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.”