MUSIC AMONG THE ENGLISH POOR.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3219, 24 October 1881, Page 4

MUSIC AMONG THE ENGLISH POOR.

Along the straight furrow, the ploughman whistles as he walks. Trudging homi with empty wnin from market, his emoti<>:; thawed by fumes of beer, he breaks out in; snatches of a quaint chant, that startle omby their utter denial of all that we have bci taught of the laws of phrase and caden ■■ Young voices, too, rouse the village echo with archaic ditties ; for love and hops fi" melodic expression in Giles and Pally i spite of hard-worked muscles. At festive time, fiddles make their feet go trippi" with bucolic grace, and even constrain thoi elders to beat time to the witching rhythm All this shows that country folk hay* artistic sympathies, but dulled and oh soured by excessive physical labour, by th> absence of high standards, and by tin limited exercise of their faculties. Country folks are the raw material of the nation, on of which have been elaborated all on artists. As in the most primitive we finrl proof of musical susceptibility, which grow under education, we must admit that w are a musical people. What apathy exist? io evidence of aesthetic starvation ; a path? which will give place to energy under th< stimulus of proper nutrition. We see wha' maybe hoped for in the musical impres Bibility of town populations. Those w< know are recruited from country-folk c. Though the work of artisans may be hard and prolonged, it does not paralyse th< higher powers. In the streets, there an thousands of objects which excite th' the testhetic susceptibilities ; pictures, prints sculptures, architectural wonders keop up a reverberation of excitement in the mind. .Taste improves, and we find, in the poorest home, artistic embelishments of a higher order than in villages. Popular melodies pass from mouth to moutklike an epidemic ; 80 that thousands are singing and whistling them with the simultaneoußness of a vast orchestra. Cheap instruments, facile in the playing, furnish musioal toys for urchins, and serve to foster what natural ability they may have. The mechanical organs or pianos, which penetrate into the remotest slums and

•.-.Ueys, spread musical culture even ".;' i ip '.'vet's •'' *'•.:' people. They - <■ •' . , ~". ...h. l.i-n,, ,■ ~ , l;u-m of . o doubt. (-. • ir v. , • i i r - it nuiH.inci' to many ; lie t'e 'l .inly lists r.iise'l black-mailing to a high ,>.v. ; he h .'.»f!en a truculent iEolus making an unjustifiable windy war upon us; but, for the poor, he is a beneficent emissary from Apollo, bringing rythmical joys into a dull world. The organ-grinder is •moreover the standing argument that we ire a supremely musical people. In his native Italy, he finds no pecuniary response t'>!'•'» varied strains j in Germany, a benevolent polico kick him over the frontier ; in France, he is reduced to a brass-ticketed •. -n dicanr, an d allotted by some pious v upholder to a ' stnn.l' under the porte■ocliere.. hi Britain al'ne dure he give un--.•t-;red vent to a wondrous anthrology, "■ -inprising ' l>a Fille tie Madame A;-.-;ot,' t.'ie ' How Polka,' ' Adeste Fideles,' ' Champagne Charlie,' the ' Marseillaise Hymn,' the 'Sailor's Hornpipe,' the prayer from ' in Egypt,' and the ' Blue Danube ' vr-i.lz. The poorest of the poor finds means to requite him with such rewards as induce I lira to visit them iyatemabically.—Chaml iers' Journal.