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$Title{Anthology Of Shorter Works
Part II}
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$Author{Dickens, Charles}
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$Subject{president
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gentlemen
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$Date{}
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Title:       Anthology Of Shorter Works
Book:        Second Meeting Of The Mudfog Association
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Part II

     "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.
     "Muddlebrains 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 recompence 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.  Those 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 those 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 those
animals, as a commodious bear-garden could be erected in the immediate
neighborhood 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 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
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
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 bear's 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 eying 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 has 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 laying 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 Shakespeare, 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 Shakespeare, 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. Mallet.  Vice-Presidents - Messrs. Leaver and
     Scroo.

     "Mr. Cricks exhibited a most beautiful and delicate machine, of a little
larger size than an ordinary snuffbox, manufactured entirely by himself, and
composed exclusively of steel; by the aid of which more pockets were 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 those 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, who he thought could not fail to recognize the
utility of the invention.

     "The President observed that up to his 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 enclosed 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 gaslamps 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 humourously 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 enclosed 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 automaton magistrates, - quite equal to life, - who would fine them
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 those 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 the 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 threshing 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 limb
might be 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 marvelous 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 neighbours' 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 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 the arms and
on 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 Thom, 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 Thom 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 Thom,
who was marching and countermarching in osier beds and other swampy places,
was impressed with a presentment 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 prescriptions.  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.
     "Outhouse, 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 C. - Umbugology and Ditch-Wateristics.
     "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 marvelous
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 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 cokernut as my brother-in-law has been
a carvin' to hornament his new baked-tatur stall vots a-coming down here vile
the 'sociation's in the town.  Hand over, vill you?'

     "With these words Professor Ketch hastily repossessed himself of the
cocoanut, 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 attained.

     "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 savory 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!'"