"If any calm, a calm despair," is the portion of people who would like to
reform, that is to abolish, the street noises of London. These noises
are constantly commented upon with much freedom in the columns of various
contemporaries. Nor is this remarkable, for persons who are occupied
with what is called "brainwork," are peculiarly sensitive to the
disturbances of the streets. Sometimes they cannot sleep till morning,
sometimes they can only sleep in the earlier watches of the night, and,
as a rule, they cannot write novels, or articles, or treatises; they
cannot compose comic operas, or paint, in the midst of a row. Now, the
streets of London are the scenes of rows at every hour of night and day-
light. It is not the roll of carriages and carts that provokes
irritation, and drives the sensitive man or woman half mad. Even the
whistling of the metropolitan trains may, perhaps, be borne with if the
drivers are not too ambitious artists, and do not attempt fantasias and
variations on their powerful instrument. The noises that ruin health,
temper, and power of work; the noises that cause an incalculable waste of
time, money, and power, are all voluntary, and perhaps preventable. Let
us examine the working hours of the nervous or irritable musician,
mathematician, man of letters, or member of Parliament. On second
thoughts, the last may be omitted, as if he cannot sleep in a tedious
debate, his case is beyond cure.
"Not bromide of potassium
Nor all the drowsy speeches in the world"
can medicine him to forgetfulness of street noises. For the others, the
day may be said to begin about five, when the voice of the chimney-sweep
is heard in the land. Here we may observe that servants are the real
causes of half the most provoking noises in London. People ask why the
sweep cannot ring the bell, like other people. But the same people
remark that even the howl of the sweep does not waken the neighbours'
servants. Of what avail, then, could his use of the bell prove? It
generally takes the sweep twenty-five minutes exactly to bring the
servants to open the door. Meanwhile, the eminent men of letters in the
street open their windows, and show a very fair command of language
understanded by the people. But the sweep only laughs, and every three
minutes utters a howl which resembles no other noise with which men are
acquainted. Where do young sweeps learn to make this cry which can only
be acquired by long practice? Perhaps it is inherited, like the music of
"the damned nightingales," as the sleepless political economist called
the Daulian birds.
When the sweep is silent, when slumber is stealing over the weary
eyelids, then traction engines, or steam-rollers, or some other
scientific improvement on wheels begin to traverse the streets and shake
the houses. This does not last more than a quarter of an hour, and then
a big bell rings, and the working men and women tramp gaily by, chatting
noisily and in excellent spirits. Now comes the milkman's turn. He,
like the chimney-sweep, has his own howl, softer, more flute-like in
quality than that of the sweep, but still capable of waking any one who
is not a domestic servant in hard training. The milkman also cries "woa"
to his horse at every house, and accompanies himself on his great tin
cans, making a noise most tolerable, and not to be endured. Is it
necessary, absolutely necessary, that the milkman should howl? In some
parts of town milkwomen distribute their wares without howling. They do,
certainly, wear very short petticoats, but that is matter, as Aristotle
says, for a separate disquisition. On the other hand, milkwomen exist
who howl as loudly as milkmen. We cannot but fear that without these
noises it would be difficult to attract the notice of servants. If this
pessimistic view be correct, sweeps and milkmen will howl while London is
a city inhabited. And even if we could secure the services of milkwomen
of the silent species that ring the bell, could we hope to have female
chimney-sweeps as well behaved? Here, at all events, is a new opening
for female labour. When the milkman has done his worst, the watercress
people come and mournfully ejaculate. Now it is time for the sleepless
and nervous to get up and do their work. Now, too, the barrel-organ
comes round. There are persons who, fortunately for themselves, are so
indifferent to music that they do not mind the barrel-organ. It is
neither better nor worse to them than the notes of Patti, and from the
voice of that siren, as from all music, they withdraw their attention
without difficulty. But other persons cannot work while the dirty
grinder and the women that drag his instrument are within hearing. The
barrel-organ, again, is strong in the support of servants, especially
nurses, who find that the music diverts babies. The rest of the day is
made hideous by the awful notes of every species of unintelligible and
uncalled for costermonger, from him who (apparently) bellows "Annie
Erskine," to her who cries, "All a-blowing and a-growing." There are
miscreants who want to buy bones, to sell ferns, to sell images, wicker-
chairs, and other inutilities, while last come the two men who howl in a
discordant chorus, and attempt to dispose of the second edition of the
evening paper, at ten o'clock at night. At eleven all the neighbours
turn out their dogs to bark, and the dogs waken the cats, which scream
like demoniacs. Then the public houses close, and the people who have
been inebriated, if not cheered, stagger howling by. Stragglers yell and
swear, and use foul language till about four in the morning, without
attracting the unfavourable notice of the police. Two or three half
drunken men and women bellow and blaspheme opposite the sufferer's house
for an hour at a time. And then the chimneysweep renews his rounds, and
the milkman follows him.
The screams of costermongers and of rowdies might surely be suppressed by
the police. A system of "local option" might be introduced. In all
decent quarters householders would vote against the licensed bellowings
of cads and costermongers. In districts which think a noise pleasant and
lively the voting would go the other way. People would know where they
could be quiet, and where noise would reign. Except Bologna, perhaps no
town is so noisy as London; but then, compared with Bologna, London is
tranquillity itself. It is fair to say that really nervous and irritable
people find the country worse than town. The noise of the nightingales
is deplorable. The lamentations of a cow deprived of her calf, or of a
passion-stricken cow, "wailing for her demon lover" on the next farm,
excel anything that the milkman can perpetrate, and almost vie with the
performances of the sweep. When "the cocks are crowing a merry
midnight," as in the ballad, the sleepless patient wishes he could make
off as quietly and quickly as the ghostly sons of the "Wife of Usher's
Well." Dogs delight to bark in the country more than in town. Leech's
picture of the unfortunate victim who left London to avoid noise, and
found that the country was haunted by Cochin-China cocks, illustrates the
still repose of the rural life. Nervous people, on the whole, are in a
minute minority. No one else seems to mind how loud and horrible the
noises of London are, and therefore we have faint hope of seeing
nocturnal 'Arry gagged, the drunken drab "moved on," and the sweep
compelled to ring the bell till some one comes and opens the door of the
house in whose chimneys he is professionally interested.