Second-Hand Guitars are vended by the street-sellers. The price
varies from 7_s._ 6_d._ to 15_s._ _Harps_ form no portion of the
second-hand business of the streets. A _drum_ is occasionally, and
only occasionally, sold to a showman, but the chief second-hand traffic
is in violins. _Accordions_, both new and old, used to sell readily in
the streets, either from stalls or in hawking, “but,” said a man who
had formerly sold them, “they have been regularly ‘duffed’ out of the
streets, so much cheap rubbish is made to sell. There’s next to nothing
done in them now. If one’s offered to a man that’s no judge of it,
he’ll be sure you want to cheat him, and perhaps abuse you; if he be a
judge, of course it’s no go, unless with a really good article.”
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_.