It was “much reflecting” over these things, as my Lord Brougham says, that I sauntered along the Riviera from Genoa, and came to the little town of Chiavari, with its long sweep of yellow beach in front and its glorious grove of orange-trees behind—sure, whether the breeze came from land or sea, to inhale health and perfume. There is a wide old Piazza in the centre of the town, with a strange, dreary sort of inn with a low-arched entrance, under whose shade sit certain dignitaries of the place of an evening, sipping their coffee and talking over what they imagine to be the last news of the day. From these “Conscript Fathers” I learned that Chiavari is the native place of the barrel-organ, that from this little town go forth to all the dwellers in remotest lands the grinders of the many-cylindered torment, the persecutor of the prose-writer, the curse of him who calculates. Just as the valleys of Savoy supply white-mice men, and Lucca produces image-carriers, so does Chiavari yield its special product, the organ-grinder. Other towns, in their ambitions, have attempted the “industry,” but they have egregiously failed; and Chiavari remains as distinctive in its product as Spitalfields for its shawls, or Dresden for its china. Whether there may be some peculiarity in the biceps of the Chiavarian, or some ulnar development which imparts power to his performance, I know not. I am forced to own that I have failed to discover to what circumstance or from what quality this excellence is derivable; but there is the fact, warranted and confirmed by a statistical return, that but for Chiavari we should have no barrel-organs.
“Never imagine,” said a wise prelate, “that you will root Popery out of England till you destroy Oxford. If you want to get rid of the crows, you must pull down the rookery.” The words of wisdom flashed suddenly over my mind as I walked across the silent Piazza at midnight; and I exclaimed—“Yes! here is the true remedy for the evil. With two hours of a gunboat and four small Armstrongs the thing is done; batter down Chiavari, and Bab-bage will bless you with his last breath. Pull down the cookery, and crush the young rooks in the ruins. Smash the cradle and the babe within it, and you need not fear the man!”
There is a grand justice in the conception that is highly elevating. There is something eminently fine in making Chiavari, like the Cities of the Plain, a monument over its own iniquity. Leave not one stone upon another of it, and there will be peace in our homes and stillness in our streets. No more shall the black-bearded tormentor terrorise over Baker Street, or lord it in the Edgeware Road.
Commander Snort of the Sneezer will in a brief forenoon emancipate not only Europe and America, but the dweller beyond Jordan and the inhabitant of the diggings by Bendigo. Lay Chiavari in ashes, and you will no longer need Inspector D, nor ask aid from the head-office. Here is what the age especially worships, a remedy combining cheapness with efficiency. It may be said that we have no more right to destroy Chiavari than Kagosima, but that question is at least debatable. Are not the headaches of tens of thousands of more avail than the head of one? What becomes of that noble principle, the greatest happiness of the greatest number? The Italians, too, might object: true, but they are neither Americans nor French. They come into the category of states that may be bullied. The countries which have an extended seaboard and weak naval armaments are like people with a large glass frontage and no shutters. There is nothing to prevent us shying a stone at the Italian window as we pass up to Constantinople, even though we run away afterwards. I repeat, therefore, the plan is feasible. As to its cheapness, it would not cost a tithe of what we spent in destroying the tea-tray fortifications of Satsuma; and as we have a classic turn for monuments, a pyramid of barrel-organs in Charing Cross might record to a late posterity the capture of Chiavari.
I am not without a certain sort of self-reproach in all this. I feel it is a weakness perhaps, but I feel that we are all of us too hard on these organ fellows—for, after all, are they not, in a certain sense, the type and embodiment of our age? Is not repetition, reiteration, our boldest characteristic? Is there, I ask, such a “Grind” in the world as Locke King, and his motion for Reform? What do you say to “Rest and be thankful,” and, above all, what to the “Peace-at-any-price people”?
Is ‘Cherry ripe’ more wearisome than these? Would all Chiavari assembled on Wimbledon make up a drearier discord than a ministerial explanation? In all your experience of bad music, do you know anything to equal a Foreign Office despatch? and we are without a remedy against these. Bring up John Bright to-morrow for incessantly annoying the neighbourhood of Birmingham, by insane accusations against his own country and laudations of America, and I doubt if you could find a magistrate on the bench to commit him; and will you tell me that the droning whine of ‘Garibaldi’s March’ is worse than this? As to the Civis Romanus cant, it is too painful to dwell on, now that we are derided, ridiculed, and sneered at from Stockholm to Stamboul. Like Canning’s philanthropist, we have been asking every one for his story; never was there a soul so full of sympathy for sorrow. We have heard the tale of Italy, the sufferings of the Confederates, the crying wrongs of Poland, and the still more cruel, because less provoked, trials of Denmark. We have thrown up hands and eyes—sighed, groaned, wept; we have even denounced the ill-doers, and said, What a terrible retribution awaited them! but, like our great prototype, when asked for assistance, we have said,
“I’ll see you ——— first.”
Let us be merciful, therefore, and think twice before we batter down Chiavari. The organ nuisance is a bore, no doubt; but what are the most droning ditties that ever addled a weary head, compared to the tiresome grind of British moral assistance, and the greatness of that Civis Romanus who hugs his own importance and helps nobody?