Year: 1859

The following report, from the Joint Stand
ing Committee on the Police and Jail, was
submitted to the two Branches of the City Coun-
Gil yesterday afternoon. The Committee con-
sists of Messrs. Wood, Beale and Glanville of
the First Branch, and Messrs. McComas Van
Nostrand and Musselman, of the Second Branch,
but in the preparation of the report the Committee
solicited and enjoyed the assistance, it is said of
the Door-keeper of the Second Branch.


The Joint Standing Committee on Police and
Jail to whom was referred the resolution proposing
an enquiry "into the propriety of Introducing an
ordinance to prohibit the practice now so freely
lndulged in by that class of musicians known as
Organ Grinders, of making their music in front of
hotels and on the public streets and lanes of the
city, peg leave to report that they have devoted
to the subject large degree of that deep study and
earnest reflection which the gravity and import
ance of the occasion demands.


They regret that they are obliged, from every
consideration, to report unfavoraby upon the reso-
luton proposed. They find that the passage of a
prohibitory ordinance would be attended with
grevous consequences to the great mass of our COM
munity and that 1t would strike a deadly blow at
the dearest privileges of the people. When it is re-
membered how the Troubsdors and other strolling
musicians have been sanctioned by long antiquity
and that they are reckoned among the few classical
institutions OF Europe, which our broadest
American Republicanism should not disturb we are
prompted to consderate hesitation before striking
at so venerable and cherished feature of our time,
honored regard. The greatest Poet and thinker
who ever sung in our own vernacular-the immor-
tai Shakespeare-has truly said, that


"Music hath charms, to soothe the
Savage breast,' &c.


The truth of these beautiful words has never
yet been questioned, and we think they offer a
crushing argument against the bill, for if music
should but secure tthe of these effects it would
behoove us to encourage its development in all the
varied forms of which it is susceptible We eshould
at least, endeavor to secure the good influence of
this wide-spreading benefcence among those who
can only be brought under it by means of the Sa-
voyards, who, regardless of heat and cold of wind
and storm, bring daily to our doors the sweet mel
odies that lull the wearied soul to peaceful and
pleasant rest. How many vicious and stubborn
| hearts have been turned from misery and violence
| by the soothing effects of music! How manv deeds
| of wrong have been arrested by the good influence
of the airs breathed from the humblest organ that
the wearied hands of the poor itinerant have car
ried to the home of degradation! Since the days
when David and Orpheus, the early itinerant musi-
| clans, charmed the people, and even the objects
| of inanimate nature, by their dulcet strains the
great heart OF humanity has lost none of its keen
ness in the enjoyment of the sweet emotions and
memory which music always inspires and in
yokes.


No man-your Committee believes-who has ever
watched the sea of delightful faces, amid which
the monarch of the organ has sent forth his mel
odies in some thronged neighborhood, can but
have realized the immense qualification that at
tends his approach, and the sad deprivation which
his summary prohibition would indubitably en-
! sure.