what they can. And
behold what they do: they descend, being fit for nothing else, to the
level of the foreign music-grinder, and, mounted on a kind of
bed-carriage, are drawn about the streets of London by their wives or
children; being furnished with a blatant hand-organ of last century's
manufacture, whose ear-torturing growl draws the attention of the
public to their woful plight, they extort that charity which would
else fail to find them out. If there be something gratifying in the
fact, that this is the only class of Britons who follow such an
inglorious profession, there is nothing very flattering in the
consideration, that even these are compelled to it by inexorable
necessity.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Among some of the continental nations, Justice, though blind, is
not supposed to be deaf; she has, on the contrary, a musical ear, and
compels the various grinders of harmony to keep their instruments in
tune, under the penalty of a heavy fine. In some of the German cities,
the police have summary jurisdiction in offences musical, and are
empowered to demand a certificate, with which every grinder is bound
to be furnished, shewing the date of the last tuning of his
instrument. If he perpetrate false harmony, and his certificate be run
out, he is mulcted in the fine. Such a by-law would be a real bonus in
London.

A VOICE FROM THE DIGGINGS.

The voices that have come from the diggings in California and
Australia have hitherto been so loud and so many, that they have
served only to confuse. We have the image before our fancy of a vast
crowd of human beings hastening over seas and deserts towards certain
geographical points, where they meet, struggle, fix. We see them
picking up lumps of gold from the surface, or digging them out of the
earth, or collecting the glittering dust by sifting and washing; and
then we hear of vast torrents of the precious metal finding their way
into Europe, threatening to swamp us all with absolute wealth, and
confound and travesty the whole monetary transactions of the world.
What we don't see, is the gold itself. We should like, if it were only
out of curiosity, to feel a handful of it in our pocket: but we grope
in vain. A sovereign costs twenty shillings, as before; and twenty
shillings are as hard to come at as ever. Nevertheless, we believe in
the unseen presence of that slave-genius, who lends himself, with a
sickly smile, to the service of mankind, and buys when we think