Nigger singers with their faces blacked singing minstrel songs. In the song "", the Mikado sings of the punishment for older women who dye their hair or wear corsets, to be "Blacked like a nigger/With permanent walnut juice." Both lyrics are usually changed for modern performances. The word "nigger" appears in children's literature. "How the Leopard Got His Spots", in the "Just So Stories" (1902) by Rudyard Kipling, tells of an Ethiopian man and a leopard, both originally sand-colored, deciding to camouflage themselves with painted spots, for hunting in tropical forest. The story originally included a scene wherein the leopard (now
The Lamplighter (poem) The Lamplighter (poem) The Lamplighter is a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson published in 1885 in Penny Whistles (better known today as A Child's Garden of Verses). This poem may be autobiographical. Stevenson was sickly growing up (probably tuberculosis), thus "when I am stronger" may refer to his hope of recovery. Further, his illness isolated him, so the loneliness expressed in the poem would fit well with his own childhood. Stevenson's poem also makes reference to the divide that exists between children and adults. This is seen when the speaker says that his father is a banker and rejects following