The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-03-26
Organ Grinders Of London.

VI Ii1O OfSdu-Sf1uleT- Mucn LulSuu
derstood by the public in general, and
receives far more sympathy than it de-
serves. Whoever wants to know its men,
bers as they really are should study
them at home, and about Saffron-hill,
and in their own lodging-houses. The
latter. as rule, are kept by the greatest
rascals of the whole, which is a strong
assertion, for could hardly name cali
ing in which low-lived rascality more
predominates. Fighting and stealing are
incessant among them, and much more
stabbing than the world gives them
credit for. Indeed, I am disposed to
think that not a few Of the bodies found
in the Thames are deposited there by
these unpleasant immigrants. I know
that common practice-the commonest
of practices them is subordina-
ton of perjury in civil and criminal
cases, have it on good authority-that
of the agent principally employed in
getting the thing up. This mana typi-
cal parsonage in all respects, and q Lon
don notability besides-used to be very
well known, especially to the cabmen in
and about Leicester square, up to quite
career was remarkable. An italian Jour-
nalist-a soldier of Novara, Red Re-
publican, and an intense priest-hater-
one who, staying his man in the streets
of Milan Ia deed for which he was SEN
fenced to death en- contumace), fed for
ever from Italy to take up his residence
in London. Here he spent many years
as the keeper of a notorious haunt near
the Haymarket, to sink, in the end, to
what he was when I saw him-the agent
of the rascality of all sorts of low for
eigners. He was hand-and-glove with
all, no matter what their nationality.
And, as was very we'll known, he was a
police spy among the rest.
He used to be singular object as he
stood waiting for his clients at the north
west angle Of the square, with his gray
hair, tall, robust figure, and rags, every
one of which was bidding good day to
the other. No man was in more request
among his compatriots, and none knew
them better or mistrusted them more.
On no account would he spend night
among them, but preferred rather to
consort with English rogues in one or
the other of the numerous common
lodging houses thronged by them, and to
put up with all the insult and annoyance
such people delight to heap on the hum
BILE foreigner. have listened by the
style, story after story of the ways in
which English justice may be baffied and
foreign rascals rescued from it's clutches
through the agency of such people as
himself, and saw more of the low class
Italians in England than most people be-
yond the circle to which he belongs. But
to return to the organ-grinder. Cooking
and eating being finished for the day in
one of the lodging houses, the kitchen is
cleared, and two or three of the frater
nifty are seated in the chimney corner
with their instruments before them.
Then as many girls as possible of the
neighborhood-all being under 16-are
enticed to enter, under the pretense of
dancing. Here they are rapidly contain
mated in every way. Some of them are
transferred to the Continent for the basest
uses Others are degraded into organ
girls, position in which they are the
most miserable slaves imaginable. The
girls master exacts an exorbitant
fee for the use of each instru-
ment, every deficiency being writ
ten down as debt against
the defaulter, She is also brought in a
debtor for most of her food, and good
deal of her lodging, and there is album
dance of harsh treatment besides. FL
nally, the tawdry rags in which she goes
about the streets IN the course of her
calling, and which form her only cloth
ing, belong to the padroni. Thus she
cannot quit the trade without running
the risk of being given into custody for
stealing the clothes she wears.
The organ man occasionally hits on
shrewd device for enhancing his perform
ances, as thus: Once upon time saw
fr,rr he I, fho of
his instrument perfectly empty of the
usual 1sound-creating machinery. Never
theless, he perambulated in the usual
manner, pausing awhile at every door,
and turning his organ handle as assidu
ously as if he were eliciting the sweetest
sounds. He was never known to utter
word, but every now and again he would
open the case and direct attention to its
empty state, When asked for particu-
lar air, no matter what, he would bow
with the greatest gravity and change the
motion of the handle to suit the measure
demanded. Nothing could be more ridi-
culous. At first people took the man for
a lunatic, and laughed without measure
at his freak But, as he continued his
promenade day after day with the same
impertu bable business-like demeanor,
they began to think that there must be
more in the matter than met the eye;
and curiosity being thus excited, just the
right sort of story to be greedily swal
lowed was put in circulation. 1t ran
that upon the man of the empty barrel
organ it had been imposed by the lady OF
his love, as suitable test of affection,
that he should parade for certain pc
riod in this fashion, and collect specl-
fed sum before she would give him her
hand. The story, of course, was fabri-
cation, but I can answer for one thing,
that no organ grinder, before or since,
ever collected as much money as that
one. Akin to the foregoing trick was
that of pair of Connaught reapers,
whom the close of the English harvest
found some hundreds of miles from Liv-
erpool-their favorite, because cheapest,
port of embarkatiOn for home. Old
hands at the business, they had been ac-
customed to make their way to Liverpool
without spending farthing of their earn
1ngs, by dint of cadging. On this last
occasion, however, they conceived the
bright idea of passing themselves off for
a pair of South Ses Islanders The clev-
erer of the two, pretending to have
learned very little broken English dur
ing his voyage, contrived-in broken Ian
6uz Is much eked out by signs-to make
people understand that himself and his