Jersey Street and Jersey Lane | Page 7

of the Evening ----. That will do excellently well. We will screw the money up in that, and there it goes, chink! on the pavement below. There, look at that grin! Wasn't it cheap at the price?
I wish he might have had a monkey to come up and get the nickels. We shall never see the organ-grinder's monkey in the streets of New York again. I see him, though. He comes out and visits me where I live among the trees, whenever the weather is not too cold to permit him to travel with his master. Sometimes he comes in a bag, on chilly days; and my own babies, who seem to be born with the fellow-feeling of vulgarity with the mob, invite him in and show him how to warm his cold little black hands in front of the kitchen range.
I do not suppose, even if it were possible to get our good old maiden lady to come down to Mulberry Street and sit at my window when the organ-grinder comes along, she could ever learn to look at the mob with friendly, or at least kindly, eyes; but I think she would learn--and she is cordially invited to come--that it is not a mob that rejoices in "outrageous behavior," as some other mobs that we read of have rejoiced--notably one that gave a great deal of trouble to some very "decent people" in Paris toward the end of the last century. And I think that she even might be induced to see that the organ-grinder is following an honest trade, pitiful as it be, and not exercising a "fearful beggary." He cannot be called a beggar who gives something that to him, and to thousands of others, is something valuable, in return for the money he asks of you. Our organ-grinder is no more a beggar than is my good friend Mr. Henry Abbey, the honestest and best of operatic impresarios. Mr. Abbey can take the American opera house and hire Mr. Seidl and Mr. ---- to conduct grand opera for your delight and mine, and when we can afford it we go and listen to his perfect music, and, as our poor contributions cannot pay for it all, the rich of the land meet the deficit. But this poor, foot-sore child of fortune has only his heavy box of tunes and a human being's easement in the public highway. Let us not shut him out of that poor right because once in a while he wanders in front of our doors and offers wares that offend our finer taste. It is easy enough to get him to betake himself elsewhere, and, if it costs us a few cents, let us not ransack our law-books and our moral philosophies to find out if we cannot indict him for constructive blackmail, but consider the nickel or the dime a little tribute to the uncounted weary souls who love his strains and welcome his coming.
For the editor of the Evening ---- was wrong when he said that the Board of Aldermen and the Mayor consented to the licensing of the organ-grinder "in the face of a popular protest." There was a protest, but it was not a popular protest, and it came face to face with a demand that was popular. And the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen did rightly, and did as should be done in this American land of ours, when they granted the demand of the majority of the people, and refused to heed the protest of a minority. For the people who said YEA on this question were as scores of thousands or hundreds of thousands to the thousands of people who said NAY; and the vexation of the few hangs light in the balance against even the poor scrap of joy which was spared to innumerable barren lives.
And so permit me to renew my invitation to the old lady.

TIEMANN'S TO TUBBY HOOK
If you ever were a decent, healthy boy, or if you can make believe that you once were such a boy, you must remember that you were once in love with a girl a great deal older than yourself. I am not speaking of the big school-girl with whom you thought you were in love, for one little while--just because she wouldn't look at you, and treated you like a little boy. She had, after all, but a tuppenny temporary superiority to you; and, after all, in the bottom of your irritated little soul, you knew it. You knew that, proud beauty that she was, she might have to lower her colors to her little sister before that young minx got into the first class and--comparatively--long dresses.
No, I am talking of the girl you loved who was not only really grown up and