“I was brought up to the musical profession, and have been a
street-performer 22 years, and I’m now only 26. I sang and played the
guitar in the streets with my mother when I was four years old. We
were greatly patronised by the nobility at that time. It was a good
business when I was a child. A younger brother and I would go out
into the streets for a few hours of an evening, from five to eight,
and make 7_s._ or 8_s._ the two of us. Ours was, and is, the highest
class of street music. For the last ten years I have been a member of
a street band. Our band is now four in number. I have been in bands
of eight, and in some composed of as many as 25; but a small band
answers best for regularity. With eight in the band it’s not easy to
get 3_s._ a-piece on a fine day, and play all day, too. I consider that
there are 1000 musicians now performing in the streets of London; and
as very few play singly, 1000 performers, not reckoning persons who
play with niggers or such-like, will give not quite 250 street bands.
Four in number is a fair average for a street band; but I think the
greater number of bands have more than four in them. All the better
sort of these bands play at concerts, balls, parties, processions,
and water excursions, as well as in the streets. The class of men
in the street bands is, very generally, those who can’t read music,
but play by ear; and their being unable to read music prevents their
obtaining employment in theatres, or places where a musical education
is necessary; and yet numbers of street musicians (playing by ear)
are better instrumentalists than many educated musicians in the
theatres. I only know a few who have left other businesses to become
musicians. The great majority--19-20ths of us, I should say--have been
brought regularly up to be street-performers. Children now are taught
very early, and seldom leave the profession for any other business.
Every year the street musicians increase. The better sort are, I
think, prudent men, and struggle hard for a decent living. All the
street-performers of wind instruments are short-lived. Wind performers
drink more, too, than the others. They must have their mouths wet,
and they need some stimulant or restorative after blowing an hour in
the streets. There are now twice as many wind as stringed instruments
played in the streets; fifteen or sixteen years ago there used to be
more stringed instruments. Within that time new wind instruments have
been used in the streets. Cornopeans, or cornet-à-pistons, came into
vogue about fourteen years ago; opheicleides about ten years ago (I’m
speaking of the streets); and saxhorns about two years since. The
cornopean has now quite superseded the bugle. The worst part of the
street performers, in point of character, are those who play before
or in public-houses. They drink a great deal, but I never heard of
them being charged with dishonesty. In fact, I believe there’s no
honester set of men breathing than street musicians. The better class
of musicians are nearly all married men, and they generally dislike
to teach their wives music; indeed, in my band, and in similar bands,
we wouldn’t employ a man who was teaching his wife music, that she
might play in the streets, and so be exposed to every insult and every
temptation, if she’s young and pretty. Many of the musicians’ wives
have to work very hard with their needles for the slop-shops, and earn
very little in such employ; 3_s._ a-week is reckoned good earnings, but
it all helps. The German bands injure our trade much. They’ll play for
half what we ask. They are very mean, feed dirtily, and the best band
of them, whom I met at Dover, I know slept three in a bed in a common
lodging-house, one of the very lowest. They now block us out of all the
country places to which we used to go in the summer. The German bands
have now possession of the whole coast of Kent and Sussex, and wherever
there are watering-places. I don’t know anything about their morals,
excepting that they don’t drink. An English street-performer in a good
and respectable band will now average 25_s._ a-week the year through.
Fifteen years ago he could have made 3_l._ a-week. Inferior performers
make from 12_s._ to 15_s._ a-week. I consider Regent-street and such
places our best pitches. Our principal patrons in the parties’ line are
tradesmen and professional men, such as attorneys: 10_s._ a-night is
our regular charge.”