Sloan’s one-man band offers an anachronistic contrast to the modern skyscrapers glimpsed in the distance and the Mutoscopes and other modern entertainments depicted elsewhere in the portfolio. The entertainer’s old-fashioned skill draws in numerous onlookers including those gathered under a ‘beer’ sign, families on balconies above, the small girl being dragged away, and the blinkered horse that pulls up in fright. Sloan’s mastery of the similarly ‘old-fashioned’ practice of etching enables him to capture this range of responses.