Evening star., 1897-01-23

From this barrel organist The Star man
| learned that there are on an average some
Thing like seventy members of his profess
sion securing the streets of Washington all
the year round. Here the organ grinders
! are not banded around from pillar to post,
as they are in New York and some other
| cities, where their hours of labor are much
more contracted by city ordinances than
| they are here, and where the organ-grind-
ers license fee costs more than 1t does in
| Washington, and is taken away by the po-
| lice upon very slight provocation.
Dividing the Territory.
Wonder is often expressed at the appar-
| ent lack of territorial conflicts between the
| hand-organ men. The Star man ascer-
| tanned, upon inquiry, that this is due to the
| system, acquieseed in by all of the street
musicians, of blocking the city out i'm dis
tricts, each district to be worked by one of
the grinders for from one to three weeks,
according to its size and comparative
proitabieness. Being the merest wayfay-
ers, journeymen of an indefinable type,
there is, of course, no organization among
the organ grinders for the enforcement OF
| rules. The rules are unwritten, but they
are as ri9idly adhered to If they were
deliberately engrossed, and among the most
rigid of these rules is, first, the principle
that man shall occupy a city dis
trict of known richness for too long
time, and, second, the principle that while
he is thus occupying II for what is simply
considered a reasonable period, his terri
tory is not to be infringed upon. While
there is no national association of organ
grinders, every one of these hand-organ
men belongs to one Of the three mysterious
sec' ct societies Of Italy, and for this reason
tn " all amenable to discipline.
When a new hand-organ man comes 20
Washington he gets himself into communi
cation, before beginning business, with the
grinders who have preceded him. and by
these he is practically assigned a territory.
This territory may be thinly settled and
unremunerduve, but the new man never
declines to work it. He knows that. in
striking a new city, he must begin at the
bottom, and gain the choice districts only
by seniority. People who observe the char
aCteristicS of hand-organ men will occa-
sionally hear the strains of two or even
three hand organs in front of their houses
within short period, one following rapidly
upon the heels of the other. Such cases
are not frequent, however, and are due to
the ignorance of the new arrivals In the
city as to the geographical limits of the
districts assigned by general consent of
their fellows, and not to intentional in
fringement.
Beginning the Days Work.
Most Of the hand-organ men who work
the northwestern section of the city start
out in the morning from 14th street. all the
way from F street to Thomas circle Four
teenth street is the dividing line, and from
1t they radiate in all directions, getting
are on l4th street at 7:30 or 8 O'Clock in the
morning will often see many of the grind
ers at work in the streets branching from
I4th, and the street players are often so
close together at this time Of day that
their music clashes. This sort of thing
lasts but a short time, however, for with
each move onward they become more and
mere separated. The grinders who work
Capitol Hill assemble, the greater number
OF them. near the Congressional Hotel
about o'clock In the morning, and diyerre
from that point.
Success in Variety.
The barrel-organ man has got to have a
good instrument that plays both thorough
ly up-tc-date ballad music and classic mu-
sic besides In order to succeed in Wash
ington. The people who delve into their
pockets to give the barrel organ maestro a
prsh along toward prosperity want a soup
con of the imbecile and the noble in street
McCluskey," my Mother Was a Lady
and then the bridal chorus from "Lohen-
grin and the quartet aria from "RIgo-
letto.' II the barrel organists stick to
music exclusively they find that their re-
ceipts fall of. 1t is variety the public
wants tsaid The Star mans particular or |
gan grinder, with a shrug), and variety the |
pubic gets. 1t Is for this reason that there
Is such a weird mixture Of Wagner and 81.
Saens and maudlin Bowery ballads pent up |
in modern barrel organs.
A Good Days Work. |
In Washington the barrel organists pick |
up all the way from 81 to SO day. A
curious fact is that in a city like New York |
the organ grinder depends for his income |
almost entirely upon the quite poor people |
who live amid the squalid surroundings of |
the East Side. and gets little or nothing /
from the houses where live the middle class /
rich and the aristocratio wealthy, while il 1
is quite the reverse in Washington. The 1
wealthiest people in the national capital |
are confirmed patrons OF the organ grinder. |
whereas the poor contribute hardly any /
thing to the fund he is accommodating for !
sunny days and chianti on the quays OF /
Naples and Genoa Washington's most