"Then, why on earth don't you go into a forest and make your infernal row there, instead of disturbing a whole street with your noise?" said Leech.
There is no doubt that hyper-sensitiveness to noises troubled Leech "from his youth up," for we find in comparatively early drawings in Punch examples of the nuisances created by the fish-hawkers, and the sellers of the great variety of things that nobody wants, at the different seaside places where he took his so-called holidays. He was naturally hard upon the encouragers of these pests. There is an inimitable sketch of an old lady who has called an organ-grinder into her parlour. The man, a perfect type of the Italian performer, grinds away at his instrument, the old woman snaps her fingers and kicks up her heels in mad delight; her parrot screams, and her dog howls an accompaniment. Cake and wine are on the table, and there is a stuffed cat in a glass case on the wall. The drawing is called a "Fancy Sketch of the Old Party who rather likes Organ-grinding."
In another sketch an elderly paterfamilias is seen sitting upon the beach attempting to read his newspaper under the difficulties caused by a boy with guinea-pigs, and others with something to sell; a sailor proposes a sail, an old woman has a box of baby linen, and the inevitable sweetstuff merchant looms in the near distance. The drawing is entitled "The Bores of the Beach," with the following explanatory lines:
"So, as it's a fine day, you'll sit on the beach and read the paper comfortably, will you? Very good! Then we recommend you to get what guinea-pigs, brandy-balls, boats, and children's socks, to say nothing of shell-work boxes, lace collars, and the like you may want, before you settle down."
Perhaps the drawing that most happily illustrates the terrible suffering that is caused by those wandering minstrels, the Italian organ-grinders, is in double form—two scenes, so to speak. The first represents a dignified, middle-aged father of a family who stands at his door "expostulating with an organ-grinder, who is defying him with extreme insolence, alternated with performances on the instrument of torture," says Leech. The Italian, who is an embodiment of brutal impudence, says, "Ha! ha! P'lice! Where you find p'lice?"
In the second drawing we see why the noise is more than commonly distressing, for it represents a bedroom in the indignant father's house, where a "sick boy, tended by his mother, is suffering from nervous fever."
I dwell at some length upon these drawings, because they greatly aided Mr. Bass in his efforts to put a stop to some extent—alas! only to some extent—to a serious public nuisance. The Bill which that gentleman carried through Parliament still requires amendment before the author, the musician, the artist, or the tradesman even, can pursue his calling in the peace so essential to success.
An eminent artist friend of mine lived in a part of the town where organ-grinders greatly congregate. The interruptions to his work were constant and terrible. After finding that remonstrance, threats of the police, and other inducements, failed to procure relief, he armed himself with a pea-shooter, with which he practised upon his lay figure until he acquired considerable skill in the use of it; and when he considered he was enough of a marksman, he stood by his shutter window and waited; not for long, for the notes of "Champagne Charley is my name"—a favourite melody some years ago—pierced his ears from "an instrument of torture" opposite to his window. Through a narrow aperture made by the shutter the pea-shooter was projected, a smart blow on the cheek of the organ-grinder stopped "Champagne Charley" in the middle of one of his notes; the man rubbed his face and looked about him, up and down and round about, with an expression of pained surprise pleasant to behold. He then took up the tune where he had left it, and had produced a few more notes when a blow upon the grinding hand, and another almost instantly on his face, again stopped the performance. "It was very gratifying," said my friend, "to study the puzzled expression of the fellow as he looked about for the cause of his trouble." After another attempt to play out his tune, and another salute from the pea-shooter, he shouldered his organ and took himself off. "Yes," said the sportsman, "after a while they found me out, but they couldn't get at me, and now I am never troubled by any of them."
I am writing these pages at Lowestoft, where Leech passed several summer holidays. Under the name of "Sandbath," this place had the honour of appearing in Punch as the scene of several humorous incidents, notably of one in which the street-horrors are stigmatized under the heading of "How to Make a Watering-place Pleasant, particularly to Invalids." Time 6.30 a.m. (a hint to the powers that be at Sandbath). The principal performer is an admirably drawn figure of a big burly ruffian—ugliness personified—from whose monstrous mouth one can almost hear "Yah-ha-bloaters!" Two little boys, carrying baskets of shrimps, are yelling "Ser-imps, fine ser-imps!" while two more youths add to the din by ringing bells by way of announcing other delicacies likely to be in request early in the morning. The date of this drawing can be fixed pretty accurately, for I hear from Mr. Adams that several of the sketches in oil exhibited in 1862 were finished at this place, Mr. Adams constantly watching his friend as he worked.
To the unexaggerated truth of the incident I can speak, for the cry of "Bloaters!" arouses me every morning, and precisely at the time indicated by Leech. Added to this, even as I write about the organ-grinder detested of Leech, comes one, as if in revenge, under my window; and in reply to my threat of police, I am told to "go and find a policeman"—an impossibility, as the wretch well knows, for there is but one in Sandbath—as far as my observation goes—and he never appears in this part of it.