Of the street-sale of musical instruments by drunken members of the “profession” I need say little, as it is exceptional, though it is certainly a branch of the trade, for so numerous is the body of street-musicians, and of so many classes is it composed, that this description of second-hand business is being constantly transacted, and often to the profit of the more wary dealers in these goods. The statistics I shall show at the close of my remarks on this subject.
Of the Music “Duffers.”
Second-Hand Guitars are vended by the street-sellers. The price varies from 7s. 6d. to 15s. 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 30s. each, or an aggregate yearly amount of 190l. The weekly profits run from 10s. to 15s., and sometimes the well-known dealers clear 40s. or 50s. a week, while others do not take 5s. 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 2s. 6d. or 3s. 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 10s.”
Possibly a bargain is struck for 5s.; 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 10s., 15s., and even 20s., “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 14s.; a French horn for 10s.; and a clarionet for 7s. 6d.; 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.