dinner; and I gets all that is over for myself. Some of the grinders—not many-have their own organ. Most of 'em hire 'em, and what they are supposed to pay is half what they earn.

"They are a very honest lot amongst themselves, and generally the master-the man who lets the organ and keeps the lodging-house-knows them. Perhaps he owns some land in the district in Italy they come from, and has got a lot of their relations working for him there. That makes it more secure for the master, of course. I never heard of a grinder stealing the organ lent to him. I once knew of one who thought he would try his luck in the country, and who got drunk and pawned his organ at Uxbridge for two pounds; but the pawnbroker had to give it up without payment, and the grinder got three months. How many organ-grinders do I suppose there are in London? Not more than eight or nine hundred now. They all live at Saffronhill, except a batch of about forty, who lodge at a house in Short's-gardens, Drury-lane.

"Organ-grinding is nothing like what it used to be. Oh, yes, the organs are better-there's no mistake about that; but the business is fell off wonderful. It is growing a stale game, as they say; and I should think that a good quarter of them I used to know have cut it. Have I any proof? Well, I don't know; but I should say this was a tidy sort of proof. There are two or three organmakers on the hill-Saffron-hill-who deal in secondhand organs when they can get them. Well, seven or eight years ago it was a job to get hold of a good second-hand organ. There was none for sale. Now, if I wanted a couple of hundred, I should know where to put my hand on 'em, and at a low price too. There's no call for 'em.

"How do I 'count for it? Well, I don't think Acts of Parliament have got much to do with the falling off. I never heard much talk among 'em about being compelled to "move on" when a householder tells 'em, and being locked up and fined if they won't. They don't feel the fine much. It is paid by 'whip'-I mean a whip round. Says there's forty grinders live in one housewell, forty shillings fine is only a shilling each for 'em, and they're never hard up for a shilling. I mean that. I mean to say that of all the hundreds of grinders I've. ever known-except a few drunken ones-I never yet knew one that didn't have a bit of money about him. Lor' bless yer! see how they live. If they only make a matter of twelve shillings a-week, they'll save six. How can they do it? Easy. They board partly at the lodging-house where they live. They have breakfast there a basin of some sort of tea, without milk in it, and a chunk of bread. Well, that's their breakfast. Then at night they have supper; always the same thing summer time and winter time-macaroni soup.

"It isn't reg'ler macaroni. I'll tell you how they make it. Say there's twenty of them. They'll get sixpenn'orth of bacon and cut it up in little slips, and put it in a kettle with about three gallons of water; and while it is boiling they make a dough of flour and water, and spread it out in thin cakes, and cut it into ribbons, and roll it up like thick bits of bacca-pipe, and mix it in with the bacon-water-that's all; they charge twopence a pint for it, and if you're a lodger you're bound to have it—at least, whether you do or not you have to pay for it.

"Well, as I was a saying about cheapness. The breakfast and the supper is threepence halfpenny, and the lodgin' the bed, I mean-is twopence a night. Two in a bed they sleep, but I don't know how many in a

room: I never counted 'em. Three-and-sixpence pays for their week's bed, breakfast, and supper, and a clean shirt as well; and all they have to buy after that is a penn'orth or two of something in the middle of the day by way of a dinner. Well, I often wonder how they stand it it must be the constitution they bring with them, I s'pose. They're the low sort when they are at home-field-labourers and vineyard hands; and they earn next to nothing at all. bring their families with 'em. young ones keep on with their regular work; and the father, who comes here and turns grinder, sends over a bit of money out of his savings, till he's scraped together the sum he's set his mind on: then he goes home to 'em. Some do this reg'ler, and have nine months here and three with their family at home.

They seldom or never

The mother and the

"No; my opinion is that the organ-grinding business is fell off, partly on account of the fiddles and harps which, I dessay, you have seen about, and partly because of the shaky kind of tunes they put on organs now. Music-hall tunes, I mean. They're werry lively; but there's a sort of 'slap-bang' about 'em all that don't agree with everybody. It isn't so respectable as the old tunes. What I mean is that these music-hall tunes'Hop light, Loo,' and 'Champagne Charlie'-are more aggravatin' to serious families than good solid operas and that; and so they are set against organs of all kinds. Of course it's a good thing for a music-hall singer to get his particular songs set on the organ. I've known 'em-one of 'em in particular, what's very thick with the nobs and swells-give as much as five pounds a organ for his favourite songs to be set on 'em.

"Seven-and-sixpence is the trade price for setting a new tune on a organ. Comic or sentimental, it's all the

same. Some organs are all comic-jig-organs they are called; and they are the hardest-worked, and go the rounds in the lowest neighbourhoods. I've only heard 'em called jig-organs lately, since the young 'uns in back streets have took to dancing to 'em-dancing in reg'ler parties, I mean. Oh, yes, it's quite a new thing, and it's spreading too. Round about Whitechapel in the warm weather of evenings, the jig-organs do very well sometimes. So they do over the water. The young 'uns club their ha'pence; and sometimes the mothers and fathers, admirin' of 'em at the doors and windows, will chuck out a copper or two as well.

"I don't mean to say they all do bad. There are some grinders who have superior opera instruments, and who are reg❜ler top-sawyers of the purfession. Evening is their time. They never think of going out till four in the afternoon, and they've got their reg'ler beats round the West-end squares and that, and make a very pretty thing of it. They ought to make more than the jig-organs: the instruments cost more. Four-and-twenty pound a good opera organ costs, and a common one fourteen or sixteen. They're orful heavy to carry about, those opera organs-over sixty pounds, every one of 'em. The common organs are heavy enough. Forty odd pounds they weigh; and some of the grinders will be out with 'em from eight in the morning till eleven at night every working days of their lives. I should say that, take it all through the year, a organ-grinder of the common sort earns about fourteen shillings a-week for himself. Playing the clappers is easier work, you think? Well, you see, there are different ways of playing clappers. I find it orful hard work. It gives me such pain between the shoulders, and keeps me layin' awake o' nights.

"Do I know of many boys that are brought here by padrones? There used to be a regular swarm of 'em, but the magistrates stopped that. You won't find one -either a hurdy-gurdy, or white mice, or guinea-pig boy-where you might one time find twenty. The boys took care of themselves as soon as they found the chance. As soon as they came to know that the magistrate was on their side, it was all over with the padrone ill-using 'em, or getting a living out of 'em for that matter. They're naturally a laying-about, lazy lot of little beggars in their own country, and as soon as they found out that the man that hired 'em and brought 'em over was bound to feed 'em, and daren't wollop 'em, they let him have a nice life of it. He used to be afraid to offend 'em for fear they should put themselves in the way to be locked up and get him fined forty shillin's. And now, if you've no objection, I'll make a move, and see about gettin' towards home. It ain't often I get a quiet sniff at the country, and I shan't forget this one. Gord bless you, sir, and thanky werry hearty, I'm sure!"

So he went his way, and I went mine.