Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 | Page 5

of stock, depreciating it at the same time as altogether beneath your
notice; and in the end succeeds in cramming you with something which
you don't want, and for which you pay from 15 to 20 per cent. more
than your own draper would have charged you for it.
The above extracts are given in illustration of the last new discovery in
the science of puffing--a discovery by which, through the agency of the
press, the penny-post, and the last new London Directory, the greatest
rogues are enabled to practise upon the simplicity of our better-halves,
while we think them secure in the guardianship of home. We imagine
that, practically, this science must be now pretty near completion. Earth,
air, fire, and water, are all pressed into the service. It has its painters,
and poets, and literary staff, from the bard who tunes his harp to the
praise of the pantaloons of the great public benefactor Noses, to the
immortal professoress of crochet and cross-stitch, who contracts for
L.120 a year to puff in 'The Family Fudge' the superexcellent knitting
and boar's-head cotton of Messrs Steel and Goldseye. It may be that
something more is yet within the reach of human ingenuity. It remains
to be seen whether we shall at some future time find puffs in the hearts
of lettuces and summer-cabbages, or shell them from our green-peas
and Windsor beans. It might be brought about, perhaps, were the
market-gardeners enlisted in the cause; the only question is, whether it
could be made to pay.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A POLICE-OFFICER.
THE MONOMANIAC.

The following narrative relates more to medical than to criminal history;
but as the affair came in some degree under my notice as a public
officer, I have thought it might not be altogether out of place in these
slight outlines of police experience. Strange and unaccountable as it
may at first appear, its general truth will hardly be questioned by those
who have had opportunities of observing the fantastic delusions which
haunt and dominate the human brain in certain phases of mental
aberration.
On arriving in London, in 1831, I took lodgings at a Mr Renshawe's, in
Mile-End Road, not far from the turnpike-gate. My inducement to do
so, was partly the cheapness and neatness of the accommodation, partly
that the landlord's maternal uncle, a Mr Oxley, was slightly known to
me. Henry Renshawe I knew by reputation only, he having left
Yorkshire ten or eleven years before, and even that knowledge was
slight and vague. I had heard that a tragical event had cast a deep
shadow over his after-life; that he had been for some months the inmate
of a private lunatic asylum; and that some persons believed his brain
had never thoroughly recovered its originally healthy action. In this
opinion, both my wife and myself very soon concurred; and yet I am
not sure that we could have given a satisfactory reason for such belief.
He was, it is true, usually kind and gentle, even to the verge of
simplicity, but his general mode of expressing himself and conducting
business was quite coherent and sensible; although, in spite of his
resigned cheerfulness of tone and manner, it was at times quite evident,
that whatever the mental hurt he had received, it had left a rankling,
perhaps remorseful, sting behind. A small, well-executed portrait in his
sitting-room suggested a conjecture of the nature of the calamity which
had befallen him. It was that of a fair, mild-eyed, very young woman,
but of a pensive, almost mournful, cast of features, as if the coming
event, briefly recorded in the lower right-hand corner of the painting,
had already, during life and health, cast its projecting shadow over her.
That brief record was this:--'Laura Hargreaves, born 1804; drowned
1821.' No direct allusion to the picture ever passed his lips, in my
hearing, although, from being able to chat together of Yorkshire scenes
and times, we speedily became excellent friends. Still, there were not
wanting, from time to time, significant indications, though difficult to

place in evidence, that the fire of insanity had not been wholly
quenched, but still smouldered and glowed beneath the habit-hardened
crust which concealed it from the careless or casual observer. Exciting
circumstances, not very long after my arrival in the metropolis,
unfortunately kindled those brief wild sparkles into a furious and
consuming flame.
Mr Renshawe was in fair circumstances--that is, his income, derived
from funded property alone, was nearly L.300 a year; but his habits
were close, thrifty, almost miserly. His personal appearance was neat
and gentlemanly, but he kept no servant. A charwoman came once a
day to arrange his chamber, and perform other household work, and he
usually dined, very simply, at a coffee-house or tavern. His house, with
the exception of a