&c. we must adopt the reply of the
showman to the child who asked which was the lion and which was the
dog, and received for answer: 'Whichever you like, my little dear.'
With respect to all these grinders, one thing is remarkable: they are
all, with the exception of a small savour of Irishmen, foreigners.
Scarcely one Englishman, not one Scot, will be found among the whole
tribe; and this fact is as welcome to us as it is singular, because it
speaks volumes in favour of the national propensity, of which we have
reason to be proud, to be ever doing something, producing something,
applying labour to its legitimate purpose, and not turning another
man's handle to grind the wind. Yet there is, alas! a scattered and
characteristic tribe of vagabond English music-grinders, and to these
we must turn a moment's attention ere we finally close the list.
We must call them, for we know no more appropriate name,
cripple-grinders. It is impossible to carry one's explorations very
far through the various districts of London without coming upon one or
more samples of this unfortunate tribe. Commerce maims and mutilates
her victims as effectually as war, though not in equal numbers; and
men and lads without arms, or without legs, or without either, and men
doubled up and distorted, and blasted blind and hideous with
gunpowder, who have yet had the misfortune to escape death, are left
without limbs or eyesight, often with shattered intellects, to fight
the battle of life, at fearful odds.
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