20 THE COMPLETE WILDFOWLER 
suspicion. People like Messrs. W. J. Jeffery and Co., of King 
Street, St. James’s, or Mr. William Evans, of 63 Pall Mall— 
the two best houses for this class of business—should alone 
be consulted. 
I have known men buy second-hand guns from pawn- 
brokers, and this is a most dangerous thing to do. 
Messrs. Jeffery have pointed out, and I can endorse all 
they say, the unwisdom of such a course. If a sportsman 
does purchase a gun from a pawnbroker, he should always take 
the precaution of obtaining a receipted invoice, with a clear _ 
and unmistakable statement that the gun is genuinely a second- 
hand one. After this his best course would be to take the 
weapon to a responsible gunmaker, and obtain his opinion as 
to the truth of the statement upon the invoice. 
‘‘For some years past certain pawnbrokers in London have been 
defrauding the public by selling as second-hand weapons, that they 
represented to be of high-class-make guns, and particularly Cordite 
Double Expresses, that are really cheap weapons of Belgian or 
Birmingham make, highly engraved in imitation of the London 
patterns. These guns and rifles usually are named by certain little 
traders in London, who make a living by supplying the pawnbrokers 
with guns at a trifling charge for the use of the name. Some of them 
even go so far as to state that they, or their ancestors, were gunmakers 
by appointment to some long since deceased member of the Royal 
Family. 
‘* An examination of some of the pawnbrokers’ lists who deal in 
guns will show as many as twenty or thirty guns and rifles bearing, per- 
haps, one of these little makers’ names, and the same descriptions of 
guns and rifles will be found for several years back in their lists. 
When a gun or rifle is sold they can at once replace it with a similar 
one from the little dealer in a back street.” 
Thus a leading firm of gunmakers—Messrs. Jeffery to wit; 
and they further add :— 
‘‘ Should any sportsman find that he has been defrauded by one 
of these unscrupulous dealers, his best plan is to put the matter into 
