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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 401.: STREET ORGANS MORNING CHRONICLE, 28 OCT., 1851, P. 6 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

401.: STREET ORGANS MORNING CHRONICLE, 28 OCT., 1851, P. 6 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV [1847]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


401.

STREET ORGANS

MORNING CHRONICLE, 28 OCT., 1851, P. 6

In this letter Mill is responding to the report of the judgment against an Italian organ player, Jean Zanezzi, by Thomas Henry (1807-76), a Bow Street magistrate: “Police Intelligence—Friday. Bow Street,” Morning Chronicle, 25 Oct., p. 7. The letter, headed as title, with subhead, “To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle,” is described in Mill’s bibliography as “A letter headed ‘Street Organs’ and signed D in the Morning Chronicle of October 28, 1851”

(MacMinn, p. 76).

sir,—

Will you allow me to draw attention to a case of great injustice, reported in Saturday’s papers. An Italian organ player was brought before Mr. Henry, the Bow-street magistrate, charged by a tradesman with having, though desired by the tradesman to leave off, continued to play on his instrument, whereupon the tradesman’s horse, left in charge of a boy, ran away with and damaged his gig.1 The Italian denied having heard the order to cease playing, and said that he had plied his instrument for six years in the streets of London, and had never before been charged with any offence—a plea which, in the case of English offenders, always carries great weight. It carried none, however, in this instance. The magistrate fined the Italian 40s., besides £10, the amount of the damage; and unless he pays this sum, which doubtless he never in his life possessed, sentenced him to a month’s imprisonment.

I would ask this magistrate—is the business of a street organ player an unlawful occupation? If so, the police are strangely neglectful of their duty in allowing it to be carried on. But if the Italian had a legal right to grind his organ in the streets, was he to leave off playing every time a carriage passed by? Has every man in a gig a right to prohibit this man from gaining his subsistence? As to frightening the horse, it must be uncertain whether this was the particular noise, among all others, at which the horse took fright. And, supposing that it was, the fault was more the owner’s than the organ player’s. Horses which cannot bear London noises ought not to be brought into London streets. If a tradesman in the pursuit of a livelihood drives a gig into the clang and crash of the streets of London, other people are not bound to cease pursuing their livelihood till he has gone by. Whether it would be right or wrong to suppress these people, they ought not to be punished by an ex post facto law. While their occupation is unprohibited, to fine and imprison them for practising it is gross injustice.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

D.

[1 ]The tradesman was Charles Bowen; William Drinkwater failed to hold the horse.