proper emphasis to the word duffer, and stamped
it for currency in the vocabulary of contempt.

It is well that we have a good expressive
name for the duffer's art; it being now
extensively practised in all the professions as well as
in all the departments of trade and commerce.
It is becoming so well recognised, that I expect
in the course of a few years to find "Duffers"
figuring as a heading in the Post-Office Directory.
We shall have political duffers, clerical duffers,
legal duffers, medical duffers, literary duffers,
artistic duffers; manufacturing, wholesale and
retail duffers, all duly classified and alphabetically
arranged.

I find that the word is sometimes wrongly
employed to denote an incapable person, a person
without ability or skill in the profession or
business which he pursues. Now such a person is
not necessarily a duffer. What you want to
constitute the true duffer is pretension added to
incapacity, with, underlying all, an ever-active
motive of paltry dishonesty. Generally and
broadly, the duffer is a person who, in trade,
imitates your trade-mark, and says "it is the
same oncern;" who, in the practice of
medicine, assumes your name, with one "t" or one "l"
more or less; who in literature parodies the
title of your periodical, or brings out the second
series of your adventures; who, in dramatic
matters, follows up your Green Hills of the
West, with the Green Hills of the East, with a
converse of your water scene on dry land—who,
in all cases, when he sees any one going with
the wind of popularity, sails as close to him as
possible, to catch a capful of his favouring gale.
In fact, duffers are parasites clambering upon
the heads of success.

Regarding them in the light of, say, cock-
roaches, let us transfix a few of them with pins,
and spin them:

There is the tradesman duffer, who resorts to
the "untradesman-like practice" of writing up
over his door some significant name in large,
and his own insignificant name in little. Where
pianofortes are to be pushed, we have "Brown
from COLLARD and COLLARDS'," or "Jones
from ERARD'S," or "Robinson from CRAMER
and BEALE'S;" where drugs are to be
dispensed, it is, "Snooks from CORBYN'S;"
where pastry is hanging on hand, it is offered
with the guarantee of "Smith from
GUNTER'S." You will buy a piano with the name
of one of the celebrated makers on it, and some
day when you take off the key-board to see what
is the matter with the works, you will discover
the name of Brown modestly concealing itself
under the lid—a small "Brown" with a small
"from" after it. Tackle this confessed duffer
in the law courts, and ten to one if he will not get
the better of you. He is a slippery eel that even
the fingers of justice cannot hold. Duffers of this
class not only imitate trade-marks, but they
contrive to stamp their goods with the genuine
trade-marks of manufacturers of repute. Who
has not found the trade-marks of Allsopp and
Bass covering bottles of the vilest beer ever
decocted? The labels are the labels of Bass and
Allsopp, but the beer is not theirs. This is not
at all astonishing, when we remember that a
band of forgers contrived to get hold even of
the note paper of the Bank of England. The
great brewers have a number of agents to whom
they entrust any quantity of their labels, and
these agents are sometimes careless, and not
always scrupulous. N.B. When you empty a
bottle of genuine beer or wine, always run your
penknife through the labels. Labels are taken,
off and used again. I have found RÅ“derer's
champagne label upon a bottle of unmitigated
gooseberry.

It is not uncommon, when a certain person
acquires a reputation for, say, breakfast-bacon
or sixteen-shilling trousers, for some duffer to
hunt up a person of the same name, take him
into partnership, and set up in the same trade
—in the same street, if possible, with the man
who has made his name and his wares famous.
This is hard upon Piggins, who has invested a
large sum in advertising himself and his
breakfast-bacon. Another Piggins comes and opens a
shop a few doors off, catches a good many of the
genuine Piggins's stray customers, takes advantage
of his advertising, and puts him to further
expense in that way by compelling him, in self-
defence, to inform the public that he has no
connexion with the other Piggins in the same street.

There is no department of trade in which you
do not find the duffer taking advantage of some
well-earned reputation (not his own) to push the
sale of inferior goods, or, at any rate, to increase
his gains by a false pretence. In certain trade
circles the practice is recognised as quite legitimate:
the code of morality only prescribing that
the thieves shall be honourable among themselves
while enjoying each other's hospitality. I have
heard of an eminent duffer, who, on discovering
one of his guests cheating at cards, openly
rebuked him with—"I can't allow this in my own
drawing-room in the presence of my family; no,
my friend, outside, duff, but inside, square!"
Wonderful are the triumphs of morality. There
is no one so lost to the sense of what is right
and just as not, at some moment, to be open to
the dictates of honour.

It is easier to forgive the commercial duffer,
than even to excuse the "professional" one.
Trade at the very best is little calculated to
soften the morals, and prevent them from
becoming brutally sordid. It is the diligent
pursuit of the arts that (proverbially at least) tends
in that direction. But spite of the proverb, we
have as many "professional" duffers as commercial
ones.

There is the political duffer! He is a person
who makes himself notorious by leading an
agitation, or riding a hobby. He is the spokesman
of a noisy cause, or the mover of an annual
motion. Yet, in many cases, he does not care a
rush for the cause, and would be very much
disappointed if his motion were carried; because,
in that event, his occupation would be gone. I
have known agitators who have tacked
themselves on to a number of successive causes,
many of them at variance with each other.