In Digest 970606 Dan McGrath recalled "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," by
Robert W. Service:

>  "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute Saloon.
>  The kid that handles the MUSIC BOX was hitting a jag time tune. ..."

When I was all of 15 years old I entertained in a cowboy saloon in
Mammoth Lakes, Calif. (before skiing was invented!).  Late one night a
well-read cowboy regaled us with a _very_ vulgar parody of "Dangerous Dan
McGrew", which began,

  "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in one of them Yukon halls,
   The kid that handled the music box was stealthily ... "
   [ Vulgar!  Hee! hee! ]

Years later I heard similar hilarious vulgar versions of other classic
poems by Robert W. Service, and I thought, "Maybe the vulgar versions
actually were composed first, to entertain in the bars of the gold camps,
and years later were modified for publication and enjoyment in 'polite
company.'"  The book of his poems, "The Spell of the Yukon and Other
Verses," was published in 1916 by Barse & Co., New York.

Service hung about the gold camps of the Yukon Gold Rush, which was
circa 1900 as I recall.  It's possible that a player piano _did_ find
it's way to the gold country, by sea from Seattle or Vancouver, and
thence via the White Pass & Yukon Railway from Skagway, Alaska, into the
Yukon Territory.

Historians have pointed out that pianos shipped to frontier bars often
remained in the shipping crate for protection from the unruly patrons --
perhaps that's another use of the term "Music Box."

Robbie Rhodes