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'Old Sarah'

'Old Sarah'.jpg Photographic SaloonThumbnailsLumpers discharging timber shipPhotographic SaloonThumbnailsLumpers discharging timber shipPhotographic SaloonThumbnailsLumpers discharging timber shipPhotographic SaloonThumbnailsLumpers discharging timber shipPhotographic SaloonThumbnailsLumpers discharging timber shipPhotographic SaloonThumbnailsLumpers discharging timber shipPhotographic SaloonThumbnailsLumpers discharging timber ship

The well-known Hurdy-Gurdy player


One of the most deserving and peculiar of the street musicians was an old lady who played upon a hurdy-gurdy. She had been about the streets of London for upwards of forty years, and being blind, had had during that period four guides, and worn out three instruments. Her cheerfulness, considering her privation and precarious mode of life, was extraordinary. Her love of truth, and the extreme simplicity of her nature, were almost childlike. Like the generality of blind people, she had a deep sense of religion, and her charity for a woman in her station of life was something marvellous; for, though living on alms, she herself had, I was told, two or three little pensioners.