CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
CONTENTS
PUFF AND PUSH.
RECOLLECTIONS OF A POLICE-OFFICER.
THE VINCEJO'S PRIZE.
PAINTERS' MONOGRAMS.
CLARET AND OLIVES.
THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.
SONNET.
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'SINFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
| No. 434. New Series. | SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1852. | Price 1½d. |
PUFF AND PUSH.
It is said that everything is to be had in London. There is truthenough in the observation; indeed, rather too much. The convictionthat everything is to be had, whether you are in want of it or not, isforced upon you with a persistence that becomes oppressive; and youfind that, owing to everything being so abundantly plentiful, there isone thing which is not to be had, do what you will, though you wouldlike it, have it if you could—and that one thing is just one day'sexemption from the persecutions of Puff in its myriad shapes anddisguises. But it is not to be allowed; all the agencies that willwork at all are pressed into the service of pushing and puffingtraffic; and we are fast becoming, from a nation of shopkeepers, anation in a shop. If you walk abroad, it is between walls swathed inpuffs; if you are lucky enough to drive your gig, you have to 'cut inand out' between square vans of crawling puffs; if, alighting, youcast your eyes upon the ground, the pavement is stencilled with puffs;if in an evening stroll you turn your eye towards the sky, from apaper balloon the clouds drop puffs. You get into an omnibus, out ofthe shower, and find yourself among half a score of others, buriedalive in puffs; you give the conductor sixpence, and he gives youthree pennies in change, and you are forced to pocket a puff, orperhaps two, stamped indelibly on the copper coin of the realm. Youwander out into the country, but the puffs have gone thither beforeyou, turn in what direction you may; and the green covert, the shadylane, the barks of columned beeches and speckled birches, of gnarledoaks and rugged elms—no longer the mysterious haunts of nymphs anddryads, who have been driven far away by the omnivorous demon of theshop—are all invaded by Puff, and subdued to the office of hisministering spirits. Puff, in short, is the monster megatherium ofmodern society, who runs rampaging about the world, his broad back inthe air, and his nose on the ground, playing all sorts of ludicrousantics, doing very little good, beyond filling his own insatiable maw,and nobody knows how much mischief in acco