One Man can take a Horse to Water, but Ten can't make him Jump.
THE SOUNDS OF THE STREETS.
Mr. Punch's Special Nuisance Commissioner continued yesterday afternoon this adjourned inquiry, which, having now arrived at the stage of dealing with "street-music," at present attracting so much public notice, invested the proceedings with an unusual amount of interest.
The Commissioner, on taking his seat, said that, since they last met, he had been rather puzzling himself with the distinction that might be drawn between a "particular" and a "general" or a "pretty general" nuisance, and he had come to the conclusion that he much doubted whether this latter kind had any definite existence, as there were always to be found disagreeable people, themselves the most intolerable nuisances, ready to support and encourage anything that might prove a source of annoyance or even distraction to their more rational neighbours. It was by these growling and cantankerous philanthropists that German "Bands of Three," or even damaged bagpipes, were invited by halfpence to make hideous noises in quiet back-streets. He merely offered these remarks for what they were worth, in passing, and he would now proceed to listen to such fresh evidence as might be forthcoming.
A Nervous Invalid (who was led in tottering, and immediately supplied with a chair, into which he sank in an exhausted condition) said, in a feeble voice, that his present shattered state he attributed solely to the never-ceasing strain to which his nerves had been subjected by the continuous Babel of street-noises that invaded the suburban quarter in which he had been induced to take up his residence in the belief that he was ensuring himself a quiet and snug retreat. (Sensation.) From the moment when he was roused from his slumbers in the early morning by Sweeps who came to attend to somebody else's chimneys—(cries of "Shame!")—to a late hour, frequently close on eleven at night, when a loud-lunged urchin bawled out a false alarm of a local murder in the "latest edition," his whole life was one continual contest with organs, with or without monkeys or babies, shouting fern-vendors, brass bands, broken-winded concertinas, Italian brigands, choruses of family beggars, tearing milk-carts, itinerant twilight ballad-singers, and other disturbers of the public peace. (Groans.) And the result, from the series of shocks his system had now been continually sustaining for several years, was the condition to which the Commissioner could see he had been reduced, which he could only characterise as that of one who, once blithe, gay, happy, and active, was now a complete physical and mental wreck, to whom, if he could see no prospect of coming relief, the gloom of life appeared to stretch away as a vast wilderness, with a prospect of such overwhelming depression, that he could only conclude his evidence with the significant but heartrending warning that he could face it no longer! The Witness here fairly broke down, and, bursting into a hysterical fit of weeping, had to be led from the room by a bevy of sympathising friends.
The Commissioner (much moved). Dear me! this is very distressing! Can the Police be of no use? (A Voice. "Not the slightest!") Indeed! Ah! that's very awkward. However, we had better proceed with the evidence. Is there anyone to be heard on the other side?
A Big Drum of the Salvation Army hereupon said he had something to say.