STREET MUSIC.
To the Editor of The Times.
“SIR,—Whether street music in London ought to be put down or not, I, living in the country, am not concerned to answer. I suppose it is a question, like smoking, on which the public will always be divided; but as the law on the subject is so clear and simple, I am surprised how legislators and justices can be puzzled about it.
“Every public road or street belongs to the Sovereign, as embodying the nation, and is accordingly called the King’s or Queen’s highway. The interest of each individual is limited to a right of passing and repassing over such highway, and he is no more entitled to use it for business or amusement than he is to build upon it or dig for ore beneath its surface. {359} Hence the keeping of stalls for sale is illegal, and, though often winked at, is sometimes denounced and punished. Hence, the police are justified in desiring you to ‘move on,’ if you loiter, in looking at a shop window or conversing with a friend, so as to bar the progress of passengers. A fortiori, a band of musicians has no locus standi on the ground.
“There is, in my neighbourhood, a right of way over a gentleman’s park. But I have only the privilege of passage, and none of remaining on the path for the purpose of reading, sketching, or playing the violin.
“I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
“AN OLD LAWYER.”
At most, the tolerance of noisy occupants of the streets, such as organ-grinders, German bands, et hoc genus omne, is on sufferance only, and neither the municipal law nor common sense justifies the invasion or curtailment of a man’s liberty to use his brain, and exert his mental energies as the occasion may require; and that, too, even within the very recesses of the “Englishman’s castle.”
With respect to the remedies against street music, I am not at all sanguine. The only one which is certain is, positively to forbid it in all cases, and with it also that varied multitude of vocal noises made by persons parading the streets singing, relating tales, praying, offering trifling articles for sale, &c., all of them with the transparent object of begging.
In all these cases which admit of it, the police ought to be directed to take possession of the offensive instrument and convey it to the police-court, there to await the decision of the magistrate.