Inaudible Street Musicians

It may be doubted whether a balladist who is not making himselt" heard is aot earning his money; but, ou the Jthev hand, it may be asked if he is aot less regrettable for that reason, -rites W. D. Howells. A great many iood people do not earn their nioney, md yet by universal consent they seem o have a rlght to do it. We cannot Jblige the poer to earn their money any .nore than the rich, without attackiig '.he principie on which society is based, .nd classing ourselves with its enemies. [f people get money out of other people, we ought not to ask Uow they iet it, whether it is much or little; and I, at any rate, will not scan too closely the honesty of the inaudible balladist }f the avenue. Neither will I question the gains of those silentious minstrels who grind small, mute organs at the 3orners of the pavement, with a little in cup beside them to receive tribute. ' I'hey are usually old, old wonien, and I suppose I-alians; but they secm not to oe very distinctly anything. How they i :an sit upon the cold stone all day ; ong without taking their deaths, passes j .ne to say; and I am inclined to think that they do really earn their money, f not as minstrels, then as monumento l :f human endurance. Tho average j merican grandmother would sneeze in ive seconds, under the same conditions, md be laid up for the rest of the win'er. But these hardy aliens remain maffectad by cold or wet, light or lark. One night I carne upon one sleeping n her curbstone - such a small, dull ■vad of outworn womanhood! - her gray ld head bekt upon her knees, and her vithered arms wound in her thin shawl. t was very chili that night, wlth a ;harp wind sweeping the street that the ;treet department had neglected; but this poor old thing slept on, while I ;tood by her, tryiitg to imagine her ihort and simple annals; a dim, far-olï hildhood, in some pleasant hut, a girllood wlth its tender dreams, a motherïood wlth its cares, a grandmotherhood with its pain3, the whole round of woman's life, with want through all, ound into this last result of houseless ige at my feet IIow much of human 'ife comes to no more - if indeed one uight not to say how little comes to so nuch! I sighed, as people of feeling used to do in the eighteenth century, md dropped a dime into the tin cup. The sound startled the beldam, and I nope that before she awoke and looked ip at me she had time to dream richea nd luxury for the rest of her life. 'Bella música!" I said with a fine irony, md she smile'd and shrugged, and be?an to feel for the handle of her organ, is if she were williHg to begin giving me my money's worth on the spot. If we did not. see such sights every day, iow impossible they would seeml