couple of serviceable horses, might be mistaken for wild-beast vans.
They are crammed choke-full with every known mechanical contrivance
for the production of ear-stunning noises. Wherever they burst forth
into utterance, the whole parish is instantly admonished of their
whereabouts, and, with the natural instinct of John Bull for a row--no
matter how it originates--forth rushes the crowd to enjoy the
dissonance. The piercing notes of a score of shrill fifes, the squall
of as many clarions, the hoarse bray of a legion of tin trumpets, the
angry and fitful snort of a brigade of rugged bassoons, the
unintermitting rattle of a dozen or more deafening drums, the clang of
bells firing in peals, the boom of gongs, with the sepulchral roar of
some unknown contrivance for bass, so deep that you might almost count
the vibrations of each note--these are a few of the components of the
horse-and-cart-organ, the sum-total of which it is impossible to add
up. Compared to the vicinity of a first-rater in full blow, the inside
of a menagerie at feeding-time would be a paradise of tranquillity and
repose. The rattle and rumble of carts and carriages, which drive the
professors and possessors of milder music to the side-streets and
suburbs, sink into insignificance when these cataracts of uproar begin
to peal forth; and their owners would have no occasion to seek an
appropriate spot for their volcanic eruptions, were it not that the
police, watchful against accident, have warned them from the principal
thoroughfares, where serious consequences have already ensued through
the panic occasioned to horses from the continuous explosion of such
unwonted sounds. In fact, an honourable member of the Commons' House
of Parliament made a motion in the House, towards the close of the
last session, for the immediate prohibition of these monster
nuisances, and quoted several cases of alarm and danger to life of
which they had been the originating cause. These formidable erections
are for the most part the property and handiwork of the men who travel