The source of the expression "Orgue de Barbarie" was the subject of
discussion in the late 1990's in the UK in the Bulletin of the Player
Piano Group -- well, we do have a lot of varied interests and perhaps
should add "etc" to our name.   Suggestions that it derived from Sgr
Barbieri of Italy, or because the players originally came from outside
France and were therefore "barbarians", were augmented by one that the
monkey was to blame!

This was raised by the American expression "monkey organ" and verses
by the Victorian poet C.S. Calverley, which began:

  Grinder, who serenely grindest
  At my door the Hundredth Psalm,
  Till thou ultimately findest
  Pence in thine unwashen palm:

  Grinder, jocund-hearted grinder,
  Near whom Barbary's nimble son,
  Poised with skill upon his hinder
  Paws, accepts the proffered bun:

Unhappily (or perhaps happily) I am not now able to lay my hands on
the many other verses of the poem, although it made it plain that the
pence were given in an effort to persuade the grinder to go away,
with one verse ending:

  Tell me, Grinder, why thou grindest
  Always, always out of tune.

Before a storm crosses the Atlantic (or La Manche), I should say that
the English version of the English language is remarkably inaccurate,
since the words "barrel organs", then and now in common usage here,
referred normally in his day to barrel pianos (completely impossible
to have in tune after being pushed on a cart over cobblestones), while
today the "barrel organs" seen at our rallies generally run from card,
paper rolls (or even possibly chips where they are allowed) with hardly
a barrel in use.

Calverley's amazing skill with rhyming schemes may be best appreciated
perhaps in his more famous "Ode to Tobacco", often sung at "Smoking
Concerts", something else which has disappeared from our lives along
with the itinerant "Street Organ Grinder".

Tony Austin
London, UK
Honorary Secretary
Player Piano Group

 [ Ref. http://www.fullbooks.com/Fly-Leaves.html
 [ The poem is "Lines On Hearing The Organ", published in 1872 in
 [ the book, "Fly Leaves", by C. S. Calverley (1831-1884)  -- Robbie