Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1891-01-04

been remarked that they blow with par
| tiCular gt1sto when IL was plain they were
affecting sensitive ears or decorating high
ly-strung nerves. The enjoyment Of hn-
man suffering Is particularly keen, In the
small boy, who cannot be said really TO be
ENJOYING himself unless he, Is INJECTING
suffering upon some sentient creature
Of his own species or of some
other. The hobbledehoy may not have
outgrown this vicious boyish taste. But
this depravity Is commonly outgrown by
the age OF twenty-five. and among the
blowers of tin last night might be noted q
considerable number Of bearded men who
had far overpassed this limit. Nay, there
might have been seen among the prone
naders Of the streets the truly revolving
spectacle of women. under escort, and APP
parently otherwise respectable, who did
not scruple TO put tin horns to their lips
and emit ear-piercing blasts through the
same.
DrABoL1cAL.
1t is needless TO say that this concert Of
dissonance was an unmitigated nuisance to
everybody within earshot of it except the
performers, and that it would have been q
nuisance TO the performers themselves had
they been suddenly deprived of their
horns. 1t is pretty clear that the enjoy
ment of the performers proceeded from
misanthropy. Lander has observed that
"sweet Is the song though none there be to hear
Besides the singer"
but nobody can imagine the untortured
tooter of tin horn "whooping up" his
diabolical instrument in the midst or a
vast solitude. The humble learner of the
oboe and the beginner who gropes after
the proper notes of tho cornet inflict much
anguish on their unwilling hearers, driving
them in the one case to hopeless detection
and in the other to futile rage. But these
students are not necessarily haters of their
kind. The annoyance 10 incidental TO the
attainment of an earnest and more or less
laudable purpose.
The horner, on the other hand. has at
tanned his final goal when he has diiiused
wretchedness to the limits of the area of
audibilty of his instrument. The number
of horners is undoubtedly less than the
number of victims, though at midnight
| last night it did not seem so. Why should
| they be allowed to turn "a city into n PAN
demonium on the night of Thanksgiving
day and the eve of the new year, when
they would be promptly suppressed by the
police if they operated their internal ma
chimes on any other night!
MELANCHOLY IMPEACHMENT.
Really, the prevalence Of the tin-hoi is
ulclhuCHOAy hllh cuPSiAuVu'
ment of our national capacity for deyising
more rational means of testifying joy. In
fact. we are about the worst holiday
| makers in the world, and it is because
we have no organized and appropri-
alto observances that these inappropri-
ate and outrageous methods have
sprung up. Tho Fourth of July is
given over by a general and fabulous
| consent to tho use of explosives, but he
who abhors the sound OF them can grid up
his loins and flee unto the mountains or
| the seaside. But on New Years eve there
is no more attractive place than the city to
| 90 to, and this is an additional reason why
| the tin horn should be suppressed.
It is nuisance of recent origin,
and therein it differs from the
fire-cracker, whereof the memory
of man runneth not to the contrary
! Moreover, the fre-cracker Is fondly
| imagined to keep alive the flame Of pa
| trIotism, in addition to the many other
CONGREGATIONS to which it gives rise. No
sueh excuse can be pleaded in mitigation
| of thu horrors of the horn. and there is no
reason why 1t should not be RENTED to its
proper junction Of summoning sgricultu-
| rists to dinner.