so requested, of complying forthwith with the
injunction. I am quite conscious that this is
indeed the state of the law, but what I contend
is, that this law does not practically affect the
state of things of which I complain. To what
purpose is it that one musician should be
removed from before my house, when in the course
of a few minutes his place is filled by another?
Consider, too, the loss of temper that ensues
after a row with one of these men—and they will
seldom go without a row; consider how a man
is unfitted for his work, and thrown out of cue
by a disturbance of this sort. There are some
quiet streets in London where ten or twelve of
these musicians will turn up in the course of a
single day; why, one need keep a servant (and a
man-servant, too) on purpose to drive them
away. The notions of these musicians, again, on
the subject of distance, and their idea of being
"out of hearing," are generally widely different
from those of the person they are annoying, and
their removal from the step before one's own
house has generally to be followed by at least
two subsequent sallies to drive them away from
No. 20 (five doors farther up), or even 25,
where they are still distinctly audible.

Now, the question for which I have been
paving the way all this time is simply this:
Why should we have street musicians at all?
Why should not a clean sweep be made of the
whole organ and hurdy-gurdy tribe, and, at the
same time, considerable restrictions be laid on
the performances of the brass and other bands
by which our streets are frequented? What do
we want with organs? When the professional
poet comes in between Brutus and Cassius, at
the end of the celebrated quarrel scene between
them, Cassius asks with pardonable irritability,
"What do the wars do with these jigging fools?"
Substituting "the streets" for "the wars" in
the above quotation, may we not make the same
inquiry with regard to our street musicians?
They do us no good, they give us no pleasure,
they interfere with our occupation, they chafe
our nerves; what do we want with them?

I am afraid the answer to this question is
ready on the lips of those to whom it is
addressed: You are an exceptional person; you
belong to a class so small that it cannot reasonably
be legislated for. The great mass of workers
in this town are, by the localities in which their
professional avocations are conducted, safe from
the annoyance you complain of. The lawyer
in the Temple, the judge in Westminster Hall,
the merchant in a City court or on 'Change, is
safe from organs, and those men whose work is
carried on in offices, are the great important
classes of society for whom alone it is needful
to legislate. You, the student, who carry on
your profession in your own house, are altogether
an exceptional person, whom really we cannot
stay to consider. You must get on as well as
you can.

But, I would contend, that in weighing the
importance of any particular class, the test of
numbers is not the only test to be applied, but
that quality should be considered as well as, or
perhaps even more than, quantity; and I would
also contend that the class who suffer under the
nuisance with which we are concerned, is by no
means so small a one as might at first be
imagined. The writer, the artist, the calculator,
the comparative anatomist, the clergyman
composing his sermon, the scientific man his treatise,
surely the class of which such individuals as
these form the component parts, is scarcely a
small, and still less an unimportant one.

And who are the people who would oppose
these? Who are the people who wish the organ
nuisance to remain as it is—to whom "Bob
Ridley" is a solace, and "Dixie's Land" a
refreshment? They may exceed us in numbers,
but certainly not outweigh us in importance.
The servant-maids, the wives and children of
some members of the lower middle classes.
These are all, for how many are there who, not
ranking among the studious classes mentioned
above, are yet, from ill-health or nervousness,
almost equally disturbed by the organ nuisance.
To those in trouble of mind or pain of body, to
the neuralgic, to those who strive, for the time,
perhaps ineffectually, with their labour, the
music made by the organ-grinder amounts to
something little less than a torment.

Let us, as much as possible, have our music
when we want it and where we want it. There
is no reason whatever why the supply of this
delightful recreation should be stopped; simply
it should run in another channel. In Paris an
excellent band plays in the afternoon in the
Palais Royal, the central square of the French
capital; why should not this be the case with
us? Why not have a band every afternoon in
the middle of Trafalgar-square. Or if it should
be argued, and with some show of reason, that
the hideous objects dotted about that ghastly
enclosure would so distress the eyes of those
who came to listen to the band that they could
derive no pleasure from it, a good place might
be found in St. James's Park, where the music
would be an offence to no one, and would give
a vast deal of pleasure to all sorts of people.

Sir, I have it upon the evidence of credible
witnesses that their labours are frequently
impeded, and that a considerable loss of time, and
consequently of emolument, has been occasioned
to them by the organ nuisance. We are all well
acquainted with the case of a gentleman
distinguished by his powers as a calculator, and by a
remarkable invention in connexion with what I
may call the science of numbers. We all know
what this gentleman has suffered through the
annoyance of itinerant musicians. That gentleman's
name has become almost proverbial as
identified with the organ nuisance. His
onslaughts on the organ-grinders have been
numerous and terrific. At the very first click of "Bob
Ridley" he is out upon them from his ambush,
and then they may give themselves up for lost.
But this distinguished personage does not stand
alone in the conflict. I am told by gentlemen
in the literary world, and that of art, that they
often lose a day's work, owing to the excess of
irritability into which they are thrown by a