Mudfog and Other Sketches

Mudfog and Other Sketches

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mudfog and Other Sketches, by
Charles Dickens (#22 in our series by Charles Dickens)
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Title: Mudfog and Other Sketches
Author: Charles Dickens
Release Date: May, 1997 [EBook #912] [This file was first posted on

May 19, 1997] [Most recently updated: May 8, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MUDFOG
AND OTHER SKETCHES ***

Transcribed from the 1903 edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

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 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