MEDALS FOR THE MIDGETS
San Francisco Call, Volume 82, Number 161, 8 November 1897
Gustav Walter Shows His Appreciation of the Boys' Band.
He Will Travel With Them Through the Country.
The Orpheum's Manager Has Gathered His Hungarian Flock About Him & Departed.
Published at DVHH.org 6 Jan 2011 by Jody McKim Pharr

The Hungarian Boys' Military Band, or as the bills proudly announce, Kaiser Franz Josef's Magyar Husaren Knaben Kapelle, has gone on its way rejoicing. The wee musicians whose precocious talents have delighted the Orpheum patrons for three mouths past were bundled into Gustav Walter's special car at 8 o'clock yesterday morning and director, schoolmaster, cook and all started gleefully southward.

The joy of the youngsters was not due to leaving San Francisco. Maybe in their journeys through the United States they may rind some place which will appeal to their youthful fancy as strongly as does the Western metropolis, but just at present there is not a lad in the lot whose ideas of heaven are not distinctly associated with streets which run up into the air at an alarming angle and cars that run along those streets propelled by some mysterious power beneath a crack in the pavement.

Also, it is a place where beefsteaks are served with prodigal regularity, and the little Hungarians first made the acquaintance of that luscious wind in San Francisco.

Franz Josef has ideas of his own about training up soldiers, and beefsteak is not pan of his curriculum.

Upon the breast of each boy as he entered the car was pinned a beautiful silver medal, and that was part of their cause for Joy. The medals were the gift of Gustav Walter, proprietor of the Orpheum, and the little fellows knew by the applause which had greeted their nightly performances that they bad been fairly won.

It was an ambitious proceeding on the part of Mr. Walter to import the boys' band, which, with the director and schoolteacher, numbers forty members. THE CALL has already told the story of the $8000.00 bond which the manager was required to place with the Austrian Government before the lads were permitted to leave the empire, and of the many promises and undertakings which were even then demanded of him.  And after all his trouble the theatrical man was naturally anxious as to the outcome of his experiment.

His anxiety vanished when the midget band had concluded its first number. The applause was deafening and the success of the venture was assured. From that moment Walter took every little Hungarian to his heart. '"It's his hobby," say the attaches of the theater, and certain it is he has spared no pains to make the most of this feature of his entertainment.

Three months is a long stand for one attraction at the Orpheum; in fact the boys' band is the only attraction that ever held the boards anywhere near that long at that house, but the little masters of horn and drum held out with flying colors, and the heart of Manager Waiter was glad.

It was in honor of this record that he presented each of the lads with a silver medal, and to Nicklas Schilzony. director, and to M. Nussbaumer, schoolteacher, each a gold watch. Each medal bears the name of the lad wearing it, and also the name of the donor and of the theater where the trophy was merited. The presentation was made by Joe Hayden, sketch artist, Saturday night. The recipients said never a word in reply because, forsooth, Mr. Hayden speaks never a word of German, and to the tiny musicians English is an intricate mystery. But they understood the medals and looked happy. Then they played again and again and again. The San Francisco public shares Manager Waller's affection for the little fellows, and was loth to part with them.

The Orpheum's manager has bought outright a Pullman-car for his protégés, and he intends to personally conduct them through t ha United Stales. Their first stop is in Los Angeles, where they will play at the Orpheum there. Then they will visit most every city of interest in the country.

Mr. Walter has a two years' contract for their services. They will be knowing little Hungarians when they return to the school at Billed. And it will be long before they regain their appetites for the soup and black bread of Franz Josef's army.