BUNS.
AMONG the numerous productions of London may be reckoned a
species of vegetable, called Buns ; they partake also of a mineral nature,
as fragments of stone, called grit, are frequently found in them.
Naturalists, having occasionally (very rarely) observed a
sort of ossification resembling a currant upon the surface of the bun, were led
to undertake a mining speculation, for the discovery of any of these curiosities
which might by chance be concealed in the bowels ; but after a deal of trouble
and great outlay of capital, the specimens were found so rare and so inferior in
quality, that they did not reward the trouble of searching for them, and the
enterprise was relinquished.
In the centre of these buns is described a circle, and the
outer surface is divided into a number of mathematical sections, forming
together a mathematical problem, which it would puzzle Euclid to solve.
Buns are commonly divided into three classes, viz. Bath or
twopenny, penny, and halfpenny stale, which, are principally u ed by the
children of the poorer population of the City, or by oppressed and poorly-paid
mechanics, who procure them while on their way to their morning labour.
It has been asserted that they derive some sustenance from
them, but this is much doubted by geologists, and it is generally believed that
they are only of service in sharpening their teeth for the almost equally dry
morsel of bread which constitutes their breakfast, owing to the grinding
parsimony of their employers.
To these three classes may be added a kind known by the name
of "Chelsea," this species having, it is said, been first discovered
in that locality. These are in the form of a "many-folded" serpent,
with its tail in its mouth, and are sometimes used as the emblem of eternity,
which simile is not inapt, as it takes a prodigious time to get through them.
Punch, Jan.-Jun. 1843