Next come the German Bands. I had the following statement from a young flaxen-haired and fresh-coloured German, who spoke English very fairly:—
“I am German, and have been six year in zis country. I was nearly fourteen when I come. I come from Oberfeld, eighteen miles from Hanover. I come because I would like to see how it was here. I heard zat London was a goot place for foreign music. London is as goot a place as I expect to find him. There was other six come over with me, boys and men. We come to Hull, and play in ze country about half a year; we do middling. And zen we come to London. I didn’t make money at first when I come, I had much to learn; but ze band, oh! it did well. We was seven. I play ze clarionet, and so did two others; two play French horns, one ze trambone, and one ze saxhorn. Sometime we make 7s. or 8s. a-piece in a-day now, but the business is not so goot. I reckon 6s. a-day is goot now. We never play at fairs, nor for caravans. We play at private parties or public ball-rooms, and are paid so much a dance—sixpence a dance for ze seven of us. If zare is many dances, it is goot; if not, it is bad. We play sheaper zan ze English, and we don’t spent so much. Ze English players insult us, but we don’t care about that. Zey abuse us for playing sheap. I don’t know what zair terms for dances are. I have saved money in zis country, but very little of it. I want to save enough to take me back to Hanover. We all live togeder, ze seven of us. We have three rooms to sleep in, and one to eat in. We are all single men, but one; and his wife, a German woman, lives wis us, and cooks for us. She and her husband have a bedroom to themselves. Anysing does for us to eat. We all join in housekeeping and lodging, and pay alike. Our lodging costs 2s. a-week each, our board costs us about 15s. a-week each; sometime rather less. But zat include beer; and ze London beer is very goot, and sometime we drink a goot deal of it. We drink very little gin, but we live very well, and have goot meals every day. We play in ze streets, and I zink most places are alike to us. Ladies and gentlemen are our best friends; ze working people give us very little. We play opera tunes chiefly. We don’t associate with any Englishmen. Zare are three public-houses kept by Germans, where we Germans meet. Sugar-bakers and other trades are of ze number. There are now five German brass-bands, with thirty-seven performers in zem, reckoning our own, in London. Our band lives near Whitechapel. I sink zare is one or two more German bands in ze country. I sink my countrymen, some of them, save money; but I have not saved much yet.”
Of the Bagpipe Players.
A well-looking young man, dressed in full Highland costume, with modest manners and of slow speech, as if translating his words from the Gaelic before he uttered them, gave me these details:—
“I am a native of Inverness, and a Grant. My father was a soldier, and a player in the 42nd. In my youth I was shepherd in the hills, until my father was unable to support me any longer. He had 9d. a-day pension for seventeen years’ service, and had been thrice wounded. He taught me and my brither the pipes; he was too poor to have us taught any trade, so we started on our own accounts. We travelled up to London, had only our pipes to depend upon. We came in full Highland dress. The tartan is cheap there, and we mak it up oursels. My dress as I sit here, without my pipes, would cost about 4l. in London. Our mithers spin the tartan in Inverness-shire, and the dress comes to maybe 30s., and is better than the London. My pipes cost me three guineas new. It’s between five and six years since I first came to London, and I was twenty-four last November. When I started, I thought of making a fortune in London; there was such great talk of it in Inverness-shire, as a fine place with plenty of money; but when I came I found the difference. I was rather a novelty at first, and did pretty well. I could make 1l. a-week then, but now I can’t make 2s. a-day, not even in summer. There are so many Irishmen going about London, and dressed as Scotch Highlanders, that I really think I could do better as a piper even in Scotland. A Scotch family will sometimes give me a shilling or two when they find out I am a Scotchman. Chelsea is my best place, where there are many Scotchmen. There are now only five real Scotch Highlanders playing the bagpipes in the streets of London, and seven or eight Irishmen that I know of. The Irishmen do better than I do, because they have more face. We have our own rooms. I pay 4s. a-week for an empty room, and have my ain furniture. We are all married men, and have no connexion with any other street musicians. ‘Tullochgorum,’ ‘Moneymusk,’ ‘The Campbells are comin’,’ and ‘Lord Macdonald’s Reel,’ are among the performances best liked in London. I’m very seldom insulted in the streets, and then mostly by being called an Irishman, which I don’t like; but I pass it off just as well as I can.”
Scotch Piper and Dancing-Girl.
“I was full corporal in the 93rd Southern Highlanders, and I can get the best of characters from my commanding officers. If I couldn’t get a good character I wouldn’t be orderly to the colonel; and wherever he and the lady went, I was sure to be with them. Although I used to wear the colonel’s livery, yet I had the full corporal’s stripes on my coat. I was first orderly to Colonel Sparkes of the 93rd. He belonged to Dublin, and he was the best colonel that ever belonged to a regiment. After he died I was orderly to Colonel Aynsley. This shows I must have been a good man, and have a good character. Colonel Aynsley was a good friend to me, and he always gave me my clothes, like his other private servants. The orderly’s post is a good one, and much sought after, for it exempts you from regimental duty. Colonel Aynsley was a severe man on duty, but he was a good colonel after all. If he wasn’t to be a severe man he wouldn’t be able to discharge the post he had to discharge. Off duty he was as kind as anybody could be. There was no man he hated more than a dirty soldier. He wouldn’t muddle a man for being drunk, not a quarter so much as for dirty clothing. I was reckoned the cleanest soldier in the regiment; for if I was out in a shower of rain, I’d polish up my brass and pipeclay my belt, to make it look clean again. Besides, I was very supple and active, and many’s the time Colonel Aynsley has sent me on a message, and I have been there and back, and when I’ve met him he’s scolded me for not having gone, for I was back so quick he thought I hadn’t started.
“Whilst I was in the regiment I was attacked with blindness; brought on, I think, by cold. There was a deserter, that the policemen took up and brought to our barracks at Weedon, where the 93rd was stationed in 1852. It was very wet weather, and he was brought in without a stitch on him, in a pair of breeches and a miserable shirt—that’s all. He was away two years, but he was always much liked. No deserters ever escape. We made a kit up for this man in less than twenty minutes. One gave him a kilt, another a coat, and I gave him the shoes off my feet, and then went to the regiment stores and got me another pair. Soldiers always help one another; it’s their duty to such a poor, miserable wretch as he was.
“This deserter was tried by court-martial, and he got thirty-one days in prison, and hard labour. He’d have had three months, only he gave himself up. He was so weak with lying out, that the doctor wouldn’t let him be flogged. He’d have had sixty lashes if he’d been strong. Ah! sixty is nothing. I’ve seen one hundred and fifty given. When this man was marched off to Warwick gaol I commanded the escort, and it was a very severe day’s rain that day, for it kept on from six in the morning till twelve at night. It was a twenty-one miles’ march; and we started at six in the morning, and arrived at Warwick by four in the afternoon. The prisoner was made to march the distance in the same clothes as when he gave himself up. He had only a shirt and waistcoat on his back, and that got so wet, I took off my greatcoat and gave it to him to wear to warm him. They wouldn’t let him have the kit of clothes made up for him by the regiment till he came out of prison. From giving him my greatcoat I caught a severe cold. I stood up by a public-house fire and dried my coat and kilt, and the cold flew to the small of my back. After we had delivered our prisoner at Warwick we walked on to Coventry—that’s ten miles more. We did thirty-one miles that day in the rain. After we got back to barracks I was clapped in hospital. I was there twenty-one days. The doctor told me I shouldn’t leave it for twenty-eight days, but I left it in twenty-one, for I didn’t like to be in that same place. My eyes got very blood-shot, and I lost the sight of them. I was very much afraid that I’d never see a sight with my eyes, and I was most miserable. I used to be, too, all of a tremble with a shiver of cold. I only stopped in the regiment for thirty-one days after I came out of hospital, and then I had my discharge. I could just see a little. It was my own fault that I had my discharge, for I thought I could do better to cure myself by going to the country doctors. The men subscribed for me all the extra money of their pay,—that’s about 4d. each man,—and it made me up 10l. When I told Colonel Aynsley of this, says he, ‘Upon my word, M‘Gregor, I’m as proud of it as if I had 20,000l.’ He gave me a sovereign out of his own pocket. Besides that, I had as many kilts given me as have lasted me up to this time. My boy is wearing the last of ’em now.
“At Oxford I went to a doctor, and he did me a deal of good; for now I can read a book, if the thread of it isn’t too small. I can read the Prayer-book, or Bible, or newspaper, just for four hours, and then I go dim.