American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1881-04-23
Among the Organ-G Grinders in Baxter
Street, New York.

| We passed through courts and alleys
where swarthy Neapolitans were cart
ing bales of rags, and up dark stairs
where women and children were sort
| ing them. Some of their homes were
low, dark rooms, neglected and squalid;
others were clean and picturesque.
with bright patchwork counterpanes on
the beds, rows of gay plates on shelves
against the walls, mantels and shelves
fringed with colored paper, red and
blue prints of the saints against the
white plaster, and a big nosegay of
lilacs on the dresser among the earthen
pots. Dogs and children were tum-
bling together on the thresholds just as
they do in. the cool corridors of nalian
towns. On the first floor of one of the
houses found an establishment for the
repairing of hand-organs, where
youth was hammering at the barrel of
one, and swarthy, black bearded man,
to whom it belonged, was lounging on
a bench near by. Against the smoke
blackened wall an armful of lilacs
stood in corner, filling the room with
sweetness, and leading naturally to the
thought that, with the spring and the
flowers, the organ-grinder prepares for
trip into the country, playing his way
from one watering place to another. ac-
companied, perhaps, by his family, or
at least q child or two. In answer to
an inquiry concerning monkeys, we
were objected to a large double house
opposite. said to- be inhabited entirely
by Neapolitans. who were swarming
about the windows in all their. brown
shapeliness.i In the hallway, above the
rickety outer stairs, lounged several
men with red shirts and unkempt heads
and faces. One of them was the pro-
prietor. of the monkey establishment.
and his fdrOuche manner disappeared
with our first words of interest in his
pets. He led us into the little room
adjoining, where some six or eight
half-grown monkeys were peering
through the bars of their cages, evil
IDENTIFY pleading to be let out. The
most creditably schooled monkey was
released first, handed his cap, made to
doff and don it, and shake hands, or
ders being issued both in Italian and
English. Some of the others small
brown things with bright eyes. and
not yet quite trained said the Nea-
politan-were allowed moments re-
screamed with Joy, and made for the
dish of soaked bread, dipping their
paws into it with great greediness.
while the Padrone laughed induigently.
A properly trained organ monkey is
worth from twenty to thirty dollars.
In the great house known to Baxter
Street as the :. Beehive" we found the
handsome padrond whose husband
rents organs and sells clocks, which lat
ter articles appear to be essentials to
Italian housekeeping. in default of the
many bells of the old country. The
padrona was at first by no means eager
to give information. as she supposed, in
good broad American (she was born in
New York;, that it Swould be put in
the papers, like it was before" 1t
would appear that the advantages OF
communication with the outer world
are not appreciated by the inhabitants
of Baxter Street. The pddrona finally
informed ME that the rent of an organ
was four dollars month, and that they
had hard work getting it out OF the peo-
pie who hired them, ''for they always
told YOU they had been sick, or times
were bad, or their children had been
sick; and when the Italians came over
they expected you to give them a room
with a carpet ami a clock, else they
said you had no kindness" l saw in
the cluster of eight houses that form
the Beehive various humble homes,
from the neat and graceful poverty
adorned with bright colorS, ana sweet
with the bunch of lilacs brought from
the mornings marketing 0he favorite
flower of the neighborhood), to the
dens of one room, in which three or
four families live, and take boarders
and dodgers into the bargain. They
told me that the building contained Il
thousand souls. and that cases of mala
rial fever were frequent, 1t is true that
the odors of Baxter Street are unhealthy
and unpleasant, arguing defective drain
age; but those of Venice are equally so,
and exist for the prince no less than the
beggar. As for overcrowding, no one
who for example, has spent a summer
in Genoa. and has seen the stream of
pallid, languid humanity pour out of the
tall old houses of the Carignano district,
,an find food for scnsatiOnalism in the
of life common to Baxter
Street. 1t must be remembered that
shc standard of prosperity in America
IS not that of Italy. and that man is
not necessarily destitute nor pauper
because he prefers organ-grinding or
to shoemaking or hod-
carrying. and likes macaroni cooked in
oil better than bakers bread and tough
meat. Charlotte Addms' im Harper's