THE CHARMS OF MUSIC.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 218, 20 June 1872, Page 3

THE CHARMS OF MUSIC.

1 HAVE a neighbour, who, evident l\ mistaking his proper sphere in lit ', has contracted a diabolical iuclin.-> i<m to leant the bugle. The porsrv-r ■!■ ;• wifirli the misguided wretch disp.! • • ■> vis unrighteous cause would •rt a . .•< him credit if exercised in gone l dug I- ss pleasing to himself and more beneficial to his race. I always know when he has nothing to do, for then I hear the excru-

ciating strains of his terrible instrument howling horribly and shrill on the astonished air. But. it is at night that the wretched \ictim to this diabolical propensity gives full ding to his inclinations to create whole volleys of the most discordant and ear-splitting sound ever heard on this side of Pandemonium, and continues them sometimes up till midnight. When he first began to practise on his favourite instrument the sounds ho evoked from it would have surprised Beelzebub himself. First of nil would come a low-, deep, melancholy note like the growl of a lion afflicted with tho cholera, then would cotne a shrill piercing scream like the shriek of ten thousand elephants

blowing through a tin-whistle, and then the vile tiling would wail and howl and shriek and sigh and sob and moan till one would have thought all the furies were suffering from an attack of the gout and compelled to rim round a hurricane. Often at night I woke up feeling an indescribable dread, the cold perspiration oozing from every pore, my hail- standing on end, and my limbs trembb'ng like a leaf, and then I would bear the demoniacal

bowls of that accursed bugle cutting its way through the quiet atmosphere of night and shattering it to pieces, and I have many times determined to buy a bugle and howl in self-defence, or wished that my enemy had such a had cold that

he could not play for sneezing. I have got used to it now, and though ho continues to howl nud lament as much as formerly I can manage to sleep tolerably well through it. But this is not all. lam tho possessor of a juvenile canine quadruped, and to prevent him indulging lbs depraved appetite for my neighbour’s chickens, I am obliged to chain him up at night. As this disagrees with ids notions of liberty and free agency he sits on bis bind legs and howls. This habit of his is excessively aggravating, and I have more than once decided to end his life and howling together in tho

Hauraki Gulf. I have, however, refrained as yet. Now when my pestilential neighbour indulges his fancy upon his fiendish instrument it so affects my dog’s nervous system that his usual bowlings increase in intensity til 1 they are something terrible to hear, and as every fresh note seems to lacerate his feelings more deeply, his wailings at last become something positively awful. When tlicv reach this stage I invariably console if with tho reflection that lam in a sum degree repaying my neighbour for the horrible annoyance be causes me, and with this sweet and Christian thought I fall into a quiet slumber. The other day a friend of mine, a stranger to the place, came to slay with me. He slept in a room adjoining mine.

lie had been asleep about half-an-hoiir, and I was about to put my light out when I was startled to see my friend rush into my room. Ilis eyes were glaring wildly, bis face was as pale as death, and bis bands wen* tightly clenched as those of a person in agony. “Oh, what’s th.it ?” he exclaimed. “ What?” I asked. “Did you not hear it ; oh, it was horrible. I believe this house is haunted I I was Oil, Lord !” lie continued as a withering blast from my neighbour’s bugle swept like a plague through tjio house. “ What’s that ?”

I was about to explain; but that unfeeling demon of an amateur kept pouring nlast alter blast from his execrable organ till be bad thrown my friend in an agony of torture on the floor. At one moment lie was bent double and at tho next lie was stretched ns still as a poker, and all the time kept moaning as though he had seen the devil. At length our tormentors, being out of breath I suppose, stopped playing for a few seconds, and my friend regained lu's feet. He had no sooner done so than the aspiring professor recommenced playing, and this time drew forth from his instrument the most diabolical, unearthly moans ever heard. My poor friend gave one groan, and,clasping his hands tightly on his stomach, writhed in convulsions on the floor. At every successive sound which issued in agonizing strains fiom the instrument he shrieked in torture. At this painful juncture my dog began to whine and howl as though some one were screwing his tail off. This seemed to be the last drop my poor friend’s cup of bitterness would hold. He sprang from the ground as if ho had been scalded, but quickly subsided again, for lie seemed to be seized

with the most unendurable cramps in tlio abdominal regions. He wriggled on the floor like an cel in fits, and every note seemed to cut through him like a knife. I attempted to speak, but my voice was drowned by the howling of the bugle, the whining of the dog, and the moaning of my friend. At length, after giving vent to one burst of melody which twisted his victim up like a corkscrew, — the bugle player desisted from bis inhuman exertions, and my companion got up and sat on my bed. lie was a spectacle terrible to behold. Ilis hair, which is bright red, stood on end ; bis eyes glared like fire balls, bis mouth gaped open like the doors of an oven. He breathed so violently that for a short time lie could not speak. At length recovering himself a little lie inquired in mysterious tones what it was. When I explained to him the cause and nature of the unearthly sounds he had heard, his rage knew no bounds. He wanted there and then to arm himself with the carving fork and perforate his tormentor’s windpipe. I 1 however, dissuaded him from his revenge-

ful intentions, and swearing like a trooper $ he went to bed, and dr r ' it all night of | blowing people’s brains ith a bugle. || And now, I would ask, am I obliged | to submit to this monomaniac’s ecceri-Jj tricities or this instrument ? am I quietly to allow liiv rest, 1113- dug's rest, and my friend’s rest to lie destroyed because 1113 V neighbour wants to learn the bugle, at instrument of all others the most detest'* able and unmusical ? If the law will no || help me, I here publicly state that I wii. go some morning and poison llic hugiag|| and throw the man into the sea. I ha \'(sm warned liirn, let him look out. ' i. j. b. m