Part 6

Among the purchasers of second-hand musical instruments are those of the working-classes who wish to “practise,” and the great number of street-musicians, street-showmen, and the indifferently paid members of the orchestras of minor (and not always of minor) theatres. Few of this class ever buy new instruments. There are sometimes, I am informed, as many as 50 persons, one-fourth being women, engaged in this second-hand sale. Sometimes, as at present, there are not above half the number. A broker who was engaged in the traffic estimated--and an intelligent street-seller agreed in the computation--that, take the year through, at least 25 individuals were regularly, but few of them fully, occupied with this traffic, and that their weekly takings averaged 30_s._ each, or an aggregate yearly amount of 190_l._ The weekly profits run from 10_s._ to 15_s._, and sometimes the well-known dealers clear 40_s._ or 50_s._ a week, while others do not take 5_s._ Of this amount about two-thirds is expended on violins, and one-tenth of the whole, or nearly a tenth, on “duffing” instruments sold as second-hand, in which department of the business the amount “turned over” used to be twice, and even thrice as much. The sellers have nearly all been musicians in some capacity, the women being the wives or connections of the men.

* * * * *

What I have called the “dishonest trade” is known among the street-folk as “music-duffing.” Among the swag-shopkeepers, at one place in Houndsditch more especially, are dealers in “duffing fiddles.” These are German-made instruments, and are sold to the street-folk at 2_s._ 6_d._ or 3_s._ each, bow and all. When purchased by the music-duffers, they are discoloured so as to be made to look old. A music-duffer, assuming the way of a man half-drunk, will enter a public-house or accost any party in the street, saying: “Here, I must have money, for I won’t go home ’til morning, ’til morning, ’til morning, I won’t go home ’til morning, ’til daylight does appear. And so I may as well sell my old fiddle myself as take it to a rogue of a broker. Try it anybody, it’s a fine old tone, equal to any Cremonar. It cost me two guineas and another fiddle, and a good ’un too, in exchange, but I may as well be my own broker, for I must have money any how, and I’ll sell it for 10_s._”

Possibly a bargain is struck for 5_s._; for the duffing violin is perhaps purposely damaged in some slight way, so as to appear easily reparable, and any deficiency in tone may be attributed to that defect, which was of course occasioned by the drunkenness of the possessor. Or possibly the tone of the instrument may not be bad, but it may be made of such unsound materials, and in such a slop-way, though looking well to a little-practised eye, that it will soon fall to pieces. One man told me that he had often done the music-duffing, and had sold trash violins for 10_s._, 15_s._, and even 20_s._, “according,” he said, “to the thickness of the buyer’s head,” but that was ten or twelve years ago.

It appears that when an impetus was given to the musical taste of the country by the establishment of cheap singing schools, or of music classes, (called at one time “singing for the million”), or by the prevalence of cheap concerts, where good music was heard, this duffing trade flourished, but now, I am assured, it is not more than a quarter of what it was. “There’ll always be something done in it,” said the informant I have before quoted, “as long as you can find young men that’s conceited about their musical talents, fond of taking their medicine (drinking). If I’ve gone into a public-house room where I’ve seen a young gent that’s bought a duffing fiddle of me, it don’t happen once in twenty times that he complains and blows up about it, and only then, perhaps, if he happens to be drunkish, when people don’t much mind what’s said, and so it does me no harm. People’s too proud to confess that they’re ever ‘done’ at any time or in anything. Why, such gents has pretended, when I’ve sold ’em a duffer, and seen them afterwards, that they’ve done _me!_”

Nor is it to violins that this duffing or sham second-hand trade is confined. At the swag-shops _duffing cornopeans_, _French horns_, and _clarionets_ are vended to the street-folk. One of these cornopeans may be bought for 14_s._; a French horn for 10_s._; and a clarionet for 7_s._ 6_d._; or as a general rule at one-fourth of the price of a properly-made instrument sold as reasonably as possible. These things are also made to look old, and are disposed of in the same manner as the duffing violins. The sale, however, is and was always limited, for “if there be one working man,” I was told, “or a man of any sort not professional in music, that tries his wind and his fingers on a clarionet, there’s a dozen trying their touch and execution on a violin.”

Another way in which the duffing music trade at one time was made available as a second-hand business was this:--A band would play before a pawnbroker’s door, and the duffing German brass instruments might be well-toned enough, the inferiority consisting chiefly in the materials, but which were so polished up as to appear of the best. Some member of the band would then offer his brass instrument in pledge, and often obtain an advance of more than he had paid for it.

One man who had been himself engaged in what he called this “artful” business, told me that when two pawnbrokers, whom he knew, found that they had been tricked into advancing 15_s._ on cornopeans, which they could buy new in Houndsditch for 14_s._, they got him to drop the tickets of the pledge, which they drew out for the purpose, in the streets. These were picked up by some passer-by--and as there is a very common feeling that there is no harm, or indeed rather a merit, in cheating a pawnbroker or a tax-gatherer--the instruments were soon redeemed by the fortunate finder, or the person to whom he had disposed of his prize. Nor did the roguery end here. The same man told me that he had, in collusion with a pawnbroker, dropped tickets of (sham) second-hand musical instruments, which he had bought new at a swag-shop for the very purpose, the amount on the duplicate being double the cost, and as it is known that the pawnbrokers do not advance the value of any article, the finders were gulled into redeeming the pledge, as an advantageous bargain. “But I’ve left off all that dodging now, sir,” said the man with a sort of a grunt, which seemed half a sigh and half a laugh; “I’ve left it off entirely, for I found I was getting into trouble.”

The derivation of the term “duffing” I am unable to discover. The Rev. Mr. Dixon says, in his “Dovecote and Aviary,” that the term “_Duffer_,” applied to pigeons, is a corruption of _Dovehouse_,--but _query_? In the slang dictionaries a “_Duffer_” is explained as “a man who hawks things;” hence it would be equivalent to _Pedlar_, which means strictly beggar--being from the Dutch _Bedclaar_, and the German _Bettler_.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND WEAPONS.

The sale of second-hand pistols, for to that weapon the street-sellers’ or hawkers’ trade in arms seems confined, is larger than might be cursorily imagined.

There must be something seductive about the possession of a pistol, for I am assured by persons familiar with the trade, that they have sold them to men who were ignorant, when first invited to purchase, how the weapon was loaded or discharged, and seemed half afraid to handle it. Perhaps the possession imparts a sense of security.

The pistols which are sometimes seen on the street-stalls are almost always old, rusted, or battered, and are useless to any one except to those who can repair and clean them for sale.

There are three men now selling new or second-hand pistols, I am told, who have been gunmakers.

This trade is carried on almost entirely by hawking to public-houses. I heard of no one who depended solely upon it, “but this is the way,” one intelligent man stated to me, “if I am buying second-hand things at a broker’s, or in Petticoat-lane, or anywhere, and there’s a pistol that seems cheap, I’ll buy it as readily as anything I know, and I’ll soon sell it at a public-house, or I’ll get it raffled for. Second-hand pistols sell better than new by such as me. If I was to offer a new one I should be told it was some Brummagem slop rubbish. If there’s a little silver-plate let into the wood of the pistol, and a crest or initials engraved on it--I’ve got it done sometimes--there’s a better chance of sale, for people think it’s been made for somebody of consequence that wouldn’t be fobbed off with an inferior thing. I don’t think I’ve often sold pistols to working-men, but I’ve known them join in raffles for them, and the winner has often wanted to sell it back to me, and has sold it to somebody. It’s tradesmen that buy, or gentlefolks, if you can get at them. A pistol’s a sort of a plaything with them.”

On my talking with a street-dealer concerning the street-trade in second-hand pistols, he produced a handsome pistol from his pocket. I inquired if it was customary for men in his way of life to carry pistols, and he expressed his conviction that it was, but only when travelling in the country, and in possession of money or valuable stock. “I gave only 7_s._ 6_d._ for this pistol,” he said, “and have refused 10_s._ 6_d._ for it, for I shall get a better price, as it’s an excellent article, on some of my rounds in town. I bought it to take to Ascot races with me, and have it with me now, but it’s not loaded, for I’m going to Moulsey Hurst, where Hampton races are held. You’re not safe if you travel after a great muster at a race by yourself without a pistol. Many a poor fellow like me has been robbed, and the public hear nothing about it, or say it’s all gammon. At Ascot, sir, I trusted my money to a booth-keeper I knew, as a few men slept in his booth, and he put my bit of tin with his own under his head where he slept, for safe keeping. There’s a little doing in second-hand pistols to such as me, but we generally sell them again.”

Of _second-hand guns_, or other offensive weapons, there is no street sale. A few “_life-preservers_,” some of gutta percha, are hawked, but they are generally new. Bullets and powder are not sold by the pistol-hawkers, but a _mould_ for the casting of bullets is frequently sold along with the weapon.

Of these second-hand pistol-sellers there are now, I am told, more than there were last year. “I really believe,” said one man, laughing, but I heard a similar account from others, “people were afraid the foreigners coming to the Great Exhibition had some mischief in their noddles, and so a pistol was wanted for protection. In my opinion, a pistol’s just one of the things that people don’t think of buying, ’til it’s shown to them, and then they’re tempted to have it.”

The principal street-sale, independently of the hawking to public-houses, is in such places as Ratcliffe-highway, where the mates and petty officers of ships are accosted and invited to buy a good second-hand pistol. The wares thus vended are generally of a well-made sort.

In this traffic, which is known as a “straggling” trade, pursued by men who are at the same time pursuing other street-callings, it may be estimated, I am assured, that there are 20 men engaged, each taking as an average 1_l._ a week. In some weeks a man may take 5_l._; in the next month he may sell no weapons at all. From 30 to 50 per cent. is the usual rate of profit, and the yearly street outlay on these second-hand offensive or defensive weapons is 1040_l._

One man who “did a little in pistols” told me, “that 25 or 30 years ago, when he was a boy, his father sometimes cleared 2_l._ a week in the street-sale and hawking of second-hand _boxing-gloves_, and that he himself had sometimes carried the ‘gloves’ in his hand, and pistols in his pocket for sale, but that now boxing-gloves were in no demand whatever among street-buyers, and were ‘a complete drug.’ He used to sell them at 3_s._ the set, which is four gloves.”

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND CURIOSITIES.

Several of the things known in the street-trade as “curiosities” can hardly be styled second-hand with any propriety, but they are so styled in the streets, and are usually vended by street-merchants who trade in second-hand wares.

Curiosities are displayed, I cannot say temptingly (except perhaps to a sanguine antiquarian), for there is a great dinginess in the display, on stalls. One man whom I met wheeling his barrow in High-street, Camden-town, gave me an account of his trade. He was dirtily rather than meanly clad, and had a very self-satisfied expression of face. The principal things on his barrow were _coins_, _shells_, and _old buckles_, with a pair of the very high and wooden-heeled _shoes_, worn in the earlier part of the last century.

The coins were all of copper, and certainly did not lack variety. Among them were tokens, but none very old. There was the head of “Charles Marquis Cornwallis” looking fierce in a cocked hat, while on the reverse was Fame with her trumpet and a wreath, and banners at her feet, with the superscription: “His fame resounds from east to west.” There was a head of Wellington with the date 1811, and the legend of “Vincit amor patriæ.” Also “The R. Hon. W. Pitt, Lord Warden Cinque Ports,” looking courtly in a bag wig, with his hair brushed from his brow into what the curiosity-seller called a “topping.” This was announced as a “Cinque Ports token payable at Dover,” and was dated 1794. “Wellingtons,” said the man, “is cheap; that one’s only a halfpenny, but here’s one here, sir, as you seem to understand coins, as I hope to get 2_d._ for, and will take no less. It’s ‘J. Lackington, 1794,’ you see, and on the back there’s a Fame, and round her is written--and it’s a good speciment of a coin--‘Halfpenny of Lackington, Allen & Co., cheapest booksellers in the world.’ That’s scarcer and more vallyballer than Wellingtons or Nelsons either.” Of the current coin of the realm, I saw none older than Charles II., and but one of his reign, and little legible. Indeed the reverse had been ground quite smooth, and some one had engraved upon it “Charles Dryland Tunbridg.” A small “e” over the “g” of Tunbridg perfected the orthography. This, the street-seller said, was a “love-token” as well as an old coin, and “them love-tokens was getting scarce.” Of foreign and colonial coins there were perhaps 60. The oldest I saw was one of Louis XV. of France and Navarre, 1774. There was one also of the “Republique Francaise” when Napoleon was First Consul. The colonial coins were more numerous than the foreign. There was the “One Penny token” of Lower Canada; the “one quarter anna” of the East India Company; the “half stiver of the colonies of Essequibo and Demarara;” the “halfpenny token of the province of Nova Scotia,” &c. &c. There were also counterfeit halfcrowns and bank tokens worn from their simulated silver to rank copper. The principle on which this man “priced” his coins, as he called it, was simple enough. What was the size of a halfpenny he asked a penny for; the size of a penny coin was 2_d._ “It’s a difficult trade is mine, sir,” he said, “to carry on properly, for you may be so easily taken in, if you’re not a judge of coins and other curiosities.”

The shells of this man’s stock in trade he called “conks” and “king conks.” He had no “clamps” then, he told me, but they sold pretty well; he described them as “two shells together, one fitting inside the other.” He also had sold what he called “African cowries,” which were as “big as a pint pot,” and the smaller cowries, which were “money in India, for his father was a soldier and had been there and saw it.” The shells are sold from 1_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._

The old buckles were such as used to be worn on shoes, but the plate was all worn off, and “such like curiosities,” the man told me, “got scarcer and scarcer.”

Many of the stalls which are seen in the streets are the property of adjacent shop or store-keepers, and there are not now, I am informed, more than six men who carry on this trade apart from other commerce. Their average takings are 15_s._ weekly each man, about two-thirds being profit, or 234_l._ in a year. Some of the stands are in Great Wyld-street, but they are chiefly the property of the second-hand furniture brokers.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF SECOND-HAND TELESCOPES AND POCKET GLASSES.

In the sale of second-hand telescopes only one man is now engaged in any extensive way, except on mere chance occasions. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, I was informed, there was a considerable street sale in small telescopes at 1_s._ each. They were made at Birmingham, my informant believed, but were sold as second-hand goods in London. Of this trade there is now no remains.

The principal seller of second-hand telescopes takes a stand on Tower Hill or by the Coal Exchange, and his customers, as he sells excellent “glasses,” are mostly sea-faring men. He has sold, and still sells, telescopes from 2_l._ 10_s._ to 5_l._ each, the purchasers generally “trying” them, with strict examination, from Tower Hill, or on the Custom-House Quay. There are, in addition to this street-seller, six and sometimes eight others, who offer telescopes to persons about the docks or wharfs, who may be going some voyage. These are as often new as second-hand, but the second-hand articles are preferred. This, however, is a Jewish trade which will be treated of under another head.

An old opera-glass, or the smaller articles best known as “pocket-glasses,” are occasionally hawked to public-houses and offered in the streets, but so little is done in them that I can obtain no statistics. A spectacle seller told me that he had once tried to sell two second-hand opera-glasses at 2_s._ 6_d._ each, in the street, and then in the public-houses, but was laughed at by the people who were usually his customers. “Opera-glasses!” they said, “why, what did they want with opera-glasses? wait until they had opera-boxes.” He sold the glasses at last to a shopkeeper.

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF OTHER MISCELLANEOUS SECOND-HAND ARTICLES.

The other second-hand articles sold in the streets I will give under one head, specifying the different characteristics of the trade, when any striking peculiarities exist. To give a detail of the whole trade, or rather of the several kinds of articles in the whole trade, is impossible. I shall therefore select only such as are sold the more extensively, or present any novel or curious features of second-hand street-commerce.

_Writing-desks_, _tea-caddies_, _dressing-cases_, and _knife-boxes_ used to be a ready sale, I was informed, when “good second-hand;” but they are “got up” now so cheaply by the poor fancy cabinet-makers who work for the “slaughterers,” or furniture warehouses, and for some of the general-dealing swag-shops, that the sale of anything second-hand is greatly diminished. In fact I was told that as regards second-hand writing-desks and dressing-cases, it might be said there was “no trade at all now.” A few, however, are still to be seen at miscellaneous stalls, and are occasionally, but very rarely, offered at a public-house “used” by artisans who may be considered “judges” of work. The tea-caddies are the things which are in best demand. “Working people buy them,” I was informed, and “working people’s wives. When women are the customers they look closely at the lock and key, as they keep ‘my uncle’s cards’ there” (pawnbroker’s duplicates).

One man had lately sold second-hand tea-caddies at 9_d._, 1_s._, and 1_s._ 3_d._ each, and cleared 2_s._ in a day when he had stock and devoted his time to this sale. He could not persevere in it if he wished, he told me, as he might lose a day in looking out for the caddies; he might go to fifty brokers and not find one caddy cheap enough for his purpose.

_Brushes_ are sold second-hand in considerable quantities in the streets, and are usually vended at stalls. Shoe-brushes are in the best demand, and are generally sold, when in good condition, at 1_s._ the set, the cost to the street-seller being 8_d._ They are bought, I was told, by the people who clean their own shoes, or have to clean other people’s. Clothes’ brushes are not sold to any extent, as the “hard brush” of the shoe set is used by working people for a clothes’ brush. Of late, I am told, second-hand brushes have sold more freely than ever. They were hardly to be had just when wanted, in a sufficient quantity, for the demand by persons going to Epsom and Ascot races, who carry a brush of little value with them, to brush the dust gathered on the road from their coats. The coster-girls buy very hard brushes, indeed mere stumps, with which they brush radishes; these brushes are vended at the street-stalls at 1_d._ each.

In _Stuffed Birds_ for the embellishment of the walls of a room, there is still a small second-hand street sale, but none now in images or chimney-piece ornaments. “Why,” said one dealer, “I can now buy new figures for 9_d._, such as not many years ago cost 7_s._, so what chance of a second-hand sale is there?” The stuffed birds which sell the best are starlings. They are all sold as second-hand, but are often “made up” for street-traffic; an old bird or two, I was told, in a new case, or a new bird in an old case. Last Saturday evening one man told me he had sold two “long cases” of starlings and small birds for 2_s._ 6_d._ each. There are no stuffed parrots or foreign birds in this sale, and no pheasants or other game, except sometimes wretched old things which are sold because they happen to be in a case.