EDINBURGH JOURNAL
BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS
CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
No. 434. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d._
PUFF AND PUSH.
It is said that everything is to be had in London. There is truth
enough in the observation; indeed, rather too much. The conviction
that everything is to be had, whether you are in want of it or not, is
forced upon you with a persistence that becomes oppressive; and you
find that, owing to everything being so abundantly plentiful, there is
one thing which is _not_ to be had, do what you will, though you would
like it, have it if you could--and that one thing is just one day's
exemption from the persecutions of Puff in its myriad shapes and
disguises. But it is not to be allowed; all the agencies that will
work at all are pressed into the service of pushing and puffing
traffic; and we are fast becoming, from a nation of shopkeepers, a
nation in a shop. If you walk abroad, it is between walls swathed in
puffs; if you are lucky enough to drive your gig, you have to 'cut in
and out' between square vans of crawling puffs; if, alighting, you
cast your eyes upon the ground, the pavement is stencilled with puffs;
if in an evening stroll you turn your eye towards the sky, from a
paper balloon the clouds drop puffs. You get into an omnibus, out of
the shower, and find yourself among half a score of others, buried
alive in puffs; you give the conductor sixpence, and he gives you
three pennies in change, and you are forced to pocket a puff, or
perhaps two, stamped indelibly on the copper coin of the realm. You
wander out into the country, but the puffs have gone thither before
you, turn in what direction you may; and the green covert, the shady
lane, the barks of columned beeches and speckled birches, of gnarled
oaks and rugged elms--no longer the mysterious haunts of nymphs and
dryads, who have been driven far away by the omnivorous demon of the
shop--are all invaded by Puff, and subdued to the office of his
ministering spirits. Puff, in short, is the monster megatherium of
modern society, who runs rampaging about the world, his broad back in
the air, and his nose on the ground, playing all sorts of ludicrous
antics, doing very little good, beyond filling his own insatiable maw,
and nobody knows how much mischief in accomplishing that.
Push is an animal of a different breed, naturally a thorough-going,
steady, and fast-trotting hack, who mostly keeps in the Queen's
highway, and knows where he is going. Unfortunately, he is given to
break into a gallop now and then; and whenever in this vicious mood,
is pretty sure to take up with Puff, and the two are apt to make wild
work of it when they scamper abroad together. The worst of it is, that
nobody knows which is which of these two termagant tramplers: both are
thoroughly protean creatures, changing shapes and characters, and
assuming a thousand different forms every day; so that it is a task
all but impossible to distinguish one from the other. Hence a man may
got upon the back of either without well knowing whither he will be
carried, or what will be the upshot of his journey.
Dropping our parable, and leaving the supposed animals to run their
indefinite career, let us take a brief glance at some of the
curiosities of the science of Puffing and Pushing--for both are so
blended, that it is impossible to disentangle one from the other--as
it is carried on at the present hour in the metropolis.
The business of the shopkeeper, as well as of all others who have
goods to sell, is of course to dispose of his wares as rapidly as
possible, and in the dearest market. This market he has to create, and
he must do it in one of two ways: either he must succeed in persuading
the public, by some means or other, that it is to their advantage to
deal with him, or he must wait patiently and perseveringly until they
have found that out, which they will inevitably do if it is a fact. No
shop ever pays its expenses, as a general rule, for the first ten or
twenty months, unless it be literally crammed down the public throat
by the instrumentality of the press and the boarding; and it is
therefore a question, whether it is cheaper to wait for a business to
grow up, like a young plant, or to force it into sudden expansion by
artificial means. When a business is manageable by one or two hands,
the former expedient is the better one, and as such is generally
followed, after a little preliminary advertising, to apprise the
neighbourhood of its whereabouts. But when the proprietor has an army
of assistants to maintain and to salarise, the case is altogether
different: the expense of waiting, perhaps for a couple of years,
would swallow up a large capital. On this account, he finds it more
politic to arrest the general attention by a grand stir in all
quarters, and some obtrusive demonstration palpable to all eyes, which
shall blazon his name and pretensions through every street and lane of
mighty London. Sometimes it is a regiment of foot, with placarded
banners; sometimes one of cavalry, with bill-plastered vehicles and
bands of music; sometimes it is a phalanx of bottled humanity,
crawling about in labelled triangular phials of wood, corked with
woful faces; and sometimes it is all these together, and a great deal
more besides. By this means, he conquers reputation, as a despot
sometimes carries a throne, by a _coup d'état_, and becomes a
celebrity at once to the million, among whom his name is infinitely
better known than those of the greatest benefactors of mankind. All
this might be tolerable enough if it ended here; but, unhappily, it
does not. Experiment has shewn that, just as gudgeons will bite at
anything when the mud is stirred up at the bottom of their holes, so
the ingenuous public will lay out their money with anybody who makes a
prodigious noise and clatter about the bargains he has to give. The
result of this discovery is, the wholesale daily publication of lies
of most enormous calibre, and their circulation, by means which we
shall briefly notice, in localities where they are likely to prove
most productive.
The advertisement in the daily or weekly papers, the placard on the
walls or boardings, the perambulating vans and banner-men, and the
doomed hosts of bottle-imps and extinguishers, however successful each
may be in attracting the gaze and securing the patronage of the
multitude, fail, for the most part, of enlisting the confidence of a
certain order of customers, who, having plenty of money to spend, and
a considerable share of vanity to work upon, are among the most
hopeful fish that fall into the shopkeeper's net. These are the female
members of a certain order of families--the amiable and genteel wives
and daughters of the commercial aristocracy, and their agents, of this
great city. They reside throughout the year in the suburbs: they
rarely read the newspapers; it would not be genteel to stand in the
streets spelling over the bills on the walls; and the walking and
riding equipages of puffing are things decidedly low in their
estimation. They must, therefore, be reached by some other means; and
these other means are before us as we write, in the shape of a pile of
circular-letters in envelopes of all sorts--plain, hot-pressed, and
embossed; with addresses--some in manuscript, and others in
print--some in a gracefully genteel running-hand, and others decidedly
and rather obtrusively official in character, as though emanating from
government authorities--each and all, however, containing the bait
which the lady-gudgeon is expected to swallow. Before proceeding to
open a few of them for the benefit of the reader, we must apprise him
of a curious peculiarity which marks their delivery. Whether they come
by post, as the major part of them do, not a few of them requiring a
double stamp, or whether they are delivered by hand, one thing is
remarkable--_they always come in the middle of the day_, between the
hours of eleven in the forenoon and five in the afternoon, when, as a
matter of course, the master of the house is not in the way. Never, by
any accident, does the morning-post, delivered in the suburbs between
nine and ten, produce an epistle of this kind. Let us now open a few
of them, and learn from their contents what is the shopkeeper's
estimate of the gullibility of the merchant's wife, or his daughter,
or of the wife or daughter of his managing clerk.
The first that comes to hand is addressed thus: 'No.
2795.--DECLARATIVE NOTICE.--_From the Times, August 15, 1851._' The
contents are a circular, handsomely printed on three crowded sides of
royal quarto glazed post, and containing a list of articles for
peremptory disposal, under unheard-of advantages, on the premises of
Mr Gobblemadam, at No. 541 New Ruin Street. Without disguising
anything more than the addresses of these puffing worthies, we shall
quote _verbatim_ a few paragraphs from their productions. The
catalogue of bargains in the one before us comprises almost every
species of textile manufacture, as well native as foreign--among which
silks, shawls, dresses, furs, and mantles are the most prominent; and
amazing bargains they are--witness the following extracts:
'A marvellous variety of fancy silks, cost from 4 to 5
guineas each, will be sold for L.1, 19s. 6d. each.
Robes of damas and broche (foreign), cost 6 guineas, to be
sold for 2-1/2 guineas.
Embroidered muslin robes, newest fashion, cost 18s. 9d., to
be sold for 9s. 6d.
Worked lace dresses, cost 35s., to be sold at 14s. 9d.
Do. do. cost 28s. 6d., to be sold at 7s. 6d.
Newest dresses, of fashionable materials,
