Robinson: " Stickney and Melville were very particular to have each season new sets of quadrilles and other melodies for their acts."

As that was written in 1886 Robert Stickney Jr. was touring the Caribbean with the Donovan Circus. The quadrille (kwadril) remains a huge folk song/dance form in the Lesser Antilles unto this very day.

If there were fan-girly magazines back then, Stickney would have been a cover boy. In 1889-90 Stickney returned the Caribbean with Emma Lake, daughter of Agnes Lake Hickok (aka: Wife of a Legend) and fresh off a command performance for Queen Victoria. The concessionaire for that tour was Aeronaut Charles Colby.

The hook from Colby (Kolbi) can be found in a dozen songs throughout the Americas: Louis Camille (Trinidad); Choucoune (Haiti); Yellow Bird (U.S.) and is still popular during carnival season.

Circus trivia:
Twelve years later in 1902, almost to the day, Mount Pelée erupted and wiped out the city of Saint-Pierre where Colby performed. Survivor Ludger Sylbaris made further history as the first black man ever to star in a segregated side-show (Barnum & Bailey)