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Mudfog and Other Sketches

by Charles Dickens

May, 1997  [Etext #912]


Project Gutenberg's Etext of Mudfog & Other Sketches, by Dickens
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Mudfog and Other Sketches by Charles Dickens.
Scanned and proofed by David Price
email [e-mail]





MUDFOG AND OTHER SKETCHES




Contents:

I.    PUBLIC LIFE OF MR. TULRUMBLE - ONCE MAYOR OF MUDFOG
II.   FULL REPORT OF THE FIRST MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION
      FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF EVERYTHING
III.  FULL REPORT OF THE SECOND MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION
      FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF EVERYTHING
IV.   THE PANTOMIME OF LIFE
V.    SOME PARTICULARS CONCERNING A LION
VI.   MR. ROBERT BOLTON:  THE 'GENTLEMAN CONNECTED WITH THE PRESS'
VII.  FAMILIAR EPISTLE FROM A PARENT TO A CHILD
VIII. AGED TWO YEARS AND TWO MONTHS




PUBLIC LIFE OF MR. TULRUMBLE - ONCE MAYOR OF MUDFOG



Mudfog is a pleasant town - a remarkably pleasant town - situated
in a charming hollow by the side of a river, from which river,
Mudfog derives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, coals, and rope-
yarn, a roving population in oilskin hats, a pretty steady influx
of drunken bargemen, and a great many other maritime advantages.
There is a good deal of water about Mudfog, and yet it is not
exactly the sort of town for a watering-place, either.  Water is a
perverse sort of element at the best of times, and in Mudfog it is
particularly so.  In winter, it comes oozing down the streets and
tumbling over the fields, - nay, rushes into the very cellars and
kitchens of the houses, with a lavish prodigality that might well
be dispensed with; but in the hot summer weather it WILL dry up,
and turn green:  and, although green is a very good colour in its
way, especially in grass, still it certainly is not becoming to
water; and it cannot be denied that the beauty of Mudfog is rather
impaired, even by this trifling circumstance.  Mudfog is a healthy
place - very healthy; - damp, perhaps, but none the worse for that.
It's quite a mistake to suppose that damp is unwholesome:  plants
thrive best in damp situations, and why shouldn't men?  The
inhabitants of Mudfog are unanimous in asserting that there exists
not a finer race of people on the face of the earth; here we have
an indisputable and veracious contradiction of the vulgar error at
once.  So, admitting Mudfog to be damp, we distinctly state that it
is salubrious.

The town of Mudfog is extremely picturesque.  Limehouse and
Ratcliff Highway are both something like it, but they give you a
very faint idea of Mudfog.  There are a great many more public-
houses in Mudfog - more than in Ratcliff Highway and Limehouse put
together.  The public buildings, too, are very imposing.  We
consider the town-hall one of the finest specimens of shed
architecture, extant:  it is a combination of the pig-sty and tea-
garden-box orders; and the simplicity of its design is of
surpassing beauty.  The idea of placing a large window on one side
of the door, and a small one on the other, is particularly happy.
There is a fine old Doric beauty, too, about the padlock and
scraper, which is strictly in keeping with the general effect.

In this room do the mayor and corporation of Mudfog assemble
together in solemn council for the public weal.  Seated on the
massive wooden benches, which, with the table in the centre, form
the only furniture of the whitewashed apartment, the sage men of
Mudfog spend hour after hour in grave deliberation.  Here they
settle at what hour of the night the public-houses shall be closed,
at what hour of the morning they shall be permitted to open, how
soon it shall be lawful for people to eat their dinner on church-
days, and other great political questions; and sometimes, long
after silence has fallen on the town, and the distant lights from
the shops and houses have ceased to twinkle, like far-off stars, to
the sight of the boatmen on the river, the illumination in the two
unequal-sized windows of the town-hall, warns the inhabitants of
Mudfog that its little body of legislators, like a larger and
better-known body of the same genus, a great deal more noisy, and
not a whit more profound, are patriotically dozing away in company,
far into the night, for their country's good.

Among this knot of sage and learned men, no one was so eminently
distinguished, during many years, for the quiet modesty of his
appearance and demeanour, as Nicholas Tulrumble, the well-known
coal-dealer.  However exciting the subject of discussion, however
animated the tone of the debate, or however warm the personalities
exchanged, (and even in Mudfog we get personal sometimes,) Nicholas
Tulrumble was always the same.  To say truth, Nicholas, being an
industrious man, and always up betimes, was apt to fall asleep when
a debate began, and to remain asleep till it was over, when he
would wake up very much refreshed, and give his vote with the
greatest complacency.  The fact was, that Nicholas Tulrumble,
knowing that everybody there had made up his mind beforehand,
considered the talking as just a long botheration about nothing at
all; and to the present hour it remains a question, whether, on
this point at all events, Nicholas Tulrumble was not pretty near
right.

Time, which strews a man's head with silver, sometimes fills his
pockets with gold.  As he gradually performed one good office for
Nicholas Tulrumble, he was obliging enough, not to omit the other.
Nicholas began life in a wooden tenement of four feet square, with
a capital of two and ninepence, and a stock in trade of three
bushels and a-half of coals, exclusive of the large lump which
hung, by way of sign-board, outside.  Then he enlarged the shed,
and kept a truck; then he left the shed, and the truck too, and
started a donkey and a Mrs. Tulrumble; then he moved again and set
up a cart; the cart was soon afterwards exchanged for a waggon; and
so he went on like his great predecessor Whittington - only without
a cat for a partner - increasing in wealth and fame, until at last
he gave up business altogether, and retired with Mrs. Tulrumble and
family to Mudfog Hall, which he had himself erected, on something
which he attempted to delude himself into the belief was a hill,
about a quarter of a mile distant from the town of Mudfog.

About this time, it began to be murmured in Mudfog that Nicholas
Tulrumble was growing vain and haughty; that prosperity and success
had corrupted the simplicity of his manners, and tainted the
natural goodness of his heart; in short, that he was setting up for
a public character, and a great gentleman, and affected to look
down upon his old companions with compassion and contempt.  Whether
these reports were at the time well-founded, or not, certain it is
that Mrs. Tulrumble very shortly afterwards started a four-wheel
chaise, driven by a tall postilion in a yellow cap, - that Mr.
Tulrumble junior took to smoking cigars, and calling the footman a
'feller,' - and that Mr. Tulrumble from that time forth, was no
more seen in his old seat in the chimney-corner of the Lighterman's
Arms at night.  This looked bad; but, more than this, it began to
be observed that Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble attended the corporation
meetings more frequently than heretofore; and he no longer went to
sleep as he had done for so many years, but propped his eyelids
open with his two forefingers; that he read the newspapers by
himself at home; and that he was in the habit of indulging abroad
in distant and mysterious allusions to 'masses of people,' and 'the
property of the country,' and 'productive power,' and 'the monied
interest:' all of which denoted and proved that Nicholas Tulrumble
was either mad, or worse; and it puzzled the good people of Mudfog
amazingly.

At length, about the middle of the month of October, Mr. Tulrumble
and family went up to London; the middle of October being, as Mrs.
Tulrumble informed her acquaintance in Mudfog, the very height of
the fashionable season.

Somehow or other, just about this time, despite the health-
preserving air of Mudfog, the Mayor died.  It was a most
extraordinary circumstance; he had lived in Mudfog for eighty-five
years.  The corporation didn't understand it at all; indeed it was
with great difficulty that one old gentleman, who was a great
stickler for forms, was dissuaded from proposing a vote of censure
on such unaccountable conduct.  Strange as it was, however, die he
did, without taking the slightest notice of the corporation; and
the corporation were imperatively called upon to elect his
successor.  So, they met for the purpose; and being very full of
Nicholas Tulrumble just then, and Nicholas Tulrumble being a very
important man, they elected him, and wrote off to London by the
very next post to acquaint Nicholas Tulrumble with his new
elevation.

Now, it being November time, and Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble being in
the capital, it fell out that he was present at the Lord Mayor's
show and dinner, at sight of the glory and splendour whereof, he,
Mr. Tulrumble, was greatly mortified, inasmuch as the reflection
would force itself on his mind, that, had he been born in London
instead of in Mudfog, he might have been a Lord Mayor too, and have
patronized the judges, and been affable to the Lord Chancellor, and
friendly with the Premier, and coldly condescending to the
Secretary to the Treasury, and have dined with a flag behind his
back, and done a great many other acts and deeds which unto Lord
Mayors of London peculiarly appertain.  The more he thought of the
Lord Mayor, the more enviable a personage he seemed.  To be a King
was all very well; but what was the King to the Lord Mayor!  When
the King made a speech, everybody knew it was somebody else's
writing; whereas here was the Lord Mayor, talking away for half an
hour-all out of his own head - amidst the enthusiastic applause of
the whole company, while it was notorious that the King might talk
to his parliament till he was black in the face without getting so
much as a single cheer.  As all these reflections passed through
the mind of Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble, the Lord Mayor of London
appeared to him the greatest sovereign on the face of the earth,
beating the Emperor of Russia all to nothing, and leaving the Great
Mogul immeasurably behind.

Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was pondering over these things, and
inwardly cursing the fate which had pitched his coal-shed in
Mudfog, when the letter of the corporation was put into his hand.
A crimson flush mantled over his face as he read it, for visions of
brightness were already dancing before his imagination.

'My dear,' said Mr. Tulrumble to his wife, 'they have elected me,
Mayor of Mudfog.'

'Lor-a-mussy!' said Mrs. Tulrumble:  'why what's become of old
Sniggs?'

'The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble,' said Mr. Tulrumble sharply,
for he by no means approved of the notion of unceremoniously
designating a gentleman who filled the high office of Mayor, as
'Old Sniggs,' - 'The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble, is dead.'

The communication was very unexpected; but Mrs. Tulrumble only
ejaculated 'Lor-a-mussy!' once again, as if a Mayor were a mere
ordinary Christian, at which Mr. Tulrumble frowned gloomily.

'What a pity 'tan't in London, ain't it?' said Mrs. Tulrumble,
after a short pause; 'what a pity 'tan't in London, where you might
have had a show.'

'I MIGHT have a show in Mudfog, if I thought proper, I apprehend,'
said Mr. Tulrumble mysteriously.

'Lor! so you might, I declare,' replied Mrs. Tulrumble.

'And a good one too,' said Mr. Tulrumble.

'Delightful!' exclaimed Mrs. Tulrumble.

'One which would rather astonish the ignorant people down there,'
said Mr. Tulrumble.

'It would kill them with envy,' said Mrs. Tulrumble.

So it was agreed that his Majesty's lieges in Mudfog should be
astonished with splendour, and slaughtered with envy, and that such
a show should take place as had never been seen in that town, or in
any other town before, - no, not even in London itself.

On the very next day after the receipt of the letter, down came the
tall postilion in a post-chaise, - not upon one of the horses, but
inside - actually inside the chaise, - and, driving up to the very
door of the town-hall, where the corporation were assembled,
delivered a letter, written by the Lord knows who, and signed by
Nicholas Tulrumble, in which Nicholas said, all through four sides
of closely-written, gilt-edged, hot-pressed, Bath post letter
paper, that he responded to the call of his fellow-townsmen with
feelings of heartfelt delight; that he accepted the arduous office
which their confidence had imposed upon him; that they would never
find him shrinking from the discharge of his duty; that he would
endeavour to execute his functions with all that dignity which
their magnitude and importance demanded; and a great deal more to
the same effect.  But even this was not all.  The tall postilion
produced from his right-hand top-boot, a damp copy of that
afternoon's number of the county paper; and there, in large type,
running the whole length of the very first column, was a long
address from Nicholas Tulrumble to the inhabitants of Mudfog, in
which he said that he cheerfully complied with their requisition,
and, in short, as if to prevent any mistake about the matter, told
them over again what a grand fellow he meant to be, in very much
the same terms as those in which he had already told them all about
the matter in his letter.

The corporation stared at one another very hard at all this, and
then looked as if for explanation to the tall postilion, but as the

*** Quick tidied and spell-checked to here - page 501 ***

tall postilion was intently contemplating the gold tassel on the
top of his yellow cap, and could have afforded no explanation
whatever, even if his thoughts had been entirely disengaged, they
contented themselves with coughing very dubiously, and looking very
grave.  The tall postilion then delivered another letter, in which
Nicholas Tulrumble informed the corporation, that he intended
repairing to the town-hall, in grand state and gorgeous procession,
on the Monday afternoon next ensuing.  At this the corporation
looked still more solemn; but, as the epistle wound up with a
formal invitation to the whole body to dine with the Mayor on that
day, at Mudfog Hall, Mudfog Hill, Mudfog, they began to see the fun
of the thing directly, and sent back their compliments, and they'd
be sure to come.

Now there happened to be in Mudfog, as somehow or other there does
happen to be, in almost every town in the British dominions, and
perhaps in foreign dominions too - we think it very likely, but,
being no great traveller, cannot distinctly say - there happened to
be, in Mudfog, a merry-tempered, pleasant-faced, good-for-nothing
sort of vagabond, with an invincible dislike to manual labour, and
an unconquerable attachment to strong beer and spirits, whom
everybody knew, and nobody, except his wife, took the trouble to
quarrel with, who inherited from his ancestors the appellation of
Edward Twigger, and rejoiced in the SOBRIQUET of Bottle-nosed Ned.
He was drunk upon the average once a day, and penitent upon an
equally fair calculation once a month; and when he was penitent, he
was invariably in the very last stage of maudlin intoxication.  He
was a ragged, roving, roaring kind of fellow, with a burly form, a
sharp wit, and a ready head, and could turn his hand to anything
when he chose to do it.  He was by no means opposed to hard labour
on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by the day
together, - running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and
revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave.  He would
have been invaluable to a fire-office; never was a man with such a
natural taste for pumping engines, running up ladders, and throwing
furniture out of two-pair-of-stairs' windows:  nor was this the
only element in which he was at home; he was a humane society in
himself, a portable drag, an animated life-preserver, and had saved
more people, in his time, from drowning, than the Plymouth life-
boat, or Captain Manby's apparatus.  With all these qualifications,
notwithstanding his dissipation, Bottle-nosed Ned was a general
favourite; and the authorities of Mudfog, remembering his numerous
services to the population, allowed him in return to get drunk in
his own way, without the fear of stocks, fine, or imprisonment.  He
had a general licence, and he showed his sense of the compliment by
making the most of it.

We have been thus particular in describing the character and
avocations of Bottle-nosed Ned, because it enables us to introduce
a fact politely, without hauling it into the reader's presence with
indecent haste by the head and shoulders, and brings us very
naturally to relate, that on the very same evening on which Mr.
Nicholas Tulrumble and family returned to Mudfog, Mr. Tulrumble's
new secretary, just imported from London, with a pale face and
light whiskers, thrust his head down to the very bottom of his
neckcloth-tie, in at the tap-room door of the Lighterman's Arms,
and inquiring whether one Ned Twigger was luxuriating within,
announced himself as the bearer of a message from Nicholas
Tulrumble, Esquire, requiring Mr. Twigger's immediate attendance at
the hall, on private and particular business.  It being by no means
Mr. Twigger's interest to affront the Mayor, he rose from the
fireplace with a slight sigh, and followed the light-whiskered
secretary through the dirt and wet of Mudfog streets, up to Mudfog
Hall, without further ado.

Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was seated in a small cavern with a
skylight, which he called his library, sketching out a plan of the
procession on a large sheet of paper; and into the cavern the
secretary ushered Ned Twigger.

'Well, Twigger!' said Nicholas Tulrumble, condescendingly.

There was a time when Twigger would have replied, 'Well, Nick!' but
that was in the days of the truck, and a couple of years before the
donkey; so, he only bowed.

'I want you to go into training, Twigger,' said Mr. Tulrumble.

'What for, sir?' inquired Ned, with a stare.

'Hush, hush, Twigger!' said the Mayor.  'Shut the door, Mr.
Jennings.  Look here, Twigger.'

As the Mayor said this, he unlocked a high closet, and disclosed a
complete suit of brass armour, of gigantic dimensions.

'I want you to wear this next Monday, Twigger,' said the Mayor.

'Bless your heart and soul, sir!' replied Ned, 'you might as well
ask me to wear a seventy-four pounder, or a cast-iron boiler.'

'Nonsense, Twigger, nonsense!' said the Mayor.

'I couldn't stand under it, sir,' said Twigger; 'it would make
mashed potatoes of me, if I attempted it.'

'Pooh, pooh, Twigger!' returned the Mayor.  'I tell you I have seen
it done with my own eyes, in London, and the man wasn't half such a
man as you are, either.'

'I should as soon have thought of a man's wearing the case of an
eight-day clock to save his linen,' said Twigger, casting a look of
apprehension at the brass suit.

'It's the easiest thing in the world,' rejoined the Mayor.

'It's nothing,' said Mr. Jennings.

'When you're used to it,' added Ned.

'You do it by degrees,' said the Mayor.  'You would begin with one
piece to-morrow, and two the next day, and so on, till you had got
it all on.  Mr. Jennings, give Twigger a glass of rum.  Just try
the breast-plate, Twigger.  Stay; take another glass of rum first.
Help me to lift it, Mr. Jennings.  Stand firm, Twigger!  There! -
it isn't half as heavy as it looks, is it?'

Twigger was a good strong, stout fellow; so, after a great deal of
staggering, he managed to keep himself up, under the breastplate,
and even contrived, with the aid of another glass of rum, to walk
about in it, and the gauntlets into the bargain.  He made a trial
of the helmet, but was not equally successful, inasmuch as he
tipped over instantly, - an accident which Mr. Tulrumble clearly
demonstrated to be occasioned by his not having a counteracting
weight of brass on his legs.

'Now, wear that with grace and propriety on Monday next,' said
Tulrumble, 'and I'll make your fortune.'

'I'll try what I can do, sir,' said Twigger.

'It must be kept a profound secret,' said Tulrumble.

'Of course, sir,' replied Twigger.

'And you must be sober,' said Tulrumble; 'perfectly sober.'  Mr.
Twigger at once solemnly pledged himself to be as sober as a judge,
and Nicholas Tulrumble was satisfied, although, had we been
Nicholas, we should certainly have exacted some promise of a more
specific nature; inasmuch as, having attended the Mudfog assizes in
the evening more than once, we can solemnly testify to having seen
judges with very strong symptoms of dinner under their wigs.
However, that's neither here nor there.

The next day, and the day following, and the day after that, Ned
Twigger was securely locked up in the small cavern with the sky-
light, hard at work at the armour.  With every additional piece he
could manage to stand upright in, he had an additional glass of
rum; and at last, after many partial suffocations, he contrived to
get on the whole suit, and to stagger up and down the room in it,
like an intoxicated effigy from Westminster Abbey.

Never was man so delighted as Nicholas Tulrumble; never was woman
so charmed as Nicholas Tulrumble's wife.  Here was a sight for the
common people of Mudfog!  A live man in brass armour!  Why, they
would go wild with wonder!

The day - THE Monday - arrived.

If the morning had been made to order, it couldn't have been better
adapted to the purpose.  They never showed a better fog in London
on Lord Mayor's day, than enwrapped the town of Mudfog on that
eventful occasion.  It had risen slowly and surely from the green
and stagnant water with the first light of morning, until it
reached a little above the lamp-post tops; and there it had
stopped, with a sleepy, sluggish obstinacy, which bade defiance to
the sun, who had got up very blood-shot about the eyes, as if he
had been at a drinking-party over-night, and was doing his day's
work with the worst possible grace.  The thick damp mist hung over
the town like a huge gauze curtain.  All was dim and dismal.  The
church steeples had bidden a temporary adieu to the world below;
and every object of lesser importance - houses, barns, hedges,
trees, and barges - had all taken the veil.

The church-clock struck one.  A cracked trumpet from the front
garden of Mudfog Hall produced a feeble flourish, as if some
asthmatic person had coughed into it accidentally; the gate flew
open, and out came a gentleman, on a moist-sugar coloured charger,
intended to represent a herald, but bearing a much stronger
resemblance to a court-card on horseback.  This was one of the
Circus people, who always came down to Mudfog at that time of the
year, and who had been engaged by Nicholas Tulrumble expressly for
the occasion.  There was the horse, whisking his tail about,
balancing himself on his hind-legs, and flourishing away with his
fore-feet, in a manner which would have gone to the hearts and
souls of any reasonable crowd.  But a Mudfog crowd never was a
reasonable one, and in all probability never will be.  Instead of
scattering the very fog with their shouts, as they ought most
indubitably to have done, and were fully intended to do, by
Nicholas Tulrumble, they no sooner recognized the herald, than they
began to growl forth the most unqualified disapprobation at the
bare notion of his riding like any other man.  If he had come out
on his head indeed, or jumping through a hoop, or flying through a
red-hot drum, or even standing on one leg with his other foot in
his mouth, they might have had something to say to him; but for a
professional gentleman to sit astride in the saddle, with his feet
in the stirrups, was rather too good a joke.  So, the herald was a
decided failure, and the crowd hooted with great energy, as he
pranced ingloriously away.

On the procession came.  We are afraid to say how many
supernumeraries there were, in striped shirts and black velvet
caps, to imitate the London watermen, or how many base imitations
of running-footmen, or how many banners, which, owing to the
heaviness of the atmosphere, could by no means be prevailed on to
display their inscriptions:  still less do we feel disposed to
relate how the men who played the wind instruments, looking up into
the sky (we mean the fog) with musical fervour, walked through
pools of water and hillocks of mud, till they covered the powdered
heads of the running-footmen aforesaid with splashes, that looked
curious, but not ornamental; or how the barrel-organ performer put
on the wrong stop, and played one tune while the band played
another; or how the horses, being used to the arena, and not to the
streets, would stand still and dance, instead of going on and
prancing; - all of which are matters which might be dilated upon to
great advantage, but which we have not the least intention of
dilating upon, notwithstanding.

Oh! it was a grand and beautiful sight to behold a corporation in
glass coaches, provided at the sole cost and charge of Nicholas
Tulrumble, coming rolling along, like a funeral out of mourning,
and to watch the attempts the corporation made to look great and
solemn, when Nicholas Tulrumble himself, in the four-wheel chaise,
with the tall postilion, rolled out after them, with Mr. Jennings
on one side to look like a chaplain, and a supernumerary on the
other, with an old life-guardsman's sabre, to imitate the sword-
bearer; and to see the tears rolling down the faces of the mob as
they screamed with merriment.  This was beautiful! and so was the
appearance of Mrs. Tulrumble and son, as they bowed with grave
dignity out of their coach-window to all the dirty faces that were
laughing around them:  but it is not even with this that we have to
do, but with the sudden stopping of the procession at another blast
of the trumpet, whereat, and whereupon, a profound silence ensued,
and all eyes were turned towards Mudfog Hall, in the confident
anticipation of some new wonder.

'They won't laugh now, Mr. Jennings,' said Nicholas Tulrumble.

'I think not, sir,' said Mr. Jennings.

'See how eager they look,' said Nicholas Tulrumble.  'Aha! the
laugh will be on our side now; eh, Mr. Jennings?'

'No doubt of that, sir,' replied Mr. Jennings; and Nicholas
Tulrumble, in a state of pleasurable excitement, stood up in the
four-wheel chaise, and telegraphed gratification to the Mayoress
behind.

While all this was going forward, Ned Twigger had descended into
the kitchen of Mudfog Hall for the purpose of indulging the
servants with a private view of the curiosity that was to burst
upon the town; and, somehow or other, the footman was so
companionable, and the housemaid so kind, and the cook so friendly,
that he could not resist the offer of the first-mentioned to sit
down and take something - just to drink success to master in.

So, down Ned Twigger sat himself in his brass livery on the top of
the kitchen-table; and in a mug of something strong, paid for by
the unconscious Nicholas Tulrumble, and provided by the
companionable footman, drank success to the Mayor and his
procession; and, as Ned laid by his helmet to imbibe the something
strong, the companionable footman put it on his own head, to the
immeasurable and unrecordable delight of the cook and housemaid.
The companionable footman was very facetious to Ned, and Ned was
very gallant to the cook and housemaid by turns.  They were all
very cosy and comfortable; and the something strong went briskly
round.

At last Ned Twigger was loudly called for, by the procession
people:  and, having had his helmet fixed on, in a very complicated
manner, by the companionable footman, and the kind housemaid, and
the friendly cook, he walked gravely forth, and appeared before the
multitude.

The crowd roared - it was not with wonder, it was not with
surprise; it was most decidedly and unquestionably with laughter.

'What!' said Mr. Tulrumble, starting up in the four-wheel chaise.
'Laughing?  If they laugh at a man in real brass armour, they'd
laugh when their own fathers were dying.  Why doesn't he go into
his place, Mr. Jennings?  What's he rolling down towards us for? he
has no business here!'

'I am afraid, sir - ' faltered Mr. Jennings.

'Afraid of what, sir?' said Nicholas Tulrumble, looking up into the
secretary's face.

'I am afraid he's drunk, sir,' replied Mr. Jennings.

Nicholas Tulrumble took one look at the extraordinary figure that
was bearing down upon them; and then, clasping his secretary by the
arm, uttered an audible groan in anguish of spirit.

It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Twigger having full licence to
demand a single glass of rum on the putting on of every piece of
the armour, got, by some means or other, rather out of his
calculation in the hurry and confusion of preparation, and drank
about four glasses to a piece instead of one, not to mention the
something strong which went on the top of it.  Whether the brass
armour checked the natural flow of perspiration, and thus prevented
the spirit from evaporating, we are not scientific enough to know;
but, whatever the cause was, Mr. Twigger no sooner found himself
outside the gate of Mudfog Hall, than he also found himself in a
very considerable state of intoxication; and hence his
extraordinary style of progressing.  This was bad enough, but, as
if fate and fortune had conspired against Nicholas Tulrumble, Mr.
Twigger, not having been penitent for a good calendar month, took
it into his head to be most especially and particularly
sentimental, just when his repentance could have been most
conveniently dispensed with.  Immense tears were rolling down his
cheeks, and he was vainly endeavouring to conceal his grief by
applying to his eyes a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief with white
spots, - an article not strictly in keeping with a suit of armour
some three hundred years old, or thereabouts.

'Twigger, you villain!' said Nicholas Tulrumble, quite forgetting
his dignity, 'go back.'

'Never,' said Ned.  'I'm a miserable wretch.  I'll never leave
you.'

The by-standers of course received this declaration with
acclamations of 'That's right, Ned; don't!'

'I don't intend it,' said Ned, with all the obstinacy of a very
tipsy man.  'I'm very unhappy.  I'm the wretched father of an
unfortunate family; but I am very faithful, sir.  I'll never leave
you.'  Having reiterated this obliging promise, Ned proceeded in
broken words to harangue the crowd upon the number of years he had
lived in Mudfog, the excessive respectability of his character, and
other topics of the like nature.

'Here! will anybody lead him away?' said Nicholas:  'if they'll
call on me afterwards, I'll reward them well.'

Two or three men stepped forward, with the view of bearing Ned off,
when the secretary interposed.

'Take care! take care!' said Mr. Jennings.  'I beg your pardon,
sir; but they'd better not go too near him, because, if he falls
over, he'll certainly crush somebody.'

At this hint the crowd retired on all sides to a very respectful
distance, and left Ned, like the Duke of Devonshire, in a little
circle of his own.

'But, Mr. Jennings,' said Nicholas Tulrumble, 'he'll be
suffocated.'

'I'm very sorry for it, sir,' replied Mr. Jennings; 'but nobody can
get that armour off, without his own assistance.  I'm quite certain
of it from the way he put it on.'

Here Ned wept dolefully, and shook his helmeted head, in a manner
that might have touched a heart of stone; but the crowd had not
hearts of stone, and they laughed heartily.

'Dear me, Mr. Jennings,' said Nicholas, turning pale at the
possibility of Ned's being smothered in his antique costume - 'Dear
me, Mr. Jennings, can nothing be done with him?'

'Nothing at all,' replied Ned, 'nothing at all.  Gentlemen, I'm an
unhappy wretch.  I'm a body, gentlemen, in a brass coffin.'  At
this poetical idea of his own conjuring up, Ned cried so much that
the people began to get sympathetic, and to ask what Nicholas
Tulrumble meant by putting a man into such a machine as that; and
one individual in a hairy waistcoat like the top of a trunk, who
had previously expressed his opinion that if Ned hadn't been a poor
man, Nicholas wouldn't have dared do it, hinted at the propriety of
breaking the four-wheel chaise, or Nicholas's head, or both, which
last compound proposition the crowd seemed to consider a very good
notion.

It was not acted upon, however, for it had hardly been broached,
when Ned Twigger's wife made her appearance abruptly in the little
circle before noticed, and Ned no sooner caught a glimpse of her
face and form, than from the mere force of habit he set off towards
his home just as fast as his legs could carry him; and that was not
very quick in the present instance either, for, however ready they
might have been to carry HIM, they couldn't get on very well under
the brass armour.  So, Mrs. Twigger had plenty of time to denounce
Nicholas Tulrumble to his face:  to express her opinion that he was
a decided monster; and to intimate that, if her ill-used husband
sustained any personal damage from the brass armour, she would have
the law of Nicholas Tulrumble for manslaughter.  When she had said
all this with due vehemence, she posted after Ned, who was dragging
himself along as best he could, and deploring his unhappiness in
most dismal tones.

What a wailing and screaming Ned's children raised when he got home
at last!  Mrs. Twigger tried to undo the armour, first in one
place, and then in another, but she couldn't manage it; so she
tumbled Ned into bed, helmet, armour, gauntlets, and all.  Such a
creaking as the bedstead made, under Ned's weight in his new suit!
It didn't break down though; and there Ned lay, like the anonymous
vessel in the Bay of Biscay, till next day, drinking barley-water,
and looking miserable:  and every time he groaned, his good lady
said it served him right, which was all the consolation Ned Twigger
got.

Nicholas Tulrumble and the gorgeous procession went on together to
the town-hall, amid the hisses and groans of all the spectators,
who had suddenly taken it into their heads to consider poor Ned a
martyr.  Nicholas was formally installed in his new office, in
acknowledgment of which ceremony he delivered himself of a speech,
composed by the secretary, which was very long, and no doubt very
good, only the noise of the people outside prevented anybody from
hearing it, but Nicholas Tulrumble himself.  After which, the
procession got back to Mudfog Hall any how it could; and Nicholas
and the corporation sat down to dinner.

But the dinner was flat, and Nicholas was disappointed.  They were
such dull sleepy old fellows, that corporation.  Nicholas made
quite as long speeches as the Lord Mayor of London had done, nay,
he said the very same things that the Lord Mayor of London had
said, and the deuce a cheer the corporation gave him.  There was
only one man in the party who was thoroughly awake; and he was
insolent, and called him Nick.  Nick!  What would be the
consequence, thought Nicholas, of anybody presuming to call the
Lord Mayor of London 'Nick!'  He should like to know what the
sword-bearer would say to that; or the recorder, or the toast-
master, or any other of the great officers of the city.  They'd
nick him.

But these were not the worst of Nicholas Tulrumble's doings.  If
they had been, he might have remained a Mayor to this day, and have
talked till he lost his voice.  He contracted a relish for
statistics, and got philosophical; and the statistics and the
philosophy together, led him into an act which increased his
unpopularity and hastened his downfall.

At the very end of the Mudfog High-street, and abutting on the
river-side, stands the Jolly Boatmen, an old-fashioned low-roofed,
bay-windowed house, with a bar, kitchen, and tap-room all in one,
and a large fireplace with a kettle to correspond, round which the
working men have congregated time out of mind on a winter's night,
refreshed by draughts of good strong beer, and cheered by the
sounds of a fiddle and tambourine:  the Jolly Boatmen having been
duly licensed by the Mayor and corporation, to scrape the fiddle
and thumb the tambourine from time, whereof the memory of the
oldest inhabitants goeth not to the contrary.  Now Nicholas
Tulrumble had been reading pamphlets on crime, and parliamentary
reports, - or had made the secretary read them to him, which is the
same thing in effect, - and he at once perceived that this fiddle
and tambourine must have done more to demoralize Mudfog, than any
other operating causes that ingenuity could imagine.  So he read up
for the subject, and determined to come out on the corporation with
a burst, the very next time the licence was applied for.

The licensing day came, and the red-faced landlord of the Jolly
Boatmen walked into the town-hall, looking as jolly as need be,
having actually put on an extra fiddle for that night, to
commemorate the anniversary of the Jolly Boatmen's music licence.
It was applied for in due form, and was just about to be granted as
a matter of course, when up rose Nicholas Tulrumble, and drowned
the astonished corporation in a torrent of eloquence.  He descanted
in glowing terms upon the increasing depravity of his native town
of Mudfog, and the excesses committed by its population.  Then, he
related how shocked he had been, to see barrels of beer sliding
down into the cellar of the Jolly Boatmen week after week; and how
he had sat at a window opposite the Jolly Boatmen for two days
together, to count the people who went in for beer between the
hours of twelve and one o'clock alone - which, by-the-bye, was the
time at which the great majority of the Mudfog people dined.  Then,
he went on to state, how the number of people who came out with
beer-jugs, averaged twenty-one in five minutes, which, being
multiplied by twelve, gave two hundred and fifty-two people with
beer-jugs in an hour, and multiplied again by fifteen (the number
of hours during which the house was open daily) yielded three
thousand seven hundred and eighty people with beer-jugs per day, or
twenty-six thousand four hundred and sixty people with beer-jugs,
per week.  Then he proceeded to show that a tambourine and moral
degradation were synonymous terms, and a fiddle and vicious
propensities wholly inseparable.  All these arguments he
strengthened and demonstrated by frequent references to a large
book with a blue cover, and sundry quotations from the Middlesex
magistrates; and in the end, the corporation, who were posed with
the figures, and sleepy with the speech, and sadly in want of
dinner into the bargain, yielded the palm to Nicholas Tulrumble,
and refused the music licence to the Jolly Boatmen.

But although Nicholas triumphed, his triumph was short.  He carried
on the war against beer-jugs and fiddles, forgetting the time when
he was glad to drink out of the one, and to dance to the other,
till the people hated, and his old friends shunned him.  He grew
tired of the lonely magnificence of Mudfog Hall, and his heart
yearned towards the Lighterman's Arms.  He wished he had never set
up as a public man, and sighed for the good old times of the coal-
shop, and the chimney corner.

At length old Nicholas, being thoroughly miserable, took heart of
grace, paid the secretary a quarter's wages in advance, and packed
him off to London by the next coach.  Having taken this step, he
put his hat on his head, and his pride in his pocket, and walked
down to the old room at the Lighterman's Arms.  There were only two
of the old fellows there, and they looked coldly on Nicholas as he
proffered his hand.

'Are you going to put down pipes, Mr. Tulrumble?' said one.

'Or trace the progress of crime to 'bacca?' growled another.

'Neither,' replied Nicholas Tulrumble, shaking hands with them
both, whether they would or not.  'I've come down to say that I'm
very sorry for having made a fool of myself, and that I hope you'll
give me up the old chair, again.'

The old fellows opened their eyes, and three or four more old
fellows opened the door, to whom Nicholas, with tears in his eyes,
thrust out his hand too, and told the same story.  They raised a
shout of joy, that made the bells in the ancient church-tower
vibrate again, and wheeling the old chair into the warm corner,
thrust old Nicholas down into it, and ordered in the very largest-
sized bowl of hot punch, with an unlimited number of pipes,
directly.

The next day, the Jolly Boatmen got the licence, and the next
night, old Nicholas and Ned Twigger's wife led off a dance to the
music of the fiddle and tambourine, the tone of which seemed
mightily improved by a little rest, for they never had played so
merrily before.  Ned Twigger was in the very height of his glory,
and he danced hornpipes, and balanced chairs on his chin, and
straws on his nose, till the whole company, including the
corporation, were in raptures of admiration at the brilliancy of
his acquirements.

Mr. Tulrumble, junior, couldn't make up his mind to be anything but
magnificent, so he went up to London and drew bills on his father;
and when he had overdrawn, and got into debt, he grew penitent, and
came home again.

As to old Nicholas, he kept his word, and having had six weeks of
public life, never tried it any more.  He went to sleep in the
town-hall at the very next meeting; and, in full proof of his
sincerity, has requested us to write this faithful narrative.  We
wish it could have the effect of reminding the Tulrumbles of
another sphere, that puffed-up conceit is not dignity, and that
snarling at the little pleasures they were once glad to enjoy,
because they would rather forget the times when they were of lower
station, renders them objects of contempt and ridicule.

This is the first time we have published any of our gleanings from
this particular source.  Perhaps, at some future period, we may
venture to open the chronicles of Mudfog.



FULL REPORT OF THE FIRST MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF EVERYTHING



We have made the most unparalleled and extraordinary exertions to
place before our readers a complete and accurate account of the
proceedings at the late grand meeting of the Mudfog Association,
holden in the town of Mudfog; it affords us great happiness to lay
the result before them, in the shape of various communications
received from our able, talented, and graphic correspondent,
expressly sent down for the purpose, who has immortalized us,
himself, Mudfog, and the association, all at one and the same time.
We have been, indeed, for some days unable to determine who will
transmit the greatest name to posterity; ourselves, who sent our
correspondent down; our correspondent, who wrote an account of the
matter; or the association, who gave our correspondent something to
write about.  We rather incline to the opinion that we are the
greatest man of the party, inasmuch as the notion of an exclusive
and authentic report originated with us; this may be prejudice:  it
may arise from a prepossession on our part in our own favour.  Be
it so.  We have no doubt that every gentleman concerned in this
mighty assemblage is troubled with the same complaint in a greater
or less degree; and it is a consolation to us to know that we have
at least this feeling in common with the great scientific stars,
the brilliant and extraordinary luminaries, whose speculations we
record.

We give our correspondent's letters in the order in which they
reached us.  Any attempt at amalgamating them into one beautiful
whole, would only destroy that glowing tone, that dash of wildness,
and rich vein of picturesque interest, which pervade them
throughout.

'MUDFOG, MONDAY NIGHT, SEVEN O'CLOCK.

'We are in a state of great excitement here.  Nothing is spoken of,
but the approaching meeting of the association.  The inn-doors are
thronged with waiters anxiously looking for the expected arrivals;
and the numerous bills which are wafered up in the windows of
private houses, intimating that there are beds to let within, give
the streets a very animated and cheerful appearance, the wafers
being of a great variety of colours, and the monotony of printed
inscriptions being relieved by every possible size and style of
hand-writing.  It is confidently rumoured that Professors Snore,
Doze, and Wheezy have engaged three beds and a sitting-room at the
Pig and Tinder-box.  I give you the rumour as it has reached me;
but I cannot, as yet, vouch for its accuracy.  The moment I have
been enabled to obtain any certain information upon this
interesting point, you may depend upon receiving it.'

'HALF-PAST SEVEN.

I have just returned from a personal interview with the landlord of
the Pig and Tinder-box.  He speaks confidently of the probability
of Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy taking up their residence at
his house during the sitting of the association, but denies that
the beds have been yet engaged; in which representation he is
confirmed by the chambermaid - a girl of artless manners, and
interesting appearance.  The boots denies that it is at all likely
that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy will put up here; but I
have reason to believe that this man has been suborned by the
proprietor of the Original Pig, which is the opposition hotel.
Amidst such conflicting testimony it is difficult to arrive at the
real truth; but you may depend upon receiving authentic information
upon this point the moment the fact is ascertained.  The excitement
still continues.  A boy fell through the window of the pastrycook's
shop at the corner of the High-street about half an hour ago, which
has occasioned much confusion.  The general impression is, that it
was an accident.  Pray heaven it may prove so!'

'TUESDAY, NOON.

'At an early hour this morning the bells of all the churches struck
seven o'clock; the effect of which, in the present lively state of
the town, was extremely singular.  While I was at breakfast, a
yellow gig, drawn by a dark grey horse, with a patch of white over
his right eyelid, proceeded at a rapid pace in the direction of the
Original Pig stables; it is currently reported that this gentleman
has arrived here for the purpose of attending the association, and,
from what I have heard, I consider it extremely probable, although
nothing decisive is yet known regarding him.  You may conceive the
anxiety with which we are all looking forward to the arrival of the
four o'clock coach this afternoon.

'Notwithstanding the excited state of the populace, no outrage has
yet been committed, owing to the admirable discipline and
discretion of the police, who are nowhere to be seen.  A barrel-
organ is playing opposite my window, and groups of people, offering
fish and vegetables for sale, parade the streets.  With these
exceptions everything is quiet, and I trust will continue so.'

'FIVE O'CLOCK.

'It is now ascertained, beyond all doubt, that Professors Snore,
Doze, and Wheezy will NOT repair to the Pig and Tinder-box, but
have actually engaged apartments at the Original Pig.  This
intelligence is EXCLUSIVE; and I leave you and your readers to draw
their own inferences from it.  Why Professor Wheezy, of all people
in the world, should repair to the Original Pig in preference to
the Pig and Tinder-box, it is not easy to conceive.  The professor
is a man who should be above all such petty feelings.  Some people
here openly impute treachery, and a distinct breach of faith to
Professors Snore and Doze; while others, again, are disposed to
acquit them of any culpability in the transaction, and to insinuate
that the blame rests solely with Professor Wheezy.  I own that I
incline to the latter opinion; and although it gives me great pain
to speak in terms of censure or disapprobation of a man of such
transcendent genius and acquirements, still I am bound to say that,
if my suspicions be well founded, and if all the reports which have
reached my ears be true, I really do not well know what to make of
the matter.

'Mr. Slug, so celebrated for his statistical researches, arrived
this afternoon by the four o'clock stage.  His complexion is a dark
purple, and he has a habit of sighing constantly.  He looked
extremely well, and appeared in high health and spirits.  Mr.
Woodensconce also came down in the same conveyance.  The
distinguished gentleman was fast asleep on his arrival, and I am
informed by the guard that he had been so the whole way.  He was,
no doubt, preparing for his approaching fatigues; but what gigantic
visions must those be that flit through the brain of such a man
when his body is in a state of torpidity!

'The influx of visitors increases every moment.  I am told (I know
not how truly) that two post-chaises have arrived at the Original
Pig within the last half-hour, and I myself observed a wheelbarrow,
containing three carpet bags and a bundle, entering the yard of the
Pig and Tinder-box no longer ago than five minutes since.  The
people are still quietly pursuing their ordinary occupations; but
there is a wildness in their eyes, and an unwonted rigidity in the
muscles of their countenances, which shows to the observant
spectator that their expectations are strained to the very utmost
pitch.  I fear, unless some very extraordinary arrivals take place
to-night, that consequences may arise from this popular ferment,
which every man of sense and feeling would deplore.'

'TWENTY MINUTES PAST SIX.

'I have just heard that the boy who fell through the pastrycook's
window last night has died of the fright.  He was suddenly called
upon to pay three and sixpence for the damage done, and his
constitution, it seems, was not strong enough to bear up against
the shock.  The inquest, it is said, will be held to-morrow.'

'THREE-QUARTERS PART SEVEN.

'Professors Muff and Nogo have just driven up to the hotel door;
they at once ordered dinner with great condescension.  We are all
very much delighted with the urbanity of their manners, and the
ease with which they adapt themselves to the forms and ceremonies
of ordinary life.  Immediately on their arrival they sent for the
head waiter, and privately requested him to purchase a live dog, -
as cheap a one as he could meet with, - and to send him up after
dinner, with a pie-board, a knife and fork, and a clean plate.  It
is conjectured that some experiments will be tried upon the dog to-
night; if any particulars should transpire, I will forward them by
express.'

'HALF-PAST EIGHT.

'The animal has been procured.  He is a pug-dog, of rather
intelligent appearance, in good condition, and with very short
legs.  He has been tied to a curtain-peg in a dark room, and is
howling dreadfully.'

'TEN MINUTES TO NINE.

'The dog has just been rung for.  With an instinct which would
appear almost the result of reason, the sagacious animal seized the
waiter by the calf of the leg when he approached to take him, and
made a desperate, though ineffectual resistance.  I have not been
able to procure admission to the apartment occupied by the
scientific gentlemen; but, judging from the sounds which reached my
ears when I stood upon the landing-place outside the door, just
now, I should be disposed to say that the dog had retreated
growling beneath some article of furniture, and was keeping the
professors at bay.  This conjecture is confirmed by the testimony
of the ostler, who, after peeping through the keyhole, assures me
that he distinctly saw Professor Nogo on his knees, holding forth a
small bottle of prussic acid, to which the animal, who was crouched
beneath an arm-chair, obstinately declined to smell.  You cannot
imagine the feverish state of irritation we are in, lest the
interests of science should be sacrificed to the prejudices of a
brute creature, who is not endowed with sufficient sense to foresee
the incalculable benefits which the whole human race may derive
from so very slight a concession on his part.'

'NINE O'CLOCK.

'The dog's tail and ears have been sent down-stairs to be washed;
from which circumstance we infer that the animal is no more.  His
forelegs have been delivered to the boots to be brushed, which
strengthens the supposition.'

'HALF AFTER TEN.

'My feelings are so overpowered by what has taken place in the
course of the last hour and a half, that I have scarcely strength
to detail the rapid succession of events which have quite
bewildered all those who are cognizant of their occurrence.  It
appears that the pug-dog mentioned in my last was surreptitiously
obtained, - stolen, in fact, - by some person attached to the
stable department, from an unmarried lady resident in this town.
Frantic on discovering the loss of her favourite, the lady rushed
distractedly into the street, calling in the most heart-rending and
pathetic manner upon the passengers to restore her, her Augustus, -
for so the deceased was named, in affectionate remembrance of a
former lover of his mistress, to whom he bore a striking personal
resemblance, which renders the circumstances additionally
affecting.  I am not yet in a condition to inform you what
circumstance induced the bereaved lady to direct her steps to the
hotel which had witnessed the last struggles of her PROTEGE.  I can
only state that she arrived there, at the very instant when his
detached members were passing through the passage on a small tray.
Her shrieks still reverberate in my ears!  I grieve to say that the
expressive features of Professor Muff were much scratched and
lacerated by the injured lady; and that Professor Nogo, besides
sustaining several severe bites, has lost some handfuls of hair
from the same cause.  It must be some consolation to these
gentlemen to know that their ardent attachment to scientific
pursuits has alone occasioned these unpleasant consequences; for
which the sympathy of a grateful country will sufficiently reward
them.  The unfortunate lady remains at the Pig and Tinder-box, and
up to this time is reported in a very precarious state.

'I need scarcely tell you that this unlooked-for catastrophe has
cast a damp and gloom upon us in the midst of our exhilaration;
natural in any case, but greatly enhanced in this, by the amiable
qualities of the deceased animal, who appears to have been much and
deservedly respected by the whole of his acquaintance.'

'TWELVE O'CLOCK.

'I take the last opportunity before sealing my parcel to inform you
that the boy who fell through the pastrycook's window is not dead,
as was universally believed, but alive and well.  The report
appears to have had its origin in his mysterious disappearance.  He
was found half an hour since on the premises of a sweet-stuff
maker, where a raffle had been announced for a second-hand seal-
skin cap and a tambourine; and where - a sufficient number of
members not having been obtained at first - he had patiently waited
until the list was completed.  This fortunate discovery has in some
degree restored our gaiety and cheerfulness.  It is proposed to get
up a subscription for him without delay.

'Everybody is nervously anxious to see what to-morrow will bring
forth.  If any one should arrive in the course of the night, I have
left strict directions to be called immediately.  I should have sat
up, indeed, but the agitating events of this day have been too much
for me.

'No news yet of either of the Professors Snore, Doze, or Wheezy.
It is very strange!'

'WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.

'All is now over; and, upon one point at least, I am at length
enabled to set the minds of your readers at rest.  The three
professors arrived at ten minutes after two o'clock, and, instead
of taking up their quarters at the Original Pig, as it was
universally understood in the course of yesterday that they would
assuredly have done, drove straight to the Pig and Tinder-box,
where they threw off the mask at once, and openly announced their
intention of remaining.  Professor Wheezy may reconcile this very
extraordinary conduct with HIS notions of fair and equitable
dealing, but I would recommend Professor Wheezy to be cautious how
he presumes too far upon his well-earned reputation.  How such a
man as Professor Snore, or, which is still more extraordinary, such
an individual as Professor Doze, can quietly allow himself to be
mixed up with such proceedings as these, you will naturally
inquire.  Upon this head, rumour is silent; I have my speculations,
but forbear to give utterance to them just now.'

'FOUR O'CLOCK.

'The town is filling fast; eighteenpence has been offered for a bed
and refused.  Several gentlemen were under the necessity last night
of sleeping in the brick fields, and on the steps of doors, for
which they were taken before the magistrates in a body this
morning, and committed to prison as vagrants for various terms.
One of these persons I understand to be a highly-respectable
tinker, of great practical skill, who had forwarded a paper to the
President of Section D. Mechanical Science, on the construction of
pipkins with copper bottoms and safety-values, of which report
speaks highly.  The incarceration of this gentleman is greatly to
be regretted, as his absence will preclude any discussion on the
subject.

'The bills are being taken down in all directions, and lodgings are
being secured on almost any terms.  I have heard of fifteen
shillings a week for two rooms, exclusive of coals and attendance,
but I can scarcely believe it.  The excitement is dreadful.  I was
informed this morning that the civil authorities, apprehensive of
some outbreak of popular feeling, had commanded a recruiting
sergeant and two corporals to be under arms; and that, with the
view of not irritating the people unnecessarily by their presence,
they had been requested to take up their position before daybreak
in a turnpike, distant about a quarter of a mile from the town.
The vigour and promptness of these measures cannot be too highly
extolled.

'Intelligence has just been brought me, that an elderly female, in
a state of inebriety, has declared in the open street her intention
to "do" for Mr. Slug.  Some statistical returns compiled by that
gentleman, relative to the consumption of raw spirituous liquors in
this place, are supposed to be the cause of the wretch's animosity.
It is added that this declaration was loudly cheered by a crowd of
persons who had assembled on the spot; and that one man had the
boldness to designate Mr. Slug aloud by the opprobrious epithet of
"Stick-in-the-mud!"  It is earnestly to be hoped that now, when the
moment has arrived for their interference, the magistrates will not
shrink from the exercise of that power which is vested in them by
the constitution of our common country.'

'HALF-PAST TEN.

'The disturbance, I am happy to inform you, has been completely
quelled, and the ringleader taken into custody.  She had a pail of
cold water thrown over her, previous to being locked up, and
expresses great contrition and uneasiness.  We are all in a fever
of anticipation about to-morrow; but, now that we are within a few
hours of the meeting of the association, and at last enjoy the
proud consciousness of having its illustrious members amongst us, I
trust and hope everything may go off peaceably.  I shall send you a
full report of to-morrow's proceedings by the night coach.'

'ELEVEN O'CLOCK.

'I open my letter to say that nothing whatever has occurred since I
folded it up.'

'THURSDAY.

'The sun rose this morning at the usual hour.  I did not observe
anything particular in the aspect of the glorious planet, except
that he appeared to me (it might have been a delusion of my
heightened fancy) to shine with more than common brilliancy, and to
shed a refulgent lustre upon the town, such as I had never observed
before.  This is the more extraordinary, as the sky was perfectly
cloudless, and the atmosphere peculiarly fine.  At half-past nine
o'clock the general committee assembled, with the last year's
president in the chair.  The report of the council was read; and
one passage, which stated that the council had corresponded with no
less than three thousand five hundred and seventy-one persons, (all
of whom paid their own postage,) on no fewer than seven thousand
two hundred and forty-three topics, was received with a degree of
enthusiasm which no efforts could suppress.  The various committees
and sections having been appointed, and the more formal business
transacted, the great proceedings of the meeting commenced at
eleven o'clock precisely.  I had the happiness of occupying a most
eligible position at that time, in


'SECTION A. - ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY.
GREAT ROOM, PIG AND TINDER-BOX.


PRESIDENT - Professor Snore.  VICE-PRESIDENTS - Professors Doze and
Wheezy.

'The scene at this moment was particularly striking.  The sun
streamed through the windows of the apartments, and tinted the
whole scene with its brilliant rays, bringing out in strong relief
the noble visages of the professors and scientific gentlemen, who,
some with bald heads, some with red heads, some with brown heads,
some with grey heads, some with black heads, some with block heads,
presented a COUP D'OEIL which no eye-witness will readily forget.
In front of these gentlemen were papers and inkstands; and round
the room, on elevated benches extending as far as the forms could
reach, were assembled a brilliant concourse of those lovely and
elegant women for which Mudfog is justly acknowledged to be without
a rival in the whole world.  The contrast between their fair faces
and the dark coats and trousers of the scientific gentlemen I shall
never cease to remember while Memory holds her seat.

'Time having been allowed for a slight confusion, occasioned by the
falling down of the greater part of the platforms, to subside, the
president called on one of the secretaries to read a communication
entitled, "Some remarks on the industrious fleas, with
considerations on the importance of establishing infant-schools
among that numerous class of society; of directing their industry
to useful and practical ends; and of applying the surplus fruits
thereof, towards providing for them a comfortable and respectable
maintenance in their old age."

'The author stated, that, having long turned his attention to the
moral and social condition of these interesting animals, he had
been induced to visit an exhibition in Regent-street, London,
commonly known by the designation of "The Industrious Fleas."  He
had there seen many fleas, occupied certainly in various pursuits
and avocations, but occupied, he was bound to add, in a manner
which no man of well-regulated mind could fail to regard with
sorrow and regret.  One flea, reduced to the level of a beast of
burden, was drawing about a miniature gig, containing a
particularly small effigy of His Grace the Duke of Wellington;
while another was staggering beneath the weight of a golden model
of his great adversary Napoleon Bonaparte.  Some, brought up as
mountebanks and ballet-dancers, were performing a figure-dance (he
regretted to observe, that, of the fleas so employed, several were
females); others were in training, in a small card-board box, for
pedestrians, - mere sporting characters - and two were actually
engaged in the cold-blooded and barbarous occupation of duelling; a
pursuit from which humanity recoiled with horror and disgust.  He
suggested that measures should be immediately taken to employ the
labour of these fleas as part and parcel of the productive power of
the country, which might easily be done by the establishment among
them of infant schools and houses of industry, in which a system of
virtuous education, based upon sound principles, should be
observed, and moral precepts strictly inculcated.  He proposed that
every flea who presumed to exhibit, for hire, music, or dancing, or
any species of theatrical entertainment, without a licence, should
be considered a vagabond, and treated accordingly; in which respect
he only placed him upon a level with the rest of mankind.  He would
further suggest that their labour should be placed under the
control and regulation of the state, who should set apart from the
profits, a fund for the support of superannuated or disabled fleas,
their widows and orphans.  With this view, he proposed that liberal
premiums should be offered for the three best designs for a general
almshouse; from which - as insect architecture was well known to be
in a very advanced and perfect state - we might possibly derive
many valuable hints for the improvement of our metropolitan
universities, national galleries, and other public edifices.

'THE PRESIDENT wished to be informed how the ingenious gentleman
proposed to open a communication with fleas generally, in the first
instance, so that they might be thoroughly imbued with a sense of
the advantages they must necessarily derive from changing their
mode of life, and applying themselves to honest labour.  This
appeared to him, the only difficulty.

'THE AUTHOR submitted that this difficulty was easily overcome, or
rather that there was no difficulty at all in the case.  Obviously
the course to be pursued, if Her Majesty's government could be
prevailed upon to take up the plan, would be, to secure at a
remunerative salary the individual to whom he had alluded as
presiding over the exhibition in Regent-street at the period of his
visit.  That gentleman would at once be able to put himself in
communication with the mass of the fleas, and to instruct them in
pursuance of some general plan of education, to be sanctioned by
Parliament, until such time as the more intelligent among them were
advanced enough to officiate as teachers to the rest.

'The President and several members of the section highly
complimented the author of the paper last read, on his most
ingenious and important treatise.  It was determined that the
subject should be recommended to the immediate consideration of the
council.

'MR. WIGSBY produced a cauliflower somewhat larger than a chaise-
umbrella, which had been raised by no other artificial means than
the simple application of highly carbonated soda-water as manure.
He explained that by scooping out the head, which would afford a
new and delicious species of nourishment for the poor, a parachute,
in principle something similar to that constructed by M. Garnerin,
was at once obtained; the stalk of course being kept downwards.  He
added that he was perfectly willing to make a descent from a height
of not less than three miles and a quarter; and had in fact already
proposed the same to the proprietors of Vauxhall Gardens, who in
the handsomest manner at once consented to his wishes, and
appointed an early day next summer for the undertaking; merely
stipulating that the rim of the cauliflower should be previously
broken in three or four places to ensure the safety of the descent.

'THE PRESIDENT congratulated the public on the GRAND GALA in store
for them, and warmly eulogised the proprietors of the establishment
alluded to, for their love of science, and regard for the safety of
human life, both of which did them the highest honour.

'A Member wished to know how many thousand additional lamps the
royal property would be illuminated with, on the night after the
descent.

'MR. WIGSBY replied that the point was not yet finally decided; but
he believed it was proposed, over and above the ordinary
illuminations, to exhibit in various devices eight millions and a-
half of additional lamps.

'The Member expressed himself much gratified with this
announcement.

'MR. BLUNDERUM delighted the section with a most interesting and
valuable paper "on the last moments of the learned pig," which
produced a very strong impression on the assembly, the account
being compiled from the personal recollections of his favourite
attendant.  The account stated in the most emphatic terms that the
animal's name was not Toby, but Solomon; and distinctly proved that
he could have no near relatives in the profession, as many
designing persons had falsely stated, inasmuch as his father,
mother, brothers and sisters, had all fallen victims to the butcher
at different times.  An uncle of his indeed, had with very great
labour been traced to a sty in Somers Town; but as he was in a very
infirm state at the time, being afflicted with measles, and shortly
afterwards disappeared, there appeared too much reason to
conjecture that he had been converted into sausages.  The disorder
of the learned pig was originally a severe cold, which, being
aggravated by excessive trough indulgence, finally settled upon the
lungs, and terminated in a general decay of the constitution.  A
melancholy instance of a presentiment entertained by the animal of
his approaching dissolution, was recorded.  After gratifying a
numerous and fashionable company with his performances, in which no
falling off whatever was visible, he fixed his eyes on the
biographer, and, turning to the watch which lay on the floor, and
on which he was accustomed to point out the hour, deliberately
passed his snout twice round the dial.  In precisely four-and-
twenty hours from that time he had ceased to exist!

'PROFESSOR WHEEZY inquired whether, previous to his demise, the
animal had expressed, by signs or otherwise, any wishes regarding
the disposal of his little property.

'MR. BLUNDERUM replied, that, when the biographer took up the pack
of cards at the conclusion of the performance, the animal grunted
several times in a significant manner, and nodding his head as he
was accustomed to do, when gratified.  From these gestures it was
understood that he wished the attendant to keep the cards, which he
had ever since done.  He had not expressed any wish relative to his
watch, which had accordingly been pawned by the same individual.

'THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether any Member of the section had
ever seen or conversed with the pig-faced lady, who was reported to
have worn a black velvet mask, and to have taken her meals from a
golden trough.

'After some hesitation a Member replied that the pig-faced lady was
his mother-in-law, and that he trusted the President would not
violate the sanctity of private life.

'THE PRESIDENT begged pardon.  He had considered the pig-faced lady
a public character.  Would the honourable member object to state,
with a view to the advancement of science, whether she was in any
way connected with the learned pig?

'The Member replied in the same low tone, that, as the question
appeared to involve a suspicion that the learned pig might be his
half-brother, he must decline answering it.


'SECTION B. - ANATOMY AND MEDICINE.
COACH-HOUSE, PIG AND TINDER-BOX.


PRESIDENT - Dr. Toorell.  VICE-PRESIDENTS - Professors Muff and
Nogo.

DR. KUTANKUMAGEN (of Moscow) read to the section a report of a case
which had occurred within his own practice, strikingly illustrative
of the power of medicine, as exemplified in his successful
treatment of a virulent disorder.  He had been called in to visit
the patient on the 1st of April, 1837.  He was then labouring under
symptoms peculiarly alarming to any medical man.  His frame was
stout and muscular, his step firm and elastic, his cheeks plump and
red, his voice loud, his appetite good, his pulse full and round.
He was in the constant habit of eating three meals PER DIEM, and of
drinking at least one bottle of wine, and one glass of spirituous
liquors diluted with water, in the course of the four-and-twenty
hours.  He laughed constantly, and in so hearty a manner that it
was terrible to hear him.  By dint of powerful medicine, low diet,
and bleeding, the symptoms in the course of three days perceptibly
decreased.  A rigid perseverance in the same course of treatment
for only one week, accompanied with small doses of water-gruel,
weak broth, and barley-water, led to their entire disappearance.
In the course of a month he was sufficiently recovered to be
carried down-stairs by two nurses, and to enjoy an airing in a
close carriage, supported by soft pillows.  At the present moment
he was restored so far as to walk about, with the slight assistance
of a crutch and a boy.  It would perhaps be gratifying to the
section to learn that he ate little, drank little, slept little,
and was never heard to laugh by any accident whatever.

'DR. W. R. FEE, in complimenting the honourable member upon the
triumphant cure he had effected, begged to ask whether the patient
still bled freely?

'DR. KUTANKUMAGEN replied in the affirmative.

'DR. W. R. FEE. - And you found that he bled freely during the
whole course of the disorder?

'DR. KUTANKUMAGEN. - Oh dear, yes; most freely.

'DR. NEESHAWTS supposed, that if the patient had not submitted to
be bled with great readiness and perseverance, so extraordinary a
cure could never, in fact, have been accomplished.  Dr.
Kutankumagen rejoined, certainly not.

'MR. KNIGHT BELL (M.R.C.S.) exhibited a wax preparation of the
interior of a gentleman who in early life had inadvertently
swallowed a door-key.  It was a curious fact that a medical student
of dissipated habits, being present at the POST MORTEM examination,
found means to escape unobserved from the room, with that portion
of the coats of the stomach upon which an exact model of the
instrument was distinctly impressed, with which he hastened to a
locksmith of doubtful character, who made a new key from the
pattern so shown to him.  With this key the medical student entered
the house of the deceased gentleman, and committed a burglary to a
large amount, for which he was subsequently tried and executed.

'THE PRESIDENT wished to know what became of the original key after
the lapse of years.  Mr. Knight Bell replied that the gentleman was
always much accustomed to punch, and it was supposed the acid had
gradually devoured it.

'DR. NEESHAWTS and several of the members were of opinion that the
key must have lain very cold and heavy upon the gentleman's
stomach.

'MR. KNIGHT BELL believed it did at first.  It was worthy of
remark, perhaps, that for some years the gentleman was troubled
with a night-mare, under the influence of which he always imagined
himself a wine-cellar door.

'PROFESSOR MUFF related a very extraordinary and convincing proof
of the wonderful efficacy of the system of infinitesimal doses,
which the section were doubtless aware was based upon the theory
that the very minutest amount of any given drug, properly dispersed
through the human frame, would be productive of precisely the same
result as a very large dose administered in the usual manner.
Thus, the fortieth part of a grain of calomel was supposed to be
equal to a five-grain calomel pill, and so on in proportion
throughout the whole range of medicine.  He had tried the
experiment in a curious manner upon a publican who had been brought
into the hospital with a broken head, and was cured upon the
infinitesimal system in the incredibly short space of three months.
This man was a hard drinker.  He (Professor Muff) had dispersed
three drops of rum through a bucket of water, and requested the man
to drink the whole.  What was the result?  Before he had drunk a
quart, he was in a state of beastly intoxication; and five other
men were made dead drunk with the remainder.

'THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether an infinitesimal dose of
soda-water would have recovered them?  Professor Muff replied that
the twenty-fifth part of a teaspoonful, properly administered to
each patient, would have sobered him immediately.  The President
remarked that this was a most important discovery, and he hoped the
Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen would patronize it immediately.

'A Member begged to be informed whether it would be possible to
administer - say, the twentieth part of a grain of bread and cheese
to all grown-up paupers, and the fortieth part to children, with
the same satisfying effect as their present allowance.

'PROFESSOR MUFF was willing to stake his professional reputation on
the perfect adequacy of such a quantity of food to the support of
human life - in workhouses; the addition of the fifteenth part of a
grain of pudding twice a week would render it a high diet.

'PROFESSOR NOGO called the attention of the section to a very
extraordinary case of animal magnetism.  A private watchman, being
merely looked at by the operator from the opposite side of a wide
street, was at once observed to be in a very drowsy and languid
state.  He was followed to his box, and being once slightly rubbed
on the palms of the hands, fell into a sound sleep, in which he
continued without intermission for ten hours.


'SECTION C. - STATISTICS.
HAY-LOFT, ORIGINAL PIG.

PRESIDENT - Mr. Woodensconce.  VICE-PRESIDENTS - Mr. Ledbrain and
Mr. Timbered.

'MR. SLUG stated to the section the result of some calculations he
had made with great difficulty and labour, regarding the state of
infant education among the middle classes of London.  He found
that, within a circle of three miles from the Elephant and Castle,
the following were the names and numbers of children's books
principally in circulation:-


'Jack the Giant-killer           7,943
Ditto and Bean-stalk             8,621
Ditto and Eleven Brothers        2,845
Ditto and Jill                   1,998
Total                           21,407


'He found that the proportion of Robinson Crusoes to Philip Quarlls
was as four and a half to one; and that the preponderance of
Valentine and Orsons over Goody Two Shoeses was as three and an
eighth of the former to half a one of the latter; a comparison of
Seven Champions with Simple Simons gave the same result.  The
ignorance that prevailed, was lamentable.  One child, on being
asked whether he would rather be Saint George of England or a
respectable tallow-chandler, instantly replied, "Taint George of
Ingling."  Another, a little boy of eight years old, was found to
be firmly impressed with a belief in the existence of dragons, and
openly stated that it was his intention when he grew up, to rush
forth sword in hand for the deliverance of captive princesses, and
the promiscuous slaughter of giants.  Not one child among the
number interrogated had ever heard of Mungo Park, - some inquiring
whether he was at all connected with the black man that swept the
crossing; and others whether he was in any way related to the
Regent's Park.  They had not the slightest conception of the
commonest principles of mathematics, and considered Sindbad the
Sailor the most enterprising voyager that the world had ever
produced.

'A Member strongly deprecating the use of all the other books
mentioned, suggested that Jack and Jill might perhaps be exempted
from the general censure, inasmuch as the hero and heroine, in the
very outset of the tale, were depicted as going UP a hill to fetch
a pail of water, which was a laborious and useful occupation, -
supposing the family linen was being washed, for instance.

'MR. SLUG feared that the moral effect of this passage was more
than counterbalanced by another in a subsequent part of the poem,
in which very gross allusion was made to the mode in which the
heroine was personally chastised by her mother


"'For laughing at Jack's disaster;"


besides, the whole work had this one great fault, IT WAS NOT TRUE.

'THE PRESIDENT complimented the honourable member on the excellent
distinction he had drawn.  Several other Members, too, dwelt upon
the immense and urgent necessity of storing the minds of children
with nothing but facts and figures; which process the President
very forcibly remarked, had made them (the section) the men they
were.

'MR. SLUG then stated some curious calculations respecting the
dogs'-meat barrows of London.  He found that the total number of
small carts and barrows engaged in dispensing provision to the cats
and dogs of the metropolis was, one thousand seven hundred and
forty-three.  The average number of skewers delivered daily with
the provender, by each dogs'-meat cart or barrow, was thirty-six.
Now, multiplying the number of skewers so delivered by the number
of barrows, a total of sixty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-
eight skewers daily would be obtained.  Allowing that, of these
sixty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight skewers, the odd
two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight were accidentally
devoured with the meat, by the most voracious of the animals
supplied, it followed that sixty thousand skewers per day, or the
enormous number of twenty-one millions nine hundred thousand
skewers annually, were wasted in the kennels and dustholes of
London; which, if collected and warehoused, would in ten years'
time afford a mass of timber more than sufficient for the
construction of a first-rate vessel of war for the use of her
Majesty's navy, to be called "The Royal Skewer," and to become
under that name the terror of all the enemies of this island.

'MR. X. LEDBRAIN read a very ingenious communication, from which it
appeared that the total number of legs belonging to the
manufacturing population of one great town in Yorkshire was, in
round numbers, forty thousand, while the total number of chair and
stool legs in their houses was only thirty thousand, which, upon
the very favourable average of three legs to a seat, yielded only
ten thousand seats in all.  From this calculation it would appear,
- not taking wooden or cork legs into the account, but allowing two
legs to every person, - that ten thousand individuals (one-half of
the whole population) were either destitute of any rest for their
legs at all, or passed the whole of their leisure time in sitting
upon boxes.


'SECTION D. - MECHANICAL SCIENCE.
COACH-HOUSE, ORIGINAL PIG.


PRESIDENT - Mr. Carter.  VICE-PRESIDENTS - Mr. Truck and Mr.
Waghorn.

'PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK exhibited an elegant model of a portable
railway, neatly mounted in a green case, for the waistcoat pocket.
By attaching this beautiful instrument to his boots, any Bank or
public-office clerk could transport himself from his place of
residence to his place of business, at the easy rate of sixty-five
miles an hour, which, to gentlemen of sedentary pursuits, would be
an incalculable advantage.

'THE PRESIDENT was desirous of knowing whether it was necessary to
have a level surface on which the gentleman was to run.

'PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK explained that City gentlemen would run in
trains, being handcuffed together to prevent confusion or
unpleasantness.  For instance, trains would start every morning at
eight, nine, and ten o'clock, from Camden Town, Islington,
Camberwell, Hackney, and various other places in which City
gentlemen are accustomed to reside.  It would be necessary to have
a level, but he had provided for this difficulty by proposing that
the best line that the circumstances would admit of, should be
taken through the sewers which undermine the streets of the
metropolis, and which, well lighted by jets from the gas pipes
which run immediately above them, would form a pleasant and
commodious arcade, especially in winter-time, when the inconvenient
custom of carrying umbrellas, now so general, could be wholly
dispensed with.  In reply to another question, Professor Queerspeck
stated that no substitute for the purposes to which these arcades
were at present devoted had yet occurred to him, but that he hoped
no fanciful objection on this head would be allowed to interfere
with so great an undertaking.

'MR. JOBBA produced a forcing-machine on a novel plan, for bringing
joint-stock railway shares prematurely to a premium.  The
instrument was in the form of an elegant gilt weather-glass, of
most dazzling appearance, and was worked behind, by strings, after
the manner of a pantomime trick, the strings being always pulled by
the directors of the company to which the machine belonged.  The
quicksilver was so ingeniously placed, that when the acting
directors held shares in their pockets, figures denoting very small
expenses and very large returns appeared upon the glass; but the
moment the directors parted with these pieces of paper, the
estimate of needful expenditure suddenly increased itself to an
immense extent, while the statements of certain profits became
reduced in the same proportion.  Mr. Jobba stated that the machine
had been in constant requisition for some months past, and he had
never once known it to fail.

'A Member expressed his opinion that it was extremely neat and
pretty.  He wished to know whether it was not liable to accidental
derangement?  Mr. Jobba said that the whole machine was undoubtedly
liable to be blown up, but that was the only objection to it.

'PROFESSOR NOGO arrived from the anatomical section to exhibit a
model of a safety fire-escape, which could be fixed at any time, in
less than half an hour, and by means of which, the youngest or most
infirm persons (successfully resisting the progress of the flames
until it was quite ready) could be preserved if they merely
balanced themselves for a few minutes on the sill of their bedroom
window, and got into the escape without falling into the street.
The Professor stated that the number of boys who had been rescued
in the daytime by this machine from houses which were not on fire,
was almost incredible.  Not a conflagration had occurred in the
whole of London for many months past to which the escape had not
been carried on the very next day, and put in action before a
concourse of persons.

'THE PRESIDENT inquired whether there was not some difficulty in
ascertaining which was the top of the machine, and which the
bottom, in cases of pressing emergency.

'PROFESSOR NOGO explained that of course it could not be expected
to act quite as well when there was a fire, as when there was not a
fire; but in the former case he thought it would be of equal
service whether the top were up or down.'


With the last section our correspondent concludes his most able and
faithful Report, which will never cease to reflect credit upon him
for his scientific attainments, and upon us for our enterprising
spirit.  It is needless to take a review of the subjects which have
been discussed; of the mode in which they have been examined; of
the great truths which they have elicited.  They are now before the
world, and we leave them to read, to consider, and to profit.

The place of meeting for next year has undergone discussion, and
has at length been decided, regard being had to, and evidence being
taken upon, the goodness of its wines, the supply of its markets,
the hospitality of its inhabitants, and the quality of its hotels.
We hope at this next meeting our correspondent may again be
present, and that we may be once more the means of placing his
communications before the world.  Until that period we have been
prevailed upon to allow this number of our Miscellany to be
retailed to the public, or wholesaled to the trade, without any
advance upon our usual price.

We have only to add, that the committees are now broken up, and
that Mudfog is once again restored to its accustomed tranquillity,
- that Professors and Members have had balls, and SOIREES, and
suppers, and great mutual complimentations, and have at length
dispersed to their several homes, - whither all good wishes and
joys attend them, until next year!

Signed BOZ.



FULL REPORT OF THE SECOND MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF EVERYTHING



In October last, we did ourselves the immortal credit of recording,
at an enormous expense, and by dint of exertions unnpralleled in
the history of periodical publication, the proceedings of the
Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything, which in that
month held its first great half-yearly meeting, to the wonder and
delight of the whole empire.  We announced at the conclusion of
that extraordinary and most remarkable Report, that when the Second
Meeting of the Society should take place, we should be found again
at our post, renewing our gigantic and spirited endeavours, and
once more making the world ring with the accuracy, authenticity,
immeasurable superiority, and intense remarkability of our account
of its proceedings.  In redemption of this pledge, we caused to be
despatched per steam to Oldcastle (at which place this second
meeting of the Society was held on the 20th instant), the same
superhumanly-endowed gentleman who furnished the former report, and
who, - gifted by nature with transcendent abilities, and furnished
by us with a body of assistants scarcely inferior to himself, - has
forwarded a series of letters, which, for faithfulness of
description, power of language, fervour of thought, happiness of
expression, and importance of subject-matter, have no equal in the
epistolary literature of any age or country.  We give this
gentleman's correspondence entire, and in the order in which it
reached our office.

'SALOON OF STEAMER, THURSDAY NIGHT, HALF-PAST EIGHT.

'When I left New Burlington Street this evening in the hackney
cabriolet, number four thousand two hundred and eighty-five, I
experienced sensations as novel as they were oppressive.  A sense
of the importance of the task I had undertaken, a consciousness
that I was leaving London, and, stranger still, going somewhere
else, a feeling of loneliness and a sensation of jolting, quite
bewildered my thoughts, and for a time rendered me even insensible
to the presence of my carpet-bag and hat-box.  I shall ever feel
grateful to the driver of a Blackwall omnibus who, by thrusting the
pole of his vehicle through the small door of the cabriolet,
awakened me from a tumult of imaginings that are wholly
indescribable.  But of such materials is our imperfect nature
composed!

'I am happy to say that I am the first passenger on board, and
shall thus be enabled to give you an account of all that happens in
the order of its occurrence.  The chimney is smoking a good deal,
and so are the crew; and the captain, I am informed, is very drunk
in a little house upon deck, something like a black turnpike.  I
should infer from all I hear that he has got the steam up.

'You will readily guess with what feelings I have just made the
discovery that my berth is in the same closet with those engaged by
Professor Woodensconce, Mr. Slug, and Professor Grime.  Professor
Woodensconce has taken the shelf above me, and Mr. Slug and
Professor Grime the two shelves opposite.  Their luggage has
already arrived.  On Mr. Slug's bed is a long tin tube of about
three inches in diameter, carefully closed at both ends.  What can
this contain?  Some powerful instrument of a new construction,
doubtless.'

'TEN MINUTES PAST NINE.

'Nobody has yet arrived, nor has anything fresh come in my way
except several joints of beef and mutton, from which I conclude
that a good plain dinner has been provided for to-morrow.  There is
a singular smell below, which gave me some uneasiness at first; but
as the steward says it is always there, and never goes away, I am
quite comfortable again.  I learn from this man that the different
sections will be distributed at the Black Boy and Stomach-ache, and
the Boot-jack and Countenance.  If this intelligence be true (and I
have no reason to doubt it), your readers will draw such
conclusions as their different opinions may suggest.

'I write down these remarks as they occur to me, or as the facts
come to my knowledge, in order that my first impressions may lose
nothing of their original vividness.  I shall despatch them in
small packets as opportunities arise.'

'HALF PAST NINE.

'Some dark object has just appeared upon the wharf.  I think it is
a travelling carriage.'

'A QUARTER TO TEN.

'No, it isn't.'

'HALF-PAST TEN.

The passengers are pouring in every instant.  Four omnibuses full
have just arrived upon the wharf, and all is bustle and activity.
The noise and confusion are very great.  Cloths are laid in the
cabins, and the steward is placing blue plates - full of knobs of
cheese at equal distances down the centre of the tables.  He drops
a great many knobs; but, being used to it, picks them up again with
great dexterity, and, after wiping them on his sleeve, throws them
back into the plates.  He is a young man of exceedingly
prepossessing appearance - either dirty or a mulatto, but I think
the former.

'An interesting old gentleman, who came to the wharf in an omnibus,
has just quarrelled violently with the porters, and is staggering
towards the vessel with a large trunk in his arms.  I trust and
hope that he may reach it in safety; but the board he has to cross
is narrow and slippery.  Was that a splash?  Gracious powers!

'I have just returned from the deck.  The trunk is standing upon
the extreme brink of the wharf, but the old gentleman is nowhere to
be seen.  The watchman is not sure whether he went down or not, but
promises to drag for him the first thing to-morrow morning.  May
his humane efforts prove successful!

'Professor Nogo has this moment arrived with his nightcap on under
his hat.  He has ordered a glass of cold brandy and water, with a
hard biscuit and a basin, and has gone straight to bed.  What can
this mean?

'The three other scientific gentlemen to whom I have already
alluded have come on board, and have all tried their beds, with the
exception of Professor Woodensconce, who sleeps in one of the top
ones, and can't get into it.  Mr. Slug, who sleeps in the other top
one, is unable to get out of his, and is to have his supper handed
up by a boy.  I have had the honour to introduce myself to these
gentlemen, and we have amicably arranged the order in which we
shall retire to rest; which it is necessary to agree upon, because,
although the cabin is very comfortable, there is not room for more
than one gentleman to be out of bed at a time, and even he must
take his boots off in the passage.

'As I anticipated, the knobs of cheese were provided for the
passengers' supper, and are now in course of consumption.  Your
readers will be surprised to hear that Professor Woodensconce has
abstained from cheese for eight years, although he takes butter in
considerable quantities.  Professor Grime having lost several
teeth, is unable, I observe, to eat his crusts without previously
soaking them in his bottled porter.  How interesting are these
peculiarities!'

'HALF-PAST ELEVEN.

'Professors Woodensconce and Grime, with a degree of good humour
that delights us all, have just arranged to toss for a bottle of
mulled port.  There has been some discussion whether the payment
should be decided by the first toss or the best out of three.
Eventually the latter course has been determined on.  Deeply do I
wish that both gentlemen could win; but that being impossible, I
own that my personal aspirations (I speak as an individual, and do
not compromise either you or your readers by this expression of
feeling) are with Professor Woodensconce.  I have backed that
gentleman to the amount of eighteenpence.'

'TWENTY MINUTES TO TWELVE.

'Professor Grime has inadvertently tossed his half-crown out of one
of the cabin-windows, and it has been arranged that the steward
shall toss for him.  Bets are offered on any side to any amount,
but there are no takers.

'Professor Woodensconce has just called "woman;" but the coin
having lodged in a beam, is a long time coming down again.  The
interest and suspense of this one moment are beyond anything that
can be imagined.'

'TWELVE O'CLOCK.

'The mulled port is smoking on the table before me, and Professor
Grime has won.  Tossing is a game of chance; but on every ground,
whether of public or private character, intellectual endowments, or
scientific attainments, I cannot help expressing my opinion that
Professor Woodensconce OUGHT to have come off victorious.  There is
an exultation about Professor Grime incompatible, I fear, with true
greatness.'

'A QUARTER PAST TWELVE.

'Professor Grime continues to exult, and to boast of his victory in
no very measured terms, observing that he always does win, and that
he knew it would be a "head" beforehand, with many other remarks of
a similar nature.  Surely this gentleman is not so lost to every
feeling of decency and propriety as not to feel and know the
superiority of Professor Woodensconce?  Is Professor Grime insane?
or does he wish to be reminded in plain language of his true
position in society, and the precise level of his acquirements and
abilities?  Professor Grime will do well to look to this.'

'ONE O'CLOCK.

'I am writing in bed.  The small cabin is illuminated by the feeble
light of a flickering lamp suspended from the ceiling; Professor
Grime is lying on the opposite shelf on the broad of his back, with
his mouth wide open.  The scene is indescribably solemn.  The
rippling of the tide, the noise of the sailors' feet overhead, the
gruff voices on the river, the dogs on the shore, the snoring of
the passengers, and a constant creaking of every plank in the
vessel, are the only sounds that meet the ear.  With these
exceptions, all is profound silence.

'My curiosity has been within the last moment very much excited.
Mr. Slug, who lies above Professor Grime, has cautiously withdrawn
the curtains of his berth, and, after looking anxiously out, as if
to satisfy himself that his companions are asleep, has taken up the
tin tube of which I have before spoken, and is regarding it with
great interest.  What rare mechanical combination can be contained
in that mysterious case?  It is evidently a profound secret to
all.'

'A QUARTER PAST ONE.

'The behaviour of Mr. Slug grows more and more mysterious.  He has
unscrewed the top of the tube, and now renews his observations upon
his companions, evidently to make sure that he is wholly
unobserved.  He is clearly on the eve of some great experiment.
Pray heaven that it be not a dangerous one; but the interests of
science must be promoted, and I am prepared for the worst.'

'FIVE MINUTES LATER.

'He has produced a large pair of scissors, and drawn a roll of some
substance, not unlike parchment in appearance, from the tin case.
The experiment is about to begin.  I must strain my eyes to the
utmost, in the attempt to follow its minutest operation.'

'TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE TWO.

'I have at length been enabled to ascertain that the tin tube
contains a few yards of some celebrated plaster, recommended - as I
discover on regarding the label attentively through my eye-glass -
as a preservative against sea-sickness.  Mr. Slug has cut it up
into small portions, and is now sticking it over himself in every
direction.'

'THREE O'CLOCK.

'Precisely a quarter of an hour ago we weighed anchor, and the
machinery was suddenly put in motion with a noise so appalling,
that Professor Woodensconce (who had ascended to his berth by means
of a platform of carpet-bags arranged by himself on geometrical
principals) darted from his shelf head foremost, and, gaining his
feet with all the rapidity of extreme terror, ran wildly into the
ladies' cabin, under the impression that we were sinking, and
uttering loud cries for aid.  I am assured that the scene which
ensued baffles all description.  There were one hundred and forty-
seven ladies in their respective berths at the time.

'Mr. Slug has remarked, as an additional instance of the extreme
ingenuity of the steam-engine as applied to purposes of navigation,
that in whatever part of the vessel a passenger's berth may be
situated, the machinery always appears to be exactly under his
pillow.  He intends stating this very beautiful, though simple
discovery, to the association.'

'HALF-PAST TEN.

'We are still in smooth water; that is to say, in as smooth water
as a steam-vessel ever can be, for, as Professor Woodensconce (who
has just woke up) learnedly remarks, another great point of
ingenuity about a steamer is, that it always carries a little storm
with it.  You can scarcely conceive how exciting the jerking
pulsation of the ship becomes.  It is a matter of positive
difficulty to get to sleep.'

'FRIDAY AFTERNOON, SIX O'CLOCK.

'I regret to inform you that Mr. Slug's plaster has proved of no
avail.  He is in great agony, but has applied several large,
additional pieces notwithstanding.  How affecting is this extreme
devotion to science and pursuit of knowledge under the most trying
circumstances!

'We were extremely happy this morning, and the breakfast was one of
the most animated description.  Nothing unpleasant occurred until
noon, with the exception of Doctor Foxey's brown silk umbrella and
white hat becoming entangled in the machinery while he was
explaining to a knot of ladies the construction of the steam-
engine.  I fear the gravy soup for lunch was injudicious.  We lost
a great many passengers almost immediately afterwards.'

'HALF-PAST SIX.

'I am again in bed.  Anything so heart-rending as Mr. Slug's
sufferings it has never yet been my lot to witness.'

'SEVEN O'CLOCK.

'A messenger has just come down for a clean pocket-handkerchief
from Professor Woodensconce's bag, that unfortunate gentleman being
quite unable to leave the deck, and imploring constantly to be
thrown overboard.  From this man I understand that Professor Nogo,
though in a state of utter exhaustion, clings feebly to the hard
biscuit and cold brandy and water, under the impression that they
will yet restore him.  Such is the triumph of mind over matter.

'Professor Grime is in bed, to all appearance quite well; but he
WILL eat, and it is disagreeable to see him.  Has this gentleman no
sympathy with the sufferings of his fellow-creatures?  If he has,
on what principle can he call for mutton-chops - and smile?'

'BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE, OLDCASTLE, SATURDAY NOON.

'You will be happy to learn that I have at length arrived here in
safety.  The town is excessively crowded, and all the private
lodgings and hotels are filled with SAVANS of both sexes.  The
tremendous assemblage of intellect that one encounters in every
street is in the last degree overwhelming.

'Notwithstanding the throng of people here, I have been fortunate
enough to meet with very comfortable accommodation on very
reasonable terms, having secured a sofa in the first-floor passage
at one guinea per night, which includes permission to take my meals
in the bar, on condition that I walk about the streets at all other
times, to make room for other gentlemen similarly situated.  I have
been over the outhouses intended to be devoted to the reception of
the various sections, both here and at the Boot-jack and
Countenance, and am much delighted with the arrangements.  Nothing
can exceed the fresh appearance of the saw-dust with which the
floors are sprinkled.  The forms are of unplaned deal, and the
general effect, as you can well imagine, is extremely beautiful.'

'HALF-PAST NINE.

'The number and rapidity of the arrivals are quite bewildering.
Within the last ten minutes a stage-coach has driven up to the
door, filled inside and out with distinguished characters,
comprising Mr. Muddlebranes, Mr. Drawley, Professor Muff, Mr. X.
Misty, Mr. X. X. Misty, Mr. Purblind, Professor Rummun, The
Honourable and Reverend Mr. Long Eers, Professor John Ketch, Sir
William Joltered, Doctor Buffer, Mr. Smith (of London), Mr. Brown
(of Edinburgh), Sir Hookham Snivey, and Professor Pumpkinskull.
The ten last-named gentlemen were wet through, and looked extremely
intelligent.'

'SUNDAY, TWO O'CLOCK, P.M.

'The Honourable and Reverend Mr. Long Eers, accompanied by Sir
William Joltered, walked and drove this morning.  They accomplished
the former feat in boots, and the latter in a hired fly.  This has
naturally given rise to much discussion.

'I have just learnt that an interview has taken place at the Boot-
jack and Countenance between Sowster, the active and intelligent
beadle of this place, and Professor Pumpkinskull, who, as your
readers are doubtless aware, is an influential member of the
council.  I forbear to communicate any of the rumours to which this
very extraordinary proceeding has given rise until I have seen
Sowster, and endeavoured to ascertain the truth from him.'

'HALF-PAST SIX.

'I engaged a donkey-chaise shortly after writing the above, and
proceeded at a brisk trot in the direction of Sowster's residence,
passing through a beautiful expanse of country, with red brick
buildings on either side, and stopping in the marketplace to
observe the spot where Mr. Kwakley's hat was blown off yesterday.
It is an uneven piece of paving, but has certainly no appearance
which would lead one to suppose that any such event had recently
occurred there.  From this point I proceeded - passing the gas-
works and tallow-melter's - to a lane which had been pointed out to
me as the beadle's place of residence; and before I had driven a
dozen yards further, I had the good fortune to meet Sowster himself
advancing towards me.

'Sowster is a fat man, with a more enlarged development of that
peculiar conformation of countenance which is vulgarly termed a
double chin than I remember to have ever seen before.  He has also
a very red nose, which he attributes to a habit of early rising -
so red, indeed, that but for this explanation I should have
supposed it to proceed from occasional inebriety.  He informed me
that he did not feel himself at liberty to relate what had passed
between himself and Professor Pumpkinskull, but had no objection to
state that it was connected with a matter of police regulation, and
added with peculiar significance "Never wos sitch times!"

'You will easily believe that this intelligence gave me
considerable surprise, not wholly unmixed with anxiety, and that I
lost no time in waiting on Professor Pumpkinskull, and stating the
object of my visit.  After a few moments' reflection, the
Professor, who, I am bound to say, behaved with the utmost
politeness, openly avowed (I mark the passage in italics) THAT HE
HAD REQUESTED SOWSTER TO ATTEND ON THE MONDAY MORNING AT THE BOOT-
JACK AND COUNTENANCE, TO KEEP OFF THE BOYS; AND THAT HE HAD FURTHER
DESIRED THAT THE UNDER-BEADLE MIGHT BE STATIONED, WITH THE SAME
OBJECT, AT THE BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE!

'Now I leave this unconstitutional proceeding to your comments and
the consideration of your readers.  I have yet to learn that a
beadle, without the precincts of a church, churchyard, or work-
house, and acting otherwise than under the express orders of
churchwardens and overseers in council assembled, to enforce the
law against people who come upon the parish, and other offenders,
has any lawful authority whatever over the rising youth of this
country.  I have yet to learn that a beadle can be called out by
any civilian to exercise a domination and despotism over the boys
of Britain.  I have yet to learn that a beadle will be permitted by
the commissioners of poor law regulation to wear out the soles and
heels of his boots in illegal interference with the liberties of
people not proved poor or otherwise criminal.  I have yet to learn
that a beadle has power to stop up the Queen's highway at his will
and pleasure, or that the whole width of the street is not free and
open to any man, boy, or woman in existence, up to the very walls
of the houses - ay, be they Black Boys and Stomach-aches, or Boot-
jacks and Countenances, I care not.'

'NINE O'CLOCK.

'I have procured a local artist to make a faithful sketch of the
tyrant Sowster, which, as he has acquired this infamous celebrity,
you will no doubt wish to have engraved for the purpose of
presenting a copy with every copy of your next number.  I enclose
it.

[Picture which cannot be reproduced]

The under-beadle has consented to write his life, but it is to be
strictly anonymous.

'The accompanying likeness is of course from the life, and complete
in every respect.  Even if I had been totally ignorant of the man's
real character, and it had been placed before me without remark, I
should have shuddered involuntarily.  There is an intense malignity
of expression in the features, and a baleful ferocity of purpose in
the ruffian's eye, which appals and sickens.  His whole air is
rampant with cruelty, nor is the stomach less characteristic of his
demoniac propensities.'

'MONDAY.

'The great day has at length arrived.  I have neither eyes, nor
ears, nor pens, nor ink, nor paper, for anything but the wonderful
proceedings that have astounded my senses.  Let me collect my
energies and proceed to the account.


'SECTION A. - ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY.
FRONT PARLOUR, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE.


PRESIDENT - Sir William Joltered.  VICE-PRESIDENTS - Mr.
Muddlebranes and Mr. Drawley.

'MR. X. X. MISTY communicated some remarks on the disappearance of
dancing-bears from the streets of London, with observations on the
exhibition of monkeys as connected with barrel-organs.  The writer
had observed, with feelings of the utmost pain and regret, that
some years ago a sudden and unaccountable change in the public
taste took place with reference to itinerant bears, who, being
discountenanced by the populace, gradually fell off one by one from
the streets of the metropolis, until not one remained to create a
taste for natural history in the breasts of the poor and
uninstructed.  One bear, indeed, - a brown and ragged animal, - had
lingered about the haunts of his former triumphs, with a worn and
dejected visage and feeble limbs, and had essayed to wield his
quarter-staff for the amusement of the multitude; but hunger, and
an utter want of any due recompense for his abilities, had at
length driven him from the field, and it was only too probable that
he had fallen a sacrifice to the rising taste for grease.  He
regretted to add that a similar, and no less lamentable, change had
taken place with reference to monkeys.  These delightful animals
had formerly been almost as plentiful as the organs on the tops of
which they were accustomed to sit; the proportion in the year 1829
(it appeared by the parliamentary return) being as one monkey to
three organs.  Owing, however, to an altered taste in musical
instruments, and the substitution, in a great measure, of narrow
boxes of music for organs, which left the monkeys nothing to sit
upon, this source of public amusement was wholly dried up.
Considering it a matter of the deepest importance, in connection
with national education, that the people should not lose such
opportunities of making themselves acquainted with the manners and
customs of two most interesting species of animals, the author
submitted that some measures should be immediately taken for the
restoration of these pleasing and truly intellectual amusements.

'THE PRESIDENT inquired by what means the honourable member
proposed to attain this most desirable end?

'THE AUTHOR submitted that it could be most fully and
satisfactorily accomplished, if Her Majesty's Government would
cause to be brought over to England, and maintained at the public
expense, and for the public amusement, such a number of bears as
would enable every quarter of the town to be visited - say at least
by three bears a week.  No difficulty whatever need be experienced
in providing a fitting place for the reception of these animals, as
a commodious bear-garden could be erected in the immediate
neighbourhood of both Houses of Parliament; obviously the most
proper and eligible spot for such an establishment.

'PROFESSOR MULL doubted very much whether any correct ideas of
natural history were propagated by the means to which the
honourable member had so ably adverted.  On the contrary, he
believed that they had been the means of diffusing very incorrect
and imperfect notions on the subject.  He spoke from personal
observation and personal experience, when he said that many
children of great abilities had been induced to believe, from what
they had observed in the streets, at and before the period to which
the honourable gentleman had referred, that all monkeys were born
in red coats and spangles, and that their hats and feathers also
came by nature.  He wished to know distinctly whether the
honourable gentleman attributed the want of encouragement the bears
had met with to the decline of public taste in that respect, or to
a want of ability on the part of the bears themselves?

'MR. X. X. MISTY replied, that he could not bring himself to
believe but that there must be a great deal of floating talent
among the bears and monkeys generally; which, in the absence of any
proper encouragement, was dispersed in other directions.

'PROFESSOR PUMPKINSKULL wished to take that opportunity of calling
the attention of the section to a most important and serious point.
The author of the treatise just read had alluded to the prevalent
taste for bears'-grease as a means of promoting the growth of hair,
which undoubtedly was diffused to a very great and (as it appeared
to him) very alarming extent.  No gentleman attending that section
could fail to be aware of the fact that the youth of the present
age evinced, by their behaviour in the streets, and at all places
of public resort, a considerable lack of that gallantry and
gentlemanly feeling which, in more ignorant times, had been thought
becoming.  He wished to know whether it were possible that a
constant outward application of bears'-grease by the young
gentlemen about town had imperceptibly infused into those unhappy
persons something of the nature and quality of the bear.  He
shuddered as he threw out the remark; but if this theory, on
inquiry, should prove to be well founded, it would at once explain
a great deal of unpleasant eccentricity of behaviour, which,
without some such discovery, was wholly unaccountable.

'THE PRESIDENT highly complimented the learned gentleman on his
most valuable suggestion, which produced the greatest effect upon
the assembly; and remarked that only a week previous he had seen
some young gentlemen at a theatre eyeing a box of ladies with a
fierce intensity, which nothing but the influence of some brutish
appetite could possibly explain.  It was dreadful to reflect that
our youth were so rapidly verging into a generation of bears.

'After a scene of scientific enthusiasm it was resolved that this
important question should be immediately submitted to the
consideration of the council.

'THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether any gentleman could inform
the section what had become of the dancing-dogs?

'A MEMBER replied, after some hesitation, that on the day after
three glee-singers had been committed to prison as criminals by a
late most zealous police-magistrate of the metropolis, the dogs had
abandoned their professional duties, and dispersed themselves in
different quarters of the town to gain a livelihood by less
dangerous means.  He was given to understand that since that period
they had supported themselves by lying in wait for and robbing
blind men's poodles.

'MR. FLUMMERY exhibited a twig, claiming to be a veritable branch
of that noble tree known to naturalists as the SHAKSPEARE, which
has taken root in every land and climate, and gathered under the
shade of its broad green boughs the great family of mankind.  The
learned gentleman remarked that the twig had been undoubtedly
called by other names in its time; but that it had been pointed out
to him by an old lady in Warwickshire, where the great tree had
grown, as a shoot of the genuine SHAKSPEARE, by which name he
begged to introduce it to his countrymen.

'THE PRESIDENT wished to know what botanical definition the
honourable gentleman could afford of the curiosity.

'MR. FLUMMERY expressed his opinion that it was A DECIDED PLANT.


'SECTION B. - DISPLAY OF MODELS AND MECHANICAL SCIENCE.
LARGE ROOM, BOOT-JACK AND COUNTENANCE.


PRESIDENT - Mr. Mallett.  VICE-PRESIDENTS - Messrs. Leaver and
Scroo.

'MR. CRINKLES exhibited a most beautiful and delicate machine, of
little larger size than an ordinary snuff-box, manufactured
entirely by himself, and composed exclusively of steel, by the aid
of which more pockets could be picked in one hour than by the
present slow and tedious process in four-and-twenty.  The inventor
remarked that it had been put into active operation in Fleet
Street, the Strand, and other thoroughfares, and had never been
once known to fail.

'After some slight delay, occasioned by the various members of the
section buttoning their pockets,

'THE PRESIDENT narrowly inspected the invention, and declared that
he had never seen a machine of more beautiful or exquisite
construction.  Would the inventor be good enough to inform the
section whether he had taken any and what means for bringing it
into general operation?

'MR. CRINKLES stated that, after encountering some preliminary
difficulties, he had succeeded in putting himself in communication
with Mr. Fogle Hunter, and other gentlemen connected with the swell
mob, who had awarded the invention the very highest and most
unqualified approbation.  He regretted to say, however, that these
distinguished practitioners, in common with a gentleman of the name
of Gimlet-eyed Tommy, and other members of a secondary grade of the
profession whom he was understood to represent, entertained an
insuperable objection to its being brought into general use, on the
ground that it would have the inevitable effect of almost entirely
superseding manual labour, and throwing a great number of highly-
deserving persons out of employment.

'THE PRESIDENT hoped that no such fanciful objections would be
allowed to stand in the way of such a great public improvement.

'MR. CRINKLES hoped so too; but he feared that if the gentlemen of
the swell mob persevered in their objection, nothing could be done.

'PROFESSOR GRIME suggested, that surely, in that case, Her
Majesty's Government might be prevailed upon to take it up.

'MR. CRINKLES said, that if the objection were found to be
insuperable he should apply to Parliament, which he thought could
not fail to recognise the utility of the invention.

'THE PRESIDENT observed that, up to this time Parliament had
certainly got on very well without it; but, as they did their
business on a very large scale, he had no doubt they would gladly
adopt the improvement.  His only fear was that the machine might be
worn out by constant working.

'MR. COPPERNOSE called the attention of the section to a
proposition of great magnitude and interest, illustrated by a vast
number of models, and stated with much clearness and perspicuity in
a treatise entitled "Practical Suggestions on the necessity of
providing some harmless and wholesome relaxation for the young
noblemen of England."  His proposition was, that a space of ground
of not less than ten miles in length and four in breadth should be
purchased by a new company, to be incorporated by Act of
Parliament, and inclosed by a brick wall of not less than twelve
feet in height.  He proposed that it should be laid out with
highway roads, turnpikes, bridges, miniature villages, and every
object that could conduce to the comfort and glory of Four-in-hand
Clubs, so that they might be fairly presumed to require no drive
beyond it.  This delightful retreat would be fitted up with most
commodious and extensive stables, for the convenience of such of
the nobility and gentry as had a taste for ostlering, and with
houses of entertainment furnished in the most expensive and
handsome style.  It would be further provided with whole streets of
door-knockers and bell-handles of extra size, so constructed that
they could be easily wrenched off at night, and regularly screwed
on again, by attendants provided for the purpose, every day.  There
would also be gas lamps of real glass, which could be broken at a
comparatively small expense per dozen, and a broad and handsome
foot pavement for gentlemen to drive their cabriolets upon when
they were humorously disposed - for the full enjoyment of which
feat live pedestrians would be procured from the workhouse at a
very small charge per head.  The place being inclosed, and
carefully screened from the intrusion of the public, there would be
no objection to gentlemen laying aside any article of their costume
that was considered to interfere with a pleasant frolic, or,
indeed, to their walking about without any costume at all, if they
liked that better.  In short, every facility of enjoyment would be
afforded that the most gentlemanly person could possibly desire.
But as even these advantages would be incomplete unless there were
some means provided of enabling the nobility and gentry to display
their prowess when they sallied forth after dinner, and as some
inconvenience might be experienced in the event of their being
reduced to the necessity of pummelling each other, the inventor had
turned his attention to the construction of an entirely new police
force, composed exclusively of automaton figures, which, with the
assistance of the ingenious Signor Gagliardi, of Windmill-street,
in the Haymarket, he had succeeded in making with such nicety, that
a policeman, cab-driver, or old woman, made upon the principle of
the models exhibited, would walk about until knocked down like any
real man; nay, more, if set upon and beaten by six or eight
noblemen or gentlemen, after it was down, the figure would utter
divers groans, mingled with entreaties for mercy, thus rendering
the illusion complete, and the enjoyment perfect.  But the
invention did not stop even here; for station-houses would be
built, containing good beds for noblemen and gentlemen during the
night, and in the morning they would repair to a commodious police
office, where a pantomimic investigation would take place before
the automaton magistrates, - quite equal to life, - who would fine
them in so many counters, with which they would be previously
provided for the purpose.  This office would be furnished with an
inclined plane, for the convenience of any nobleman or gentleman
who might wish to bring in his horse as a witness; and the
prisoners would be at perfect liberty, as they were now, to
interrupt the complainants as much as they pleased, and to make any
remarks that they thought proper.  The charge for these amusements
would amount to very little more than they already cost, and the
inventor submitted that the public would be much benefited and
comforted by the proposed arrangement.

'PROFESSOR NOGO wished to be informed what amount of automaton
police force it was proposed to raise in the first instance.

'MR. COPPERNOSE replied, that it was proposed to begin with seven
divisions of police of a score each, lettered from A to G
inclusive.  It was proposed that not more than half this number
should be placed on active duty, and that the remainder should be
kept on shelves in the police office ready to be called out at a
moment's notice.

'THE PRESIDENT, awarding the utmost merit to the ingenious
gentleman who had originated the idea, doubted whether the
automaton police would quite answer the purpose.  He feared that
noblemen and gentlemen would perhaps require the excitement of
thrashing living subjects.

'MR. COPPERNOSE submitted, that as the usual odds in such cases
were ten noblemen or gentlemen to one policeman or cab-driver, it
could make very little difference in point of excitement whether
the policeman or cab-driver were a man or a block.  The great
advantage would be, that a policeman's limbs might be all knocked
off, and yet he would be in a condition to do duty next day.  He
might even give his evidence next morning with his head in his
hand, and give it equally well.

'PROFESSOR MUFF. - Will you allow me to ask you, sir, of what
materials it is intended that the magistrates' heads shall be
composed?

'MR. COPPERNOSE. - The magistrates will have wooden heads of
course, and they will be made of the toughest and thickest
materials that can possibly be obtained.

'PROFESSOR MUFF. - I am quite satisfied.  This is a great
invention.

'PROFESSOR NOGO. - I see but one objection to it.  It appears to me
that the magistrates ought to talk.

'MR. COPPERNOSE no sooner heard this suggestion than he touched a
small spring in each of the two models of magistrates which were
placed upon the table; one of the figures immediately began to
exclaim with great volubility that he was sorry to see gentlemen in
such a situation, and the other to express a fear that the
policeman was intoxicated.

'The section, as with one accord, declared with a shout of applause
that the invention was complete; and the President, much excited,
retired with Mr. Coppernose to lay it before the council.  On his
return,

'MR. TICKLE displayed his newly-invented spectacles, which enabled
the wearer to discern, in very bright colours, objects at a great
distance, and rendered him wholly blind to those immediately before
him.  It was, he said, a most valuable and useful invention, based
strictly upon the principle of the human eye.

'THE PRESIDENT required some information upon this point.  He had
yet to learn that the human eye was remarkable for the
peculiarities of which the honourable gentleman had spoken.

'MR. TICKLE was rather astonished to hear this, when the President
could not fail to be aware that a large number of most excellent
persons and great statesmen could see, with the naked eye, most
marvellous horrors on West India plantations, while they could
discern nothing whatever in the interior of Manchester cotton
mills.  He must know, too, with what quickness of perception most
people could discover their neighbour's faults, and how very blind
they were to their own.  If the President differed from the great
majority of men in this respect, his eye was a defective one, and
it was to assist his vision that these glasses were made.

'MR. BLANK exhibited a model of a fashionable annual, composed of
copper-plates, gold leaf, and silk boards, and worked entirely by
milk and water.

'MR. PROSEE, after examining the machine, declared it to be so
ingeniously composed, that he was wholly unable to discover how it
went on at all.

'MR. BLANK. - Nobody can, and that is the beauty of it.


'SECTION C. - ANATOMY AND MEDICINE.
BAR ROOM, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE.


PRESIDENT - Dr. Soemup.  VICE-PRESIDENTS - Messrs. Pessell and
Mortair.

'DR. GRUMMIDGE stated to the section a most interesting case of
monomania, and described the course of treatment he had pursued
with perfect success.  The patient was a married lady in the middle
rank of life, who, having seen another lady at an evening party in
a full suit of pearls, was suddenly seized with a desire to possess
a similar equipment, although her husband's finances were by no
means equal to the necessary outlay.  Finding her wish ungratified,
she fell sick, and the symptoms soon became so alarming, that he
(Dr. Grummidge) was called in.  At this period the prominent tokens
of the disorder were sullenness, a total indisposition to perform
domestic duties, great peevishness, and extreme languor, except
when pearls were mentioned, at which times the pulse quickened, the
eyes grew brighter, the pupils dilated, and the patient, after
various incoherent exclamations, burst into a passion of tears, and
exclaimed that nobody cared for her, and that she wished herself
dead.  Finding that the patient's appetite was affected in the
presence of company, he began by ordering a total abstinence from
all stimulants, and forbidding any sustenance but weak gruel; he
then took twenty ounces of blood, applied a blister under each ear,
one upon the chest, and another on the back; having done which, and
administered five grains of calomel, he left the patient to her
repose.  The next day she was somewhat low, but decidedly better,
and all appearances of irritation were removed.  The next day she
improved still further, and on the next again.  On the fourth there
was some appearance of a return of the old symptoms, which no
sooner developed themselves, than he administered another dose of
calomel, and left strict orders that, unless a decidedly favourable
change occurred within two hours, the patient's head should be
immediately shaved to the very last curl.  From that moment she
began to mend, and, in less than four-and-twenty hours was
perfectly restored.  She did not now betray the least emotion at
the sight or mention of pearls or any other ornaments.  She was
cheerful and good-humoured, and a most beneficial change had been
effected in her whole temperament and condition.

'MR. PIPKIN (M.R.C.S.) read a short but most interesting
communication in which he sought to prove the complete belief of
Sir William Courtenay, otherwise Thorn, recently shot at
Canterbury, in the Homoeopathic system.  The section would bear in
mind that one of the Homoeopathic doctrines was, that infinitesimal
doses of any medicine which would occasion the disease under which
the patient laboured, supposing him to be in a healthy state, would
cure it.  Now, it was a remarkable circumstance - proved in the
evidence - that the deceased Thorn employed a woman to follow him
about all day with a pail of water, assuring her that one drop (a
purely homoeopathic remedy, the section would observe), placed upon
his tongue, after death, would restore him.  What was the obvious
inference?  That Thorn, who was marching and countermarching in
osier beds, and other swampy places, was impressed with a
presentiment that he should be drowned; in which case, had his
instructions been complied with, he could not fail to have been
brought to life again instantly by his own prescription.  As it
was, if this woman, or any other person, had administered an
infinitesimal dose of lead and gunpowder immediately after he fell,
he would have recovered forthwith.  But unhappily the woman
concerned did not possess the power of reasoning by analogy, or
carrying out a principle, and thus the unfortunate gentleman had
been sacrificed to the ignorance of the peasantry.


'SECTION D. - STATISTICS.
OUT-HOUSE, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE.

PRESIDENT - Mr. Slug.  VICE-PRESIDENTS - Messrs. Noakes and Styles.

'MR. KWAKLEY stated the result of some most ingenious statistical
inquiries relative to the difference between the value of the
qualification of several members of Parliament as published to the
world, and its real nature and amount.  After reminding the section
that every member of Parliament for a town or borough was supposed
to possess a clear freehold estate of three hundred pounds per
annum, the honourable gentleman excited great amusement and
laughter by stating the exact amount of freehold property possessed
by a column of legislators, in which he had included himself.  It
appeared from this table, that the amount of such income possessed
by each was 0 pounds, 0 shillings, and 0 pence, yielding an average
of the same. (Great laughter.)  It was pretty well known that there
were accommodating gentlemen in the habit of furnishing new members
with temporary qualifications, to the ownership of which they swore
solemnly - of course as a mere matter of form.  He argued from
these DATA that it was wholly unnecessary for members of Parliament
to possess any property at all, especially as when they had none
the public could get them so much cheaper.


'SUPPLEMENTARY SECTION, E. - UMBUGOLOGY AND DITCHWATERISICS.


PRESIDENT - Mr. Grub.  VICE PRESIDENTS - Messrs. Dull and Dummy.

'A paper was read by the secretary descriptive of a bay pony with
one eye, which had been seen by the author standing in a butcher's
cart at the corner of Newgate Market.  The communication described
the author of the paper as having, in the prosecution of a
mercantile pursuit, betaken himself one Saturday morning last
summer from Somers Town to Cheapside; in the course of which
expedition he had beheld the extraordinary appearance above
described.  The pony had one distinct eye, and it had been pointed
out to him by his friend Captain Blunderbore, of the Horse Marines,
who assisted the author in his search, that whenever he winked this
eye he whisked his tail (possibly to drive the flies off), but that
he always winked and whisked at the same time.  The animal was
lean, spavined, and tottering; and the author proposed to
constitute it of the family of FITFORDOGSMEATAURIOUS.  It certainly
did occur to him that there was no case on record of a pony with
one clearly-defined and distinct organ of vision, winking and
whisking at the same moment.

'MR. Q. J. SNUFFLETOFFLE had heard of a pony winking his eye, and
likewise of a pony whisking his tail, but whether they were two
ponies or the same pony he could not undertake positively to say.
At all events, he was acquainted with no authenticated instance of
a simultaneous winking and whisking, and he really could not but
doubt the existence of such a marvellous pony in opposition to all
those natural laws by which ponies were governed.  Referring,
however, to the mere question of his one organ of vision, might he
suggest the possibility of this pony having been literally half
asleep at the time he was seen, and having closed only one eye.

'THE PRESIDENT observed that, whether the pony was half asleep or
fast asleep, there could be no doubt that the association was wide
awake, and therefore that they had better get the business over,
and go to dinner.  He had certainly never seen anything analogous
to this pony, but he was not prepared to doubt its existence; for
he had seen many queerer ponies in his time, though he did not
pretend to have seen any more remarkable donkeys than the other
gentlemen around him.

'PROFESSOR JOHN KETCH was then called upon to exhibit the skull of
the late Mr. Greenacre, which he produced from a blue bag,
remarking, on being invited to make any observations that occurred
to him, "that he'd pound it as that 'ere 'spectable section had
never seed a more gamerer cove nor he vos."

'A most animated discussion upon this interesting relic ensued;
and, some difference of opinion arising respecting the real
character of the deceased gentleman, Mr. Blubb delivered a lecture
upon the cranium before him, clearly showing that Mr. Greenacre
possessed the organ of destructiveness to a most unusual extent,
with a most remarkable development of the organ of carveativeness.
Sir Hookham Snivey was proceeding to combat this opinion, when
Professor Ketch suddenly interrupted the proceedings by exclaiming,
with great excitement of manner, "Walker!"

'THE PRESIDENT begged to call the learned gentleman to order.

'PROFESSOR KETCH. - "Order be blowed! you've got the wrong un, I
tell you.  It ain't no 'ed at all; it's a coker-nut as my brother-
in-law has been a-carvin', to hornament his new baked tatur-stall
wots a-comin' down 'ere vile the 'sociation's in the town.  Hand
over, vill you?"

'With these words, Professor Ketch hastily repossessed himself of
the cocoa-nut, and drew forth the skull, in mistake for which he
had exhibited it.  A most interesting conversation ensued; but as
there appeared some doubt ultimately whether the skull was Mr.
Greenacre's, or a hospital patient's, or a pauper's, or a man's, or
a woman's, or a monkey's, no particular result was obtained.'


'I cannot,' says our talented correspondent in conclusion, 'I
cannot close my account of these gigantic researches and sublime
and noble triumphs without repeating a BON MOT of Professor
Woodensconce's, which shows how the greatest minds may occasionally
unbend when truth can be presented to listening ears, clothed in an
attractive and playful form.  I was standing by, when, after a week
of feasting and feeding, that learned gentleman, accompanied by the
whole body of wonderful men, entered the hall yesterday, where a
sumptuous dinner was prepared; where the richest wines sparkled on
the board, and fat bucks - propitiatory sacrifices to learning -
sent forth their savoury odours.  "Ah!" said Professor
Woodensconce, rubbing his hands, "this is what we meet for; this is
what inspires us; this is what keeps us together, and beckons us
onward; this is the SPREAD of science, and a glorious spread it
is."'



THE PANTOMIME OF LIFE



Before we plunge headlong into this paper, let us at once confess
to a fondness for pantomimes - to a gentle sympathy with clowns and
pantaloons - to an unqualified admiration of harlequins and
columbines - to a chaste delight in every action of their brief
existence, varied and many-coloured as those actions are, and
inconsistent though they occasionally be with those rigid and
formal rules of propriety which regulate the proceedings of meaner
and less comprehensive minds.  We revel in pantomimes - not because
they dazzle one's eyes with tinsel and gold leaf; not because they
present to us, once again, the well-beloved chalked faces, and
goggle eyes of our childhood; not even because, like Christmas-day,
and Twelfth-night, and Shrove-Tuesday, and one's own birthday, they
come to us but once a year; - our attachment is founded on a graver
and a very different reason.  A pantomime is to us, a mirror of
life; nay, more, we maintain that it is so to audiences generally,
although they are not aware of it, and that this very circumstance
is the secret cause of their amusement and delight.

Let us take a slight example.  The scene is a street:  an elderly
gentleman, with a large face and strongly marked features, appears.
His countenance beams with a sunny smile, and a perpetual dimple is
on his broad, red cheek.  He is evidently an opulent elderly
gentleman, comfortable in circumstances, and well-to-do in the
world.  He is not unmindful of the adornment of his person, for he
is richly, not to say gaudily, dressed; and that he indulges to a
reasonable extent in the pleasures of the table may be inferred
from the joyous and oily manner in which he rubs his stomach, by
way of informing the audience that he is going home to dinner.  In
the fulness of his heart, in the fancied security of wealth, in the
possession and enjoyment of all the good things of life, the
elderly gentleman suddenly loses his footing, and stumbles.  How
the audience roar!  He is set upon by a noisy and officious crowd,
who buffet and cuff him unmercifully.  They scream with delight!
Every time the elderly gentleman struggles to get up, his
relentless persecutors knock him down again.  The spectators are
convulsed with merriment!  And when at last the elderly gentleman
does get up, and staggers away, despoiled of hat, wig, and
clothing, himself battered to pieces, and his watch and money gone,
they are exhausted with laughter, and express their merriment and
admiration in rounds of applause.

Is this like life?  Change the scene to any real street; - to the
Stock Exchange, or the City banker's; the merchant's counting-
house, or even the tradesman's shop.  See any one of these men
fall, - the more suddenly, and the nearer the zenith of his pride
and riches, the better.  What a wild hallo is raised over his
prostrate carcase by the shouting mob; how they whoop and yell as
he lies humbled beneath them!  Mark how eagerly they set upon him
when he is down; and how they mock and deride him as he slinks
away.  Why, it is the pantomime to the very letter.

Of all the pantomimic DRAMATIS PERSONAE, we consider the pantaloon
the most worthless and debauched.  Independent of the dislike one
naturally feels at seeing a gentleman of his years engaged in
pursuits highly unbecoming his gravity and time of life, we cannot
conceal from ourselves the fact that he is a treacherous, worldly-
minded old villain, constantly enticing his younger companion, the
clown, into acts of fraud or petty larceny, and generally standing
aside to watch the result of the enterprise.  If it be successful,
he never forgets to return for his share of the spoil; but if it
turn out a failure, he generally retires with remarkable caution
and expedition, and keeps carefully aloof until the affair has
blown over.  His amorous propensities, too, are eminently
disagreeable; and his mode of addressing ladies in the open street
at noon-day is down-right improper, being usually neither more nor
less than a perceptible tickling of the aforesaid ladies in the
waist, after committing which, he starts back, manifestly ashamed
(as well he may be) of his own indecorum and temerity; continuing,
nevertheless, to ogle and beckon to them from a distance in a very
unpleasant and immoral manner.

Is there any man who cannot count a dozen pantaloons in his own
social circle?  Is there any man who has not seen them swarming at
the west end of the town on a sunshiny day or a summer's evening,
going through the last-named pantomimic feats with as much
liquorish energy, and as total an absence of reserve, as if they
were on the very stage itself?  We can tell upon our fingers a
dozen pantaloons of our acquaintance at this moment - capital
pantaloons, who have been performing all kinds of strange freaks,
to the great amusement of their friends and acquaintance, for years
past; and who to this day are making such comical and ineffectual
attempts to be young and dissolute, that all beholders are like to
die with laughter.

Take that old gentleman who has just emerged from the CAFE DE
L'EUROPE in the Haymarket, where he has been dining at the expense
of the young man upon town with whom he shakes hands as they part
at the door of the tavern.  The affected warmth of that shake of
the hand, the courteous nod, the obvious recollection of the
dinner, the savoury flavour of which still hangs upon his lips, are
all characteristics of his great prototype.  He hobbles away
humming an opera tune, and twirling his cane to and fro, with
affected carelessness.  Suddenly he stops - 'tis at the milliner's
window.  He peeps through one of the large panes of glass; and, his
view of the ladies within being obstructed by the India shawls,
directs his attentions to the young girl with the band-box in her
hand, who is gazing in at the window also.  See! he draws beside
her.  He coughs; she turns away from him.  He draws near her again;
she disregards him.  He gleefully chucks her under the chin, and,
retreating a few steps, nods and beckons with fantastic grimaces,
while the girl bestows a contemptuous and supercilious look upon
his wrinkled visage.  She turns away with a flounce, and the old
gentleman trots after her with a toothless chuckle. The pantaloon
to the life!

 But the close resemblance which the clowns of the stage bear to
those of every-day life is perfectly extraordinary.  Some people
talk with a sigh of the decline of pantomime, and murmur in low and
dismal tones the name of Grimaldi.  We mean no disparagement to the
worthy and excellent old man when we say that this is downright
nonsense.  Clowns that beat Grimaldi all to nothing turn up every
day, and nobody patronizes them - more's the pity!

'I know who you mean,' says some dirty-faced patron of Mr.
Osbaldistone's, laying down the Miscellany when he has got thus
far, and bestowing upon vacancy a most knowing glance; 'you mean C.
J. Smith as did Guy Fawkes, and George Barnwell at the Garden.'
The dirty-faced gentleman has hardly uttered the words, when he is
interrupted by a young gentleman in no shirt-collar and a Petersham
coat.  'No, no,' says the young gentleman; 'he means Brown, King,
and Gibson, at the 'Delphi.'  Now, with great deference both to the
first-named gentleman with the dirty face, and the last-named
gentleman in the non-existing shirt-collar, we do NOT mean either
the performer who so grotesquely burlesqued the Popish conspirator,
or the three unchangeables who have been dancing the same dance
under different imposing titles, and doing the same thing under
various high-sounding names for some five or six years last past.
We have no sooner made this avowal, than the public, who have
hitherto been silent witnesses of the dispute, inquire what on
earth it is we DO mean; and, with becoming respect, we proceed to
tell them.

It is very well known to all playgoers and pantomime-seers, that
the scenes in which a theatrical clown is at the very height of his
glory are those which are described in the play-bills as
'Cheesemonger's shop and Crockery warehouse,' or 'Tailor's shop,
and Mrs. Queertable's boarding-house,' or places bearing some such
title, where the great fun of the thing consists in the hero's
taking lodgings which he has not the slightest intention of paying
for, or obtaining goods under false pretences, or abstracting the
stock-in-trade of the respectable shopkeeper next door, or robbing
warehouse porters as they pass under his window, or, to shorten the
catalogue, in his swindling everybody he possibly can, it only
remaining to be observed that, the more extensive the swindling is,
and the more barefaced the impudence of the swindler, the greater
the rapture and ecstasy of the audience.  Now it is a most
remarkable fact that precisely this sort of thing occurs in real
life day after day, and nobody sees the humour of it.  Let us
illustrate our position by detailing the plot of this portion of
the pantomime - not of the theatre, but of life.

The Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, attended by his livery
servant Do'em - a most respectable servant to look at, who has
grown grey in the service of the captain's family - views, treats
for, and ultimately obtains possession of, the unfurnished house,
such a number, such a street.  All the tradesmen in the
neighbourhood are in agonies of competition for the captain's
custom; the captain is a good-natured, kind-hearted, easy man, and,
to avoid being the cause of disappointment to any, he most
handsomely gives orders to all.  Hampers of wine, baskets of
provisions, cart-loads of furniture, boxes of jewellery, supplies
of luxuries of the costliest description, flock to the house of the
Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, where they are received
with the utmost readiness by the highly respectable Do'em; while
the captain himself struts and swaggers about with that compound
air of conscious superiority and general blood-thirstiness which a
military captain should always, and does most times, wear, to the
admiration and terror of plebeian men.  But the tradesmen's backs
are no sooner turned, than the captain, with all the eccentricity
of a mighty mind, and assisted by the faithful Do'em, whose devoted
fidelity is not the least touching part of his character, disposes
of everything to great advantage; for, although the articles fetch
small sums, still they are sold considerably above cost price, the
cost to the captain having been nothing at all.  After various
manoeuvres, the imposture is discovered, Fitz-Fiercy and Do'em are
recognized as confederates, and the police office to which they are
both taken is thronged with their dupes.

Who can fail to recognize in this, the exact counterpart of the
best portion of a theatrical pantomime - Fitz-Whisker Fiercy by the
clown; Do'em by the pantaloon; and supernumeraries by the
tradesmen?  The best of the joke, too, is, that the very coal-
merchant who is loudest in his complaints against the person who
defrauded him, is the identical man who sat in the centre of the
very front row of the pit last night and laughed the most
boisterously at this very same thing, - and not so well done
either.  Talk of Grimaldi, we say again!  Did Grimaldi, in his best
days, ever do anything in this way equal to Da Costa?

The mention of this latter justly celebrated clown reminds us of
his last piece of humour, the fraudulently obtaining certain
stamped acceptances from a young gentleman in the army.  We had
scarcely laid down our pen to contemplate for a few moments this
admirable actor's performance of that exquisite practical joke,
than a new branch of our subject flashed suddenly upon us.  So we
take it up again at once.

All people who have been behind the scenes, and most people who
have been before them, know, that in the representation of a
pantomime, a good many men are sent upon the stage for the express
purpose of being cheated, or knocked down, or both.  Now, down to a
moment ago, we had never been able to understand for what possible
purpose a great number of odd, lazy, large-headed men, whom one is
in the habit of meeting here, and there, and everywhere, could ever
have been created.  We see it all, now.  They are the
supernumeraries in the pantomime of life; the men who have been
thrust into it, with no other view than to be constantly tumbling
over each other, and running their heads against all sorts of
strange things.  We sat opposite to one of these men at a supper-
table, only last week.  Now we think of it, he was exactly like the
gentlemen with the pasteboard heads and faces, who do the
corresponding business in the theatrical pantomimes; there was the
same broad stolid simper - the same dull leaden eye - the same
unmeaning, vacant stare; and whatever was said, or whatever was
done, he always came in at precisely the wrong place, or jostled
against something that he had not the slightest business with.  We
looked at the man across the table again and again; and could not
satisfy ourselves what race of beings to class him with.  How very
odd that this never occurred to us before!

We will frankly own that we have been much troubled with the
harlequin.  We see harlequins of so many kinds in the real living
pantomime, that we hardly know which to select as the proper fellow
of him of the theatres.  At one time we were disposed to think that
the harlequin was neither more nor less than a young man of family
and independent property, who had run away with an opera-dancer,
and was fooling his life and his means away in light and trivial
amusements.  On reflection, however, we remembered that harlequins
are occasionally guilty of witty, and even clever acts, and we are
rather disposed to acquit our young men of family and independent
property, generally speaking, of any such misdemeanours.  On a more
mature consideration of the subject, we have arrived at the
conclusion that the harlequins of life are just ordinary men, to be
found in no particular walk or degree, on whom a certain station,
or particular conjunction of circumstances, confers the magic wand.
And this brings us to a few words on the pantomime of public and
political life, which we shall say at once, and then conclude -
merely premising in this place that we decline any reference
whatever to the columbine, being in no wise satisfied of the nature
of her connection with her parti-coloured lover, and not feeling by
any means clear that we should be justified in introducing her to
the virtuous and respectable ladies who peruse our lucubrations.

We take it that the commencement of a Session of Parliament is
neither more nor less than the drawing up of the curtain for a
grand comic pantomime, and that his Majesty's most gracious speech
on the opening thereof may be not inaptly compared to the clown's
opening speech of 'Here we are!'  'My lords and gentlemen, here we
are!' appears, to our mind at least, to be a very good abstract of
the point and meaning of the propitiatory address of the ministry.
When we remember how frequently this speech is made, immediately
after THE CHANGE too, the parallel is quite perfect, and still more
singular.

Perhaps the cast of our political pantomime never was richer than
at this day.  We are particularly strong in clowns.  At no former
time, we should say, have we had such astonishing tumblers, or
performers so ready to go through the whole of their feats for the
amusement of an admiring throng.  Their extreme readiness to
exhibit, indeed, has given rise to some ill-natured reflections; it
having been objected that by exhibiting gratuitously through the
country when the theatre is closed, they reduce themselves to the
level of mountebanks, and thereby tend to degrade the
respectability of the profession.  Certainly Grimaldi never did
this sort of thing; and though Brown, King, and Gibson have gone to
the Surrey in vacation time, and Mr. C. J. Smith has ruralised at
Sadler's Wells, we find no theatrical precedent for a general
tumbling through the country, except in the gentleman, name
unknown, who threw summersets on behalf of the late Mr. Richardson,
and who is no authority either, because he had never been on the
regular boards.

But, laying aside this question, which after all is a mere matter
of taste, we may reflect with pride and gratification of heart on
the proficiency of our clowns as exhibited in the season.  Night
after night will they twist and tumble about, till two, three, and
four o'clock in the morning; playing the strangest antics, and
giving each other the funniest slaps on the face that can possibly
be imagined, without evincing the smallest tokens of fatigue.  The
strange noises, the confusion, the shouting and roaring, amid which
all this is done, too, would put to shame the most turbulent
sixpenny gallery that ever yelled through a boxing-night.

It is especially curious to behold one of these clowns compelled to
go through the most surprising contortions by the irresistible
influence of the wand of office, which his leader or harlequin
holds above his head.  Acted upon by this wonderful charm he will
become perfectly motionless, moving neither hand, foot, nor finger,
and will even lose the faculty of speech at an instant's notice; or
on the other hand, he will become all life and animation if
required, pouring forth a torrent of words without sense or
meaning, throwing himself into the wildest and most fantastic
contortions, and even grovelling on the earth and licking up the
dust.  These exhibitions are more curious than pleasing; indeed,
they are rather disgusting than otherwise, except to the admirers
of such things, with whom we confess we have no fellow-feeling.

Strange tricks - very strange tricks - are also performed by the
harlequin who holds for the time being the magic wand which we have
just mentioned.  The mere waving it before a man's eyes will
dispossess his brains of all the notions previously stored there,
and fill it with an entirely new set of ideas; one gentle tap on
the back will alter the colour of a man's coat completely; and
there are some expert performers, who, having this wand held first
on one side and then on the other, will change from side to side,
turning their coats at every evolution, with so much rapidity and
dexterity, that the quickest eye can scarcely detect their motions.
Occasionally, the genius who confers the wand, wrests it from the
hand of the temporary possessor, and consigns it to some new
performer; on which occasions all the characters change sides, and
then the race and the hard knocks begin anew.

We might have extended this chapter to a much greater length - we
might have carried the comparison into the liberal professions - we
might have shown, as was in fact our original purpose, that each is
in itself a little pantomime with scenes and characters of its own,
complete; but, as we fear we have been quite lengthy enough
already, we shall leave this chapter just where it is.  A
gentleman, not altogether unknown as a dramatic poet, wrote thus a
year or two ago -


'All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:'


and we, tracking out his footsteps at the scarcely-worth-mentioning
little distance of a few millions of leagues behind, venture to
add, by way of new reading, that he meant a Pantomime, and that we
are all actors in The Pantomime of Life.



SOME PARTICULARS CONCERNING A LION



We have a great respect for lions in the abstract.  In common with
most other people, we have heard and read of many instances of
their bravery and generosity.  We have duly admired that heroic
self-denial and charming philanthropy which prompts them never to
eat people except when they are hungry, and we have been deeply
impressed with a becoming sense of the politeness they are said to
display towards unmarried ladies of a certain state.  All natural
histories teem with anecdotes illustrative of their excellent
qualities; and one old spelling-book in particular recounts a
touching instance of an old lion, of high moral dignity and stern
principle, who felt it his imperative duty to devour a young man
who had contracted a habit of swearing, as a striking example to
the rising generation.

All this is extremely pleasant to reflect upon, and, indeed, says a
very great deal in favour of lions as a mass.  We are bound to
state, however, that such individual lions as we have happened to
fall in with have not put forth any very striking characteristics,
and have not acted up to the chivalrous character assigned them by
their chroniclers.  We never saw a lion in what is called his
natural state, certainly; that is to say, we have never met a lion
out walking in a forest, or crouching in his lair under a tropical
sun, waiting till his dinner should happen to come by, hot from the
baker's.  But we have seen some under the influence of captivity,
and the pressure of misfortune; and we must say that they appeared
to us very apathetic, heavy-headed fellows.

The lion at the Zoological Gardens, for instance.  He is all very
well; he has an undeniable mane, and looks very fierce; but, Lord
bless us! what of that?  The lions of the fashionable world look
just as ferocious, and are the most harmless creatures breathing.
A box-lobby lion or a Regent-street animal will put on a most
terrible aspect, and roar, fearfully, if you affront him; but he
will never bite, and, if you offer to attack him manfully, will
fairly turn tail and sneak off.  Doubtless these creatures roam
about sometimes in herds, and, if they meet any especially meek-
looking and peaceably-disposed fellow, will endeavour to frighten
him; but the faintest show of a vigorous resistance is sufficient
to scare them even then.  These are pleasant characteristics,
whereas we make it matter of distinct charge against the Zoological
lion and his brethren at the fairs, that they are sleepy, dreamy,
sluggish quadrupeds.

We do not remember to have ever seen one of them perfectly awake,
except at feeding-time.  In every respect we uphold the biped lions
against their four-footed namesakes, and we boldly challenge
controversy upon the subject.

With these opinions it may be easily imagined that our curiosity
and interest were very much excited the other day, when a lady of
our acquaintance called on us and resolutely declined to accept our
refusal of her invitation to an evening party; 'for,' said she, 'I
have got a lion coming.'  We at once retracted our plea of a prior
engagement, and became as anxious to go, as we had previously been
to stay away.

We went early, and posted ourselves in an eligible part of the
drawing-room, from whence we could hope to obtain a full view of
the interesting animal.  Two or three hours passed, the quadrilles
began, the room filled; but no lion appeared.  The lady of the
house became inconsolable, - for it is one of the peculiar
privileges of these lions to make solemn appointments and never
keep them, - when all of a sudden there came a tremendous double
rap at the street-door, and the master of the house, after gliding
out (unobserved as he flattered himself) to peep over the
banisters, came into the room, rubbing his hands together with
great glee, and cried out in a very important voice, 'My dear, Mr.
- (naming the lion) has this moment arrived.'

Upon this, all eyes were turned towards the door, and we observed
several young ladies, who had been laughing and conversing
previously with great gaiety and good humour, grow extremely quiet
and sentimental; while some young gentlemen, who had been cutting
great figures in the facetious and small-talk way, suddenly sank
very obviously in the estimation of the company, and were looked
upon with great coldness and indifference.  Even the young man who
had been ordered from the music shop to play the pianoforte was
visibly affected, and struck several false notes in the excess of
his excitement.

All this time there was a great talking outside, more than once
accompanied by a loud laugh, and a cry of 'Oh! capital! excellent!'
from which we inferred that the lion was jocose, and that these
exclamations were occasioned by the transports of his keeper and
our host.  Nor were we deceived; for when the lion at last
appeared, we overheard his keeper, who was a little prim man,
whisper to several gentlemen of his acquaintance, with uplifted
hands, and every expression of half-suppressed admiration, that -
(naming the lion again) was in SUCH cue to-night!

The lion was a literary one.  Of course, there were a vast number
of people present who had admired his roarings, and were anxious to
be introduced to him; and very pleasant it was to see them brought
up for the purpose, and to observe the patient dignity with which
he received all their patting and caressing.  This brought forcibly
to our mind what we had so often witnessed at country fairs, where
the other lions are compelled to go through as many forms of
courtesy as they chance to be acquainted with, just as often as
admiring parties happen to drop in upon them.

While the lion was exhibiting in this way, his keeper was not idle,
for he mingled among the crowd, and spread his praises most
industriously.  To one gentleman he whispered some very choice
thing that the noble animal had said in the very act of coming up-
stairs, which, of course, rendered the mental effort still more
astonishing; to another he murmured a hasty account of a grand
dinner that had taken place the day before, where twenty-seven
gentlemen had got up all at once to demand an extra cheer for the
lion; and to the ladies he made sundry promises of interceding to
procure the majestic brute's sign-manual for their albums.  Then,
there were little private consultations in different corners,
relative to the personal appearance and stature of the lion;
whether he was shorter than they had expected to see him, or
taller, or thinner, or fatter, or younger, or older; whether he was
like his portrait, or unlike it; and whether the particular shade
of his eyes was black, or blue, or hazel, or green, or yellow, or
mixture.  At all these consultations the keeper assisted; and, in
short, the lion was the sole and single subject of discussion till
they sat him down to whist, and then the people relapsed into their
old topics of conversation - themselves and each other.

We must confess that we looked forward with no slight impatience to
the announcement of supper; for if you wish to see a tame lion
under particularly favourable circumstances, feeding-time is the
period of all others to pitch upon.  We were therefore very much
delighted to observe a sensation among the guests, which we well
knew how to interpret, and immediately afterwards to behold the
lion escorting the lady of the house down-stairs.  We offered our
arm to an elderly female of our acquaintance, who - dear old soul!
- is the very best person that ever lived, to lead down to any
meal; for, be the room ever so small, or the party ever so large,
she is sure, by some intuitive perception of the eligible, to push
and pull herself and conductor close to the best dishes on the
table; - we say we offered our arm to this elderly female, and,
descending the stairs shortly after the lion, were fortunate enough
to obtain a seat nearly opposite him.

Of course the keeper was there already.  He had planted himself at
precisely that distance from his charge which afforded him a decent
pretext for raising his voice, when he addressed him, to so loud a
key, as could not fail to attract the attention of the whole
company, and immediately began to apply himself seriously to the
task of bringing the lion out, and putting him through the whole of
his manoeuvres.  Such flashes of wit as he elicited from the lion!
First of all, they began to make puns upon a salt-cellar, and then
upon the breast of a fowl, and then upon the trifle; but the best
jokes of all were decidedly on the lobster salad, upon which latter
subject the lion came out most vigorously, and, in the opinion of
the most competent authorities, quite outshone himself.  This is a
very excellent mode of shining in society, and is founded, we
humbly conceive, upon the classic model of the dialogues between
Mr. Punch and his friend the proprietor, wherein the latter takes
all the up-hill work, and is content to pioneer to the jokes and
repartees of Mr. P. himself, who never fails to gain great credit
and excite much laughter thereby.  Whatever it be founded on,
however, we recommend it to all lions, present and to come; for in
this instance it succeeded to admiration, and perfectly dazzled the
whole body of hearers.

When the salt-cellar, and the fowl's breast, and the trifle, and
the lobster salad were all exhausted, and could not afford
standing-room for another solitary witticism, the keeper performed
that very dangerous feat which is still done with some of the
caravan lions, although in one instance it terminated fatally, of
putting his head in the animal's mouth, and placing himself
entirely at its mercy.  Boswell frequently presents a melancholy
instance of the lamentable results of this achievement, and other
keepers and jackals have been terribly lacerated for their daring.
It is due to our lion to state, that he condescended to be trifled
with, in the most gentle manner, and finally went home with the
showman in a hack cab:  perfectly peaceable, but slightly fuddled.

Being in a contemplative mood, we were led to make some reflections
upon the character and conduct of this genus of lions as we walked
homewards, and we were not long in arriving at the conclusion that
our former impression in their favour was very much strengthened
and confirmed by what we had recently seen.  While the other lions
receive company and compliments in a sullen, moody, not to say
snarling manner, these appear flattered by the attentions that are
paid them; while those conceal themselves to the utmost of their
power from the vulgar gaze, these court the popular eye, and,
unlike their brethren, whom nothing short of compulsion will move
to exertion, are ever ready to display their acquirements to the
wondering throng.  We have known bears of undoubted ability who,
when the expectations of a large audience have been wound up to the
utmost pitch, have peremptorily refused to dance; well-taught
monkeys, who have unaccountably objected to exhibit on the slack
wire; and elephants of unquestioned genius, who have suddenly
declined to turn the barrel-organ; but we never once knew or heard
of a biped lion, literary or otherwise, - and we state it as a fact
which is highly creditable to the whole species, - who, occasion
offering, did not seize with avidity on any opportunity which was
afforded him, of performing to his heart's content on the first
violin.



MR. ROBERT BOLTON:  THE 'GENTLEMAN CONNECTED WITH THE PRESS'



In the parlour of the Green Dragon, a public-house in the immediate
neighbourhood of Westminster Bridge, everybody talks politics,
every evening, the great political authority being Mr. Robert
Bolton, an individual who defines himself as 'a gentleman connected
with the press,' which is a definition of peculiar indefiniteness.
Mr. Robert Bolton's regular circle of admirers and listeners are an
undertaker, a greengrocer, a hairdresser, a baker, a large stomach
surmounted by a man's head, and placed on the top of two
particularly short legs, and a thin man in black, name, profession,
and pursuit unknown, who always sits in the same position, always
displays the same long, vacant face, and never opens his lips,
surrounded as he is by most enthusiastic conversation, except to
puff forth a volume of tobacco smoke, or give vent to a very
snappy, loud, and shrill HEM!  The conversation sometimes turns
upon literature, Mr. Bolton being a literary character, and always
upon such news of the day as is exclusively possessed by that
talented individual.  I found myself (of course, accidentally) in
the Green Dragon the other evening, and, being somewhat amused by
the following conversation, preserved it.

'Can you lend me a ten-pound note till Christmas?' inquired the
hairdresser of the stomach.

'Where's your security, Mr. Clip?'

'My stock in trade, - there's enough of it, I'm thinking, Mr.
Thicknesse.  Some fifty wigs, two poles, half-a-dozen head blocks,
and a dead Bruin.'

'No, I won't, then,' growled out Thicknesse.  'I lends nothing on
the security of the whigs or the Poles either.  As for whigs,
they're cheats; as for the Poles, they've got no cash.  I never
have nothing to do with blockheads, unless I can't awoid it
(ironically), and a dead bear's about as much use to me as I could
be to a dead bear.'

'Well, then,' urged the other, 'there's a book as belonged to Pope,
Byron's Poems, valued at forty pounds, because it's got Pope's
identical scratch on the back; what do you think of that for
security?'

'Well, to be sure!' cried the baker.  'But how d'ye mean, Mr.
Clip?'

'Mean! why, that it's got the HOTTERGRUFF of Pope.


"Steal not this book, for fear of hangman's rope;
For it belongs to Alexander Pope."


All that's written on the inside of the binding of the book; so, as
my son says, we're BOUND to believe it.'

'Well, sir,' observed the undertaker, deferentially, and in a half-
whisper, leaning over the table, and knocking over the
hairdresser's grog as he spoke, 'that argument's very easy upset.'

'Perhaps, sir,' said Clip, a little flurried, 'you'll pay for the
first upset afore you thinks of another.'

'Now,' said the undertaker, bowing amicably to the hairdresser, 'I
THINK, I says I THINK - you'll excuse me, Mr. Clip, I THINK, you
see, that won't go down with the present company - unfortunately,
my master had the honour of making the coffin of that ere Lord's
housemaid, not no more nor twenty year ago.  Don't think I'm proud
on it, gentlemen; others might be; but I hate rank of any sort.
I've no more respect for a Lord's footman than I have for any
respectable tradesman in this room.  I may say no more nor I have
for Mr. Clip! (bowing).  Therefore, that ere Lord must have been
born long after Pope died.  And it's a logical interference to
defer, that they neither of them lived at the same time.  So what I
mean is this here, that Pope never had no book, never seed, felt,
never smelt no book (triumphantly) as belonged to that ere Lord.
And, gentlemen, when I consider how patiently you have 'eared the
ideas what I have expressed, I feel bound, as the best way to
reward you for the kindness you have exhibited, to sit down without
saying anything more - partickler as I perceive a worthier visitor
nor myself is just entered.  I am not in the habit of paying
compliments, gentlemen; when I do, therefore, I hope I strikes with
double force.'

'Ah, Mr. Murgatroyd! what's all this about striking with double
force?' said the object of the above remark, as he entered.  'I
never excuse a man's getting into a rage during winter, even when
he's seated so close to the fire as you are.  It is very
injudicious to put yourself into such a perspiration.  What is the
cause of this extreme physical and mental excitement, sir?'

Such was the very philosophical address of Mr. Robert Bolton, a
shorthand-writer, as he termed himself - a bit of equivoque passing
current among his fraternity, which must give the uninitiated a
vast idea of the establishment of the ministerial organ, while to
the initiated it signifies that no one paper can lay claim to the
enjoyment of their services.  Mr. Bolton was a young man, with a
somewhat sickly and very dissipated expression of countenance.  His
habiliments were composed of an exquisite union of gentility,
slovenliness, assumption, simplicity, NEWNESS, and old age.  Half
of him was dressed for the winter, the other half for the summer.
His hat was of the newest cut, the D'Orsay; his trousers had been
white, but the inroads of mud and ink, etc., had given them a pie-
bald appearance; round his throat he wore a very high black cravat,
of the most tyrannical stiffness; while his TOUT ENSEMBLE was
hidden beneath the enormous folds of an old brown poodle-collared
great-coat, which was closely buttoned up to the aforesaid cravat.
His fingers peeped through the ends of his black kid gloves, and
two of the toes of each foot took a similar view of society through
the extremities of his high-lows.  Sacred to the bare walls of his
garret be the mysteries of his interior dress!  He was a short,
spare man, of a somewhat inferior deportment.  Everybody seemed
influenced by his entry into the room, and his salutation of each
member partook of the patronizing.  The hairdresser made way for
him between himself and the stomach.  A minute afterwards he had
taken possession of his pint and pipe.  A pause in the conversation
took place.  Everybody was waiting, anxious for his first
observation.

'Horrid murder in Westminster this morning,' observed Mr. Bolton.

Everybody changed their positions.  All eyes were fixed upon the
man of paragraphs.

'A baker murdered his son by boiling him in a copper,' said Mr.
Bolton.

'Good heavens!' exclaimed everybody, in simultaneous horror.

'Boiled him, gentlemen!' added Mr. Bolton, with the most effective
emphasis; 'BOILED him!'

'And the particulars, Mr. B.,' inquired the hairdresser, 'the
particulars?'

Mr. Bolton took a very long draught of porter, and some two or
three dozen whiffs of tobacco, doubtless to instil into the
commercial capacities of the company the superiority of a gentlemen
connected with the press, and then said -

'The man was a baker, gentlemen.'  (Every one looked at the baker
present, who stared at Bolton.)  'His victim, being his son, also
was necessarily the son of a baker.  The wretched murderer had a
wife, whom he was frequently in the habit, while in an intoxicated
state, of kicking, pummelling, flinging mugs at, knocking down, and
half-killing while in bed, by inserting in her mouth a considerable
portion of a sheet or blanket.'

The speaker took another draught, everybody looked at everybody
else, and exclaimed, 'Horrid!'

'It appears in evidence, gentlemen,' continued Mr. Bolton, 'that,
on the evening of yesterday, Sawyer the baker came home in a
reprehensible state of beer.  Mrs. S., connubially considerate,
carried him in that condition up-stairs into his chamber, and
consigned him to their mutual couch.  In a minute or two she lay
sleeping beside the man whom the morrow's dawn beheld a murderer!'
(Entire silence informed the reporter that his picture had attained
the awful effect he desired.)  'The son came home about an hour
afterwards, opened the door, and went up to bed.  Scarcely
(gentlemen, conceive his feelings of alarm), scarcely had he taken
off his indescribables, when shrieks (to his experienced ear
MATERNAL shrieks) scared the silence of surrounding night.  He put
his indescribables on again, and ran down-stairs.  He opened the
door of the parental bed-chamber.  His father was dancing upon his
mother.  What must have been his feelings!  In the agony of the
minute he rushed at his male parent as he was about to plunge a
knife into the side of his female.  The mother shrieked.  The
father caught the son (who had wrested the knife from the paternal
grasp) up in his arms, carried him down-stairs, shoved him into a
copper of boiling water among some linen, closed the lid, and
jumped upon the top of it, in which position he was found with a
ferocious countenance by the mother, who arrived in the melancholy
wash-house just as he had so settled himself.

'"Where's my boy?" shrieked the mother.

'"In that copper, boiling," coolly replied the benign father.

'Struck by the awful intelligence, the mother rushed from the
house, and alarmed the neighbourhood.  The police entered a minute
afterwards.  The father, having bolted the wash-house door, had
bolted himself.  They dragged the lifeless body of the boiled baker
from the cauldron, and, with a promptitude commendable in men of
their station, they immediately carried it to the station-house.
Subsequently, the baker was apprehended while seated on the top of
a lamp-post in Parliament Street, lighting his pipe.'

The whole horrible ideality of the Mysteries of Udolpho, condensed
into the pithy effect of a ten-line paragraph, could not possibly
have so affected the narrator's auditory.  Silence, the purest and
most noble of all kinds of applause, bore ample testimony to the
barbarity of the baker, as well as to Bolton's knack of narration;
and it was only broken after some minutes had elapsed by
interjectional expressions of the intense indignation of every man
present.  The baker wondered how a British baker could so disgrace
himself and the highly honourable calling to which he belonged; and
the others indulged in a variety of wonderments connected with the
subject; among which not the least wonderment was that which was
awakened by the genius and information of Mr. Robert Bolton, who,
after a glowing eulogium on himself, and his unspeakable influence
with the daily press, was proceeding, with a most solemn
countenance, to hear the pros and cons of the Pope autograph
question, when I took up my hat, and left.



FAMILIAR EPISTLE FROM A PARENT TO A CHILD
AGED TWO YEARS AND TWO MONTHS



MY CHILD,

To recount with what trouble I have brought you up - with what an
anxious eye I have regarded your progress, - how late and how often
I have sat up at night working for you, - and how many thousand
letters I have received from, and written to your various relations
and friends, many of whom have been of a querulous and irritable
turn, - to dwell on the anxiety and tenderness with which I have
(as far as I possessed the power) inspected and chosen your food;
rejecting the indigestible and heavy matter which some injudicious
but well-meaning old ladies would have had you swallow, and
retaining only those light and pleasant articles which I deemed
calculated to keep you free from all gross humours, and to render
you an agreeable child, and one who might be popular with society
in general, - to dilate on the steadiness with which I have
prevented your annoying any company by talking politics - always
assuring you that you would thank me for it yourself some day when
you grew older, - to expatiate, in short, upon my own assiduity as
a parent, is beside my present purpose, though I cannot but
contemplate your fair appearance - your robust health, and
unimpeded circulation (which I take to be the great secret of your
good looks) without the liveliest satisfaction and delight.

It is a trite observation, and one which, young as you are, I have
no doubt you have often heard repeated, that we have fallen upon
strange times, and live in days of constant shiftings and changes.
I had a melancholy instance of this only a week or two since.  I
was returning from Manchester to London by the Mail Train, when I
suddenly fell into another train - a mixed train - of reflection,
occasioned by the dejected and disconsolate demeanour of the Post-
Office Guard.  We were stopping at some station where they take in
water, when he dismounted slowly from the little box in which he
sits in ghastly mockery of his old condition with pistol and
blunderbuss beside him, ready to shoot the first highwayman (or
railwayman) who shall attempt to stop the horses, which now travel
(when they travel at all) INSIDE and in a portable stable invented
for the purpose, - he dismounted, I say, slowly and sadly, from his
post, and looking mournfully about him as if in dismal recollection
of the old roadside public-house the blazing fire - the glass of
foaming ale - the buxom handmaid and admiring hangers-on of tap-
room and stable, all honoured by his notice; and, retiring a little
apart, stood leaning against a signal-post, surveying the engine
with a look of combined affliction and disgust which no words can
describe.  His scarlet coat and golden lace were tarnished with
ignoble smoke; flakes of soot had fallen on his bright green shawl
- his pride in days of yore - the steam condensed in the tunnel
from which we had just emerged, shone upon his hat like rain.  His
eye betokened that he was thinking of the coachman; and as it
wandered to his own seat and his own fast-fading garb, it was plain
to see that he felt his office and himself had alike no business
there, and were nothing but an elaborate practical joke.

As we whirled away, I was led insensibly into an anticipation of
those days to come, when mail-coach guards shall no longer be
judges of horse-flesh - when a mail-coach guard shall never even
have seen a horse - when stations shall have superseded stables,
and corn shall have given place to coke.  'In those dawning times,'
thought I, 'exhibition-rooms shall teem with portraits of Her
Majesty's favourite engine, with boilers after Nature by future
Landseers.  Some Amburgh, yet unborn, shall break wild horses by
his magic power; and in the dress of a mail-coach guard exhibit his
TRAINED ANIMALS in a mock mail-coach.  Then, shall wondering crowds
observe how that, with the exception of his whip, it is all his
eye; and crowned heads shall see them fed on oats, and stand alone
unmoved and undismayed, while counters flee affrighted when the
coursers neigh!'

Such, my child, were the reflections from which I was only awakened
then, as I am now, by the necessity of attending to matters of
present though minor importance.  I offer no apology to you for the
digression, for it brings me very naturally to the subject of
change, which is the very subject of which I desire to treat.

In fact, my child, you have changed hands.  Henceforth I resign you
to the guardianship and protection of one of my most intimate and
valued friends, Mr. Ainsworth, with whom, and with you, my best
wishes and warmest feelings will ever remain.  I reap no gain or
profit by parting from you, nor will any conveyance of your
property be required, for, in this respect, you have always been
literally 'Bentley's' Miscellany, and never mine.

Unlike the driver of the old Manchester mail, I regard this altered
state of things with feelings of unmingled pleasure and
satisfaction.

Unlike the guard of the new Manchester mail, YOUR guard is at home
in his new place, and has roystering highwaymen and gallant
desperadoes ever within call.  And if I might compare you, my
child, to an engine; (not a Tory engine, nor a Whig engine, but a
brisk and rapid locomotive;) your friends and patrons to
passengers; and he who now stands towards you IN LOCO PARENTIS as
the skilful engineer and supervisor of the whole, I would humbly
crave leave to postpone the departure of the train on its new and
auspicious course for one brief instant, while, with hat in hand, I
approach side by side with the friend who travelled with me on the
old road, and presume to solicit favour and kindness in behalf of
him and his new charge, both for their sakes and that of the old
coachman,

Boz.





End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Mudfog and other Sketches