The Death & Exhibition of Master Juba
-- "... at the Surrey Music Hall, Sheffield, England..." --
More specifically, is there any evidence that his skeleton was on display, as Brown says, in this venue, in this city, in this year? None direct, no. But there is that nagging, frustrating circumstantial evidence.
There were two venues known as the Music Hall in Sheffield at this time: a middle class establishment, the Music Hall on Surrey Street, a rental house used for a variety of lectures, exhibitions and performances; and a working class venue, the Surrey Music Hall, on West Bar. Juba had performed in both of them, in the first as a member of the Ethiopian Serenaders, in the second as a solo act. We know from the report of a later fire that the working class music hall had a museum of some kind housed in the building. More evocative, for several months in 1852 a Doctor Woodhead rented part of the Music Hall on Surrey Street to exhibit his Anatomical Museum. Nowhere does the advertising list the skeleton of a dancer. But it is a commonplace among historians that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Motive and opportunity exist, though reasonable doubt remains.
