Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-23
HAND-0RGAN BANDITS


I've often heard and read stories about
the way the street musicians, especially
the barrel-organ Sicilians. apportion the
territory of city into districts, with
view to preventing 'conf1iction OF inter-
! ests,' as we folks in high finance phrase
it" remarked a man who boards on K
street, but I've been rather tempted to
doubt those stories during the past week
or so. If the peripatetic instrument-tor-
turers really do divide Washington into
parcels. then 1t must be that the rag ends
of whole lot Of the parcels converge at
the corner where stands the house In which
board and room, for I never saw or
heard OF 40 many tune-tormentors In my
life before as have been rendering that
corner hideous. from along toward DUSK
until close on to 8 o'clock, during the past
ten days or so. Maybe It's because Il
street Is distinctively a terraced or 'front.'
yard street, with everybody sitting on the
steps or lawns for the air after dinner.
that it's so tremendously in the favor of
the desecrators of the sacred SHRINE OF
music. Anyway. there are enough or them
terrifying the evening air every twilight
around the place where I live to make me
a little skeptical as to their division-of-ter-
| ritory scheme that I've heard so much
| about.
Here was situation that those Of us
SittiHS On LIS lawn VI Jul DOoAo Ah5 ASNSS
had to stand for the other evening"
THE young woman with the pongee dress
| and the big black bow in the back or her
| hair, who irradiates the house next door
| to us. was doing things on the piano to
| 'Salome' that would have made the COM
| poser Of that piece grit all OF the enamel
| on his teeth had he been forced TO listen
to 1t. Directly in front OF our house an
Etruscan brigand was yanking On Sun
day Afternoon in jerks. out OF a street
piano that. for enthusiasm and earnest
ness Of purpose, had any circus calnope
| that ever heard skinned to frazzle. In
| front of the house four doors up three ga
zelle-eyed mendicants from the maritime
| Alps, two Of them fiddlers and the other
an alleged harpist-One of the um-tum-tum
kind as they all are-was slaqgnterlng the an
manner that would have caused Mas
cagni, had he been compelled to hearken
| unto it. to conclude that his tour of the
United States last year was. by compari-
son, one long delirious whirl of bliss. And.
right catty-corner from our house. there
| was an aged Neapolitan with an old-time
hand-organ and a pathetic-looking monkey,
the hand-organ droning out what was
supposed to be the Grand March from
Norma. Now, II that wasn't combina-
ton framed up to make any normal man
feel like goin' f1shin'. then I've got to think
1t over and guess again.
They can snag quite little cnanee
from fellows pocket in the course OF
an evening out on iaWn oencn' can these
grinning, leering. obsequious disturbers OF
the gloaming's serenity. No less than
fourteen musical outfits of one kind or
another stopped in front of our house be-
tween quarter past six ana haI-past
eight one evening last week. and they
| walked boldly into the yard and ratified
the bonnet under the noses OF all OF the
men who were trying to get little air.
I never make the dig for these people.
whom I consider worse than oeggars IN
that they bestow nothing but afhiction
upon their almoners. without an inward
protest. The gall of them in calmly as
Stunning that l and my companions on a
lawn are shch mullet-h heads and so tgnor-
ant and thdck-skulled as to be really appre-
ciative Of their tmusic'-sufficiently appre-
ciative Of it. that is to say, as to make us
want to pay out sure-enough money TO the
makers of it's q thing that puts me more
or less on edge when / get to thinking
about 1t.
1.-THE other evening, for example, there
happened to be six or seven OF the men or
the house where I live on the lawn to-
gether-the' women had all gone into the
house to get their toys on for a car ride.
A fat-jowled Umbrian. the horrible sounds
Of whose brutal street plano we had heard
while 1t was yet about five blocks away,
| stopped his machine in front Of our house,
after regarding us tnQutrtngly.
"'G'want every last one Of US bawled at
him in unison. as by a single impulse. and
the Dago more than hot-footed for 1t to the
| next block. az-e
Zee WOz, pbt lildl ufu kOOuI VIC
all said to one another as we regarded each
other grinning1y, and then every last man
on the lawn admitted that he'd been ham
kering for long time to get chance to
give a street musician the chase, and they
all sheepishly admitted, being frank chaps,
that they hated and despised the alien gang
of itinerant music butchers. and that the
only reason why they ever coughed up for
them was because-just as in my case
they didn't want the women to get 1t into
hot thoxy In, he
distribution of their chicken-feed change.
And just to illustrate how one woman
can hold up a whole bunch of men. few
evenings later on four or five Of the men
were sitting out on the lawn, the only
woman holding down a lawn chair being a
sedate grass widow with a pair of eyes
| that she knows how to hurl a whole lot Of
| sadness into. as Of a lady who has been
sadly misunderstood and abused, when she
wants to. Well, another Of the street piano
pirates came along. He saw the whitehead
grass widow and us four or five trousered
yaps on the lawn. and Of course he knew
| right away that we were his'n.
But one Of the men happened to feel
| Just a teenchy little bit Independent that
evening and he muttered faint and feeble
'G'wan to the leering Dago.
"'Oh. don't send him away, pleased ex-
claimed the pretty grass widow. That's
pretty air from William TelI-such a love-
| iy air, don't you think? and she gazed
around at all Of US in mellow rapture.
"'Well, start her a-going, then, Nike"
| said the man.. sheepishly enough, who had
attempted to wave the Dago along.
."rhus. you observe the mendicant had a
special invitation, and he went through the
entire repertoire. including the William
| Tell thing twice. Then, at the wind-up he
came into the yard with the confident swing
of a garlic-chewing lout who Is pretty GER
| tain that there is going to be something do
| ing. The smallest had in my clothes was
| a two-bit piece. Well I couldn't lose out
! in the good graces of that sedate grass
| widow, and into the greasy cap the quarter
went-three pretty fair smokes ruthlessly
sacrificed on the altar Of imbecile mascu-
| line vanity"
THE CURVED BALL.