6. Blind bird-organists. Though most blind persons either naturally
possess or soon acquire an ear for music, there are yet numbers who,
from the want of it or from some other cause, never make any
proficiency as performers on an instrument. Blindness, too, is often
accompanied with some other disability, which disqualifies its victims
for learning such trades as they might otherwise be taught. Hence
many, rather than remain in the workhouse, take to grinding music in
the streets. Here we are struck with one remarkable fact: the
Irishman, the Frenchman, the Italian, or the Savoyard, at least so
soon as he is a man, and able to lug it about, is provided with an
instrument with which he can make a noise in the world, and prefer his
clamorous claim for a recompense; while the poor blind Englishman has
nothing but a diminutive box of dilapidated whistles, which you may
pass fifty times without hearing it, let him grind as hard as he will.
It is generally nothing more than an old worn-out bird-organ, in all
likelihood charitably bestowed by some compassionate Poll
Sweedlepipes, who has already used it up in the education of his
bull-finches. The reason, we opine, must be that the major part, if
not the whole, of the peripatetic instruments of the metropolis are
the property of speculators, who let them out on hire, and that the
blind man, not being considered an eligible customer, is precluded
from the advantage of their use.
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