It was nearly at quarter-past one when the special bearing the passengers from the S.S. Tartar was sighted in the offing, and at that time some hundreds of people were gathered on the platform. As the engine-entered the dock an enthusiastic relative of the distinguished variety artiste said, "Get together, boys, and give her a cheer," and a few seconds later the lady who has given to a grateful world many such enduring classics as "Oh, Mr. Porter " and "Johnny Jones" swept by in the fore-end of a saloon car. If there was excitement at the moment it was increased fiftyfold as the eminent artiste, with an exclamation of delirious joy, jumped from the platform of the coach into the eager arms of the enthusiastic relative aforesaid.
For half an hour the scene was too touchingly beautiful to be profaned by description. To the bewildered senses of a callous journalist it seemed that a plump, golden-haired lady in sailor rig was rushing around bestowing hysterical caresses on all within hugging range. Thirty-seven resounding kisses jarred the glass roof of the station inside of twenty-three seconds, which, it seems, dislocates the previous record by a second and two-fifths.
But amid that scene of frenzy one remained calm and unhugged. His heroic figure, drawn to its full height, and his classical features fixed with the immobility of a Roman statue, he looked without a quiver upon the spectacle of wholesale osculation. Then, advancing proudly to the little lady-with the golden hair, he-said, "What ho, Marie - do you speak Johannesburg?" It is, perhaps, superfluous to state that the original of the picture was Mr. Daniel Leno. Then amid a riot of happy words an adjournment was made to the refreshment room.
Later in the day a representative of the "Daily Mail" saw Miss Marie Lloyd at her suburban home, and there gathered that the two months season at the Empire, Johannesburg, had been an unqualified success.
"My nervousness on the opening night," said the lady, "was awful, but I explained that to the house, and had to sing six songs afterwards. South African politics? Oh, I never worry about politics. I've got something much more important than that to think of. But I saw President Kruger at Pretoria, and we had quite a nice chat. There's a general notion out there that our little interview has settled all international difficulties. I asked him how he was, and he replied, 'Oh, going strong,' or words to that effect. Then I tried to get out of him why he didn't do the square thing by the Uitlanders, and give them their Aliens, Immigration Act and close their Drifts and things, or whatever it was the Uitlanders wanted, and he said if I asked Johnny Jones I should know, see? He rather got on me, didn't he?"
"The people out there, are immensely good. Come and see all the presents they made me. Why, to tell you the truth, I didnt want to come home, but it's nice to be back again all the same. In '99 I return, and before that I shall go to Australia."
Miss Marie Lloyd will appear at the matinee to be given at the Royal Holborn, today, in aid of the Prince of Wales's Fund, and in a fortnight she will resume duty at five halls. She has no intention, at present at all events, of lecturing in the meantime on South African politics.