A DOWN BEAT

NZ Truth, Issue 1145, 10 November 1927, Page 7

A DOWN BEAT

A Cook Among The

Crotchets

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Dunedin

Rep:)

John Beat should be paying for the maintenance of a child which the State is looking after, but John Beat — a big, seenVingly able-bodied man— has other things to do. He cooks for his brother, whom alls New Zealand knows as the cripplfe street musician. VV7HEN John Beat came before Magis- " trate Bartholomew at Dunedin the other day on the matter of a child's maintenance, Senior- Sergeant Quartermain did not lose time m examining his way into the musician's brother's domesticity. It was interesting, for many reasons, for those people m Wellington and Dunedin, who, for many, many years now; have been charmed or otherwise by the tin-whistled renderings of "Way Down Upon the Swanee River" — and other "populars" — and often wondered how the .be-wheel-chaired figure fared when his musical day's work was done.-: In " the southern city the tin whistler has been known for two 'decades or more arid they remember m a vehicle whose only • means of propulsion was the occupants' deft hands on mother earth. Then, he would appear m a more up-to-date wheel-chair. Times were, though, when lie would revert to the old method and public speculation — no doubt grossly ill-founded — would -whisper that "uncle," the personification of the three golden balls, had "borrowed" it. . So history made it- come to pass that Beat's familiar figure- and his familiar/ tin whistle or horn gramophone should grace the principal cities , of the Dominion. ' " ■ ; But this is merely an incidental page from the story of the brother of the street whistler. . s "How do you live.?" asked the police sergeant of John, who stood, silently, watchful", .in the box. "I; cboir for my brother?" was the reply. . ; He. is a cripple musician? How much does he pay you?T-Twenty-two-,and-sixpence a week., His wife has^ a motor-car, has she not? — Yes. ' ■ "You were quite satisfied to earn 22/6 cooking for this cripple brother. If you only liked to work, you could' pay this amount," said the S.M. "You seem to have simply let it slip.You will be sentenced to six month's imprisonment with hard labor, the warrant to be suspended so long as you pay £1 a week."