Music: New Orleans Shoemaker

The work of discovering humble youths with fine voices and of financing them along the path to glory, went on apace. A few weeks ago (TIME, Oct. 8), the young New Yorker Raggini, whose friends raised money for his studies by selling shares in his future. Now it is Antonio Benninatti, New Orleans shoemaker.

Antonio came to America eleven years ago with his family. When he reached the age of employment—an early age—he went to work for his brother, Nazareth, a shoemaker. But Antonio became only an indifferent cobbler. He learned to sole a shoe only passably, and regarded the putting on of O’Sullivan and Cat’s Paw heels a sad bore. He had a great passion for Caruso records, and at times when he should have been hammering and stitching he cranked a phonograph and listened, rapt. At his work he always sang.

Had his brother been well read, he would have cried (in angry Italian): “Shoemaker, stick to thy last!” As it was, Nazareth only shook his head and prophesied that singing would make Antonio a bad shoemaker, and that the young man would come to no good end.

But a lady with a musical ear and money in her purse passed the cobbler’s shop one day and heard Antonio’s voice. She stopped. It was a very good voice. She sought out the youth and told him he must become great. She interested other well placed folk in her find. Funds were raised to enable Antonio to study in Italy. A fortnight ago he sailed to enroll in the Conservatory at Milan.