every want; but they were merely employed in procuring the necessaries
of life for their fellows in the mine or the factory, and as nobody
owes them any gratitude for that, they must do what they can. And
behold what they do: they descend, being fit for nothing else, to the
level of the foreign music-grinder, and, mounted on a kind of
bed-carriage, are drawn about the streets of London by their wives or
children; being furnished with a blatant hand-organ of last century's
manufacture, whose ear-torturing growl draws the attention of the
public to their woful plight, they extort that charity which would
else fail to find them out. If there be something gratifying in the
fact, that this is the only class of Britons who follow such an
inglorious profession, there is nothing very flattering in the
consideration, that even these are compelled to it by inexorable
necessity.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Among some of the continental nations, Justice, though blind, is
not supposed to be deaf; she has, on the contrary, a musical ear, and
compels the various grinders of harmony to keep their instruments in
tune, under the penalty of a heavy fine. In some of the German cities,
the police have summary jurisdiction in offences musical, and are
empowered to demand a certificate, with which every grinder is bound
to be furnished, shewing the date of the last tuning of his
instrument. If he perpetrate false harmony, and his certificate be run
out, he is mulcted in the fine. Such a by-law would be a real bonus in
London.