THE WANDERING TROUBADOUR.
THERE is now at Brighton a person who entitles himself the "Wander- ing Troubadour." He is a man of mean appearance, and owes all his romance to a huge pair of false mustachios, a pheasant's feather in his hat, and a guitar slung to his back. He sings at the Libraries, and people are silly enough to give him shillings and sixpences, under the charitable impression that he does not want them. They choose to believe that he is a gentleman thus masquerading for a bet. We wish these fooleries were not so encouraged. If gentlemen dis- guise themselves as vagrants, they should support their characters to the perfection of an occasional visit to the tread-mill; for as the ex- ample of their success in mendicancy allures idle rogues to the imita- tion of their pranks, the example of their punishment should counter- act the evil temptation. For one gentleman-vagabond in disguise, there are now hundreds of genuine rogues who enact the gentleman- vagabond in disguise, and who profit very handsomely by the romantic credulity of silly people. The late Major KELLY began these follies, by betting that he would collect a certain sum in a day by acting the part of a common street ballad-singer. He succeeded. The story got wind, and every raga- muffin who roared about the streets was set down for a major, and liberally assisted towards the winning of his supposed wager. The prank was revived again lately by some one who travelled through the North as a Scotch piper ; and now we have a "Wandering Trouba- dour," supposed to be a foreign prince in masquerade of fialse musta- chios.
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