BEGGARS OF SYDNEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 118, 21 May 1934, Page 6

BEGGARS OF SYDNEY.

CONSIDERABLE VARIETY,

THE STREET MUSICIAN

(By CHRISTINE COMBER.)

The Aucklander crossing to Sydney will not find it as strange as he would perhaps anticipate after the graphic details of its noise and bustle, its incipient "gangsters," its frivolity and its night life that he has heard from time to time Irom other travellers. In fact he will find it strikingly similar to Auckland on an immeasurably larger scale. He will observe, too, that it has in full measure one of the features apparently inevitable in a large city—beggars. These fall into three main divisions: those who eing or play some kind of instrument or give some other brand of noise for their money; the lame and the blind who simply hold their box in pitiful silence; and the pavement artists and some of the oddment sellers. The first are by far the more numerous. On street corners, in alley-ways, outside the more frequented buildings, and even beneath one's window they solicit one's small change.

Of the singers one or two are quite good. Others arc unbelievably terrible. Indeed, hearing a hoarse, strident, completely -tuneless voice shouting "Sweet Genevicve" along the street, I glan<:ed in surprise from my window expecting to see a very drunken man staggering home. Instead I beheld a, poor, ragged, little rat of a man optimistically holding his hat beneath the apartment house balconies. A couple or Italian*?. —one playing a piano accordion, with infectious rhythm, the other singing Italian opera —were really entertaining. In between acts, so to epeak, the singer betook himself and his collection box among the audience. And his collection, augmented by coins thrown from balconies and shops, was by no means to bo despised. • Ingenious Musicians. The instrumentalists often show considerable ingenuity. Apparently the main object is to make a noise. So that after the violinists, cornet player*, flautists, saxophonists, buglers, banjuists and mandolin players we come down to the exponents of the tin whistle, the mouth organ (the sound sometimes amplified by a cup held to one side of the face), the saw and bone (which produce a mournful, wailing tune) and the man who sits on the kerb putting on record after record on a wheezy, old-fashioned gramophone. Nor must the "d'arkie" who etood in Martin Place whistling dismally through his fingers be omitted. The sound he produced wae similar to that of the wind howling through a deserted hall. One or two of them state that they have flret-cla.=vs references if anyone will offer them work. Some look starved. Others look as if ihey love the great god Bacchus too well. But all arc pitiful. Women, often accompanied by small children, add their quota of song or noise, and after a week or so one gets over the first shock and takes them for granted. "After nil," one says comfortably to oneself, "one must be prepared to see this kind of l thing in a city of this size." Of the silent beggars there is little to say. They are merely there, sometimes bearing a card informing one that they are not in receipt of a pension or that they have a family dependent on them.

The pavement artists are «t least interesting. One does religious pictures on the footpath outtside- the Roman Catholic Cathedral. Some chalk a notification on the pavement that they will be- thankful for "any small appreciation." But when the rain conies down and ruins their "work" one cannot but be sorry for them. Itinerant Vendors. Not all sellers of camphor, matches, shoe laoos and studs can be classed as beggars. But there are some, that come very close to it. Particularly tho children who accost the passers-by in the street with a plea of father being out of work and mother ill in bed. And the very old sellers who by thein very helplessness find wrinkled cheeks gain sympathy where a younger man or woman would have failed.

But one must not conclude from the number of beggars one encounters in every other street around the city that Sydney is a place of poverty. A few minutes' observation may see pennies and threepenny bits dropped into the hats or boxw of nearly all these men and women. One- supposes that the size, of the city precludes any attempt at dealing effectively with the problem. Viewed from one angle, thpt«o begarars are good for the pessimists and grumblers in keeping before their eyes human beings who arc in worse circumstances physically or financially than they. And the fountain of charity is never allowed to dry in the scorching heat of selfishness.

One hears stories, of course—though one can never kno*\v if they are true or false—of beggare refusing billets and singers turning down the offer of engagements on the ground that they can do better as they are. It is perfectly possible, of course, for one has the evidence of one's observation iir proof of what some of them can make. Particularly when they know the game and vary the programme from jazz to classical music and from hymns to such old sentimental favourites as "My Little Grey Home in the West." "The Old Folks at Home," or "Auhl Lang Syne."

Certainly the beggars add to the interest (and also the din) of Sydney's streets. But one sometimes cannot repress a sigh for a main street in which one could hurry along unobstructed by crutches and alms boxes and he free for a time of the perpetual rattle of tins and screeching of violins and the printed request to remember that the blind man's family is "totally dependent on your generosity." Tf assuming age and dignity means also collecting scores of beggars, Auckland, there's something to be said in favour of emulating Peter Pan!