Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/356

340 the neighbourhood of Saffron Hill, and are, of course, from their ignorance of any other language than their own, entirely in the hands of their padrones. One of these, a most persevering intruder with his organ, gave me a false address. Having ascertained the real address, he was sought for by the police for above a fortnight, but not discovered. His padrone becoming aware of his being "wanted," sent him on a country circuit. I once met, within a few miles of the Land's End, one of these fellows whom I had frequently sent away from my own street.

The amount of interruption from street music, and from other occasional noises, varies with the nature and the habits of its victims. Those whose minds are entirely unoccupied receive it with satisfaction, as filling up the vacuum of time. Those whose thoughts are chiefly occupied with frivolous pursuits or with any other pursuits requiring but little attention from the reasoning or the reflective powers, readily attend to occasional street music. Those who possess an impaired bodily frame, and whose misery might be alleviated by good music at proper intervals, are absolutely driven to distraction by the vile and discordant music of the streets waking them, at all hours, in the midst of that temporary repose so necessary for confirmed invalids.

By professional musicians its effects are most severely felt. It interrupts them in their own studies, and entirely destroys the value of the instructions they are giving their domestic pupils. When they leave their own house to give lessons to their employers, the "infernal" organ still pursues them. Their Belgravian employer is obliged, at every lesson, to bribe the itinerant miscreant to desist—his charge for this act of mercy being from a shilling to half-a-crown for each lesson.