the day, or week, or month. A rehearsal at one of
these show-rooms is a deafening affair; it is just like Naples on a
Sunday morning. As the organs come over from Italy, they are "tried
out," and any flaws are immediately detected by the expert ear. In the
same way, a prospective hirer always tries his instrument before
concluding the deal, running through the tunes to be sure that they are
fairly up-to-date. When you get, say, six clients all rehearsing their
organs at once in a small show-room....

This organ industry, by the way, is a very big thing; and the dealers
make much more by hire than by sale. Sometimes a _padrone_, who has done
very well, will buy an organ; later, he may buy another organ, and
perhaps another. Then, with three organs, he sits down, and sends other
men out with them. Street organs, under our fatherly County Council, are
forbidden on Sundays; nevertheless, Sunday being the only day when
millions of people have any chance of recreation, many organs go out.
Whither do they go? East, my dears. There, in any ramshackle hall, or
fit-up arch-way, or disused stables, the boys and girls, out for fun,
may dance the golden hours away throughout Sunday afternoon and evening.
Often the organs are hired for Eastern weddings and christenings and
other ceremonials, and, by setting the musician to work, say, in the
back parlour, the boys and girls can fling their little feet about the
garden without interference from any one of the hundred authorities who
have us at their mercy.

It is because of the organs, I think, that I chiefly loved Clerkenwell.
Organs have been part of my life ever since I was old enough to sit up
and take notice. Try to think of London without organs. Have they not
added incalculably to the store of human happiness, and helped many
thousands over the waste patches of the week? They have; and I heap
smouldering curses upon the bland imbeciles of Bayswater who, some time
ago, formed themselves into a society for, I think they called it, The
Abatement of Street Noises, and stuck their loathly notices in squares
and public streets forbidding street organs to practise there. Let
house-agents take note that I and a dozen of my friends will never,
never, never take a house in any area where organs or street vendors or
street cries are prohibited. They are part of the very soul of London.
Kill them, and you kill something lovely and desirable, without which
the world will be the sadder. Tha