Blackburne on Problem Composers

In City of London Chess Magazine, v. 1, p. 200 (Aug. 1875), J. Blackburne reviews the recently published collection 101 Ausgewählte Schachaufgaben by Kohtz and Kockelkorn.

In the first paragraph of that review he states:

Problem-composers are frightful bores, and are fast becoming an intolerable nuisance. You cannot now-a-days enter a Chess room or Club without some young and aspiring problemist persisting in showing you a position which he is pleased to call a problem. Though somewhat eccentric they are quite harmless, and, moreover, exhibit an unusual amount of forbearance. After, for instance, solving their stupid position in fewer minutes than it has taken weeks to construct, saying that it is weak and obvious—mere rubbish, or words to that effect, telling them that it is a feeble imitation of J. B., a fac-simile of Healey or some other well-known composer, strange to say, instead of knocking you down as any ordinary mortal would do, they, with a benevolent smile upon their face, offer you a cigar; and, still more remarkable, will take the first opportunity of setting up for your critical examination their latest, and, as they usually fancy, the finest and most difficult problem extant. Such, at any rate, is our experience.