Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 217
Scan 217
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
12 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHAPTER XV
3VIOLIN DEALERS, COLLECTORS, AND AMATEURS
5I have come to the conclusion, "after long years," that there are three things about which your averagely honest man has no conscience whatever—the first is a horse, the second is an umbrella, and the last, but not least, is a fiddle.
7He will buy from some needy ignoramus a fiddle worth £100 for a £5 note, if he can. He will sell a fiddle which cost him £5 for £100, if he can. Truly, the caveat emptor of the ancient Romans covers a multitude of sins.
9On the other hand, the extreme ignorance of many persons who have violins to sell offers singular temptations to dealers, who are a class of people constitutionally on the make.
11In bygone days, people who did not play the violin used to be criminally careless about the instruments that happened to be in their possession. Cremonas might lie for years in damp attics, or hung up in disused cupboards on rusty nails, or away in the dust of ages on the top of old beds and cabinets. Even if the fiddle was ultimately stolen—borrowed and not re-
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.