CHAPTER XXVI.

MR. DICKENS AND THE ELECTORS OF FINSBURY.TIDDLER'S GROUND.". 66 SOMEBODY'S

"TOM

LUGGAGE."-" MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS."

N November of this year, some admirers in Finsbury formed the idea that Mr. Dickens would have no objections to represent that borough in Parliament, and his name was brought prominently forward as a candidate. He was then at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and on the 21st of November he wrote to the Daily News:-" Being here for a day or two, I have observed, in your paper of yesterday, an account of a meeting of Finsbury electors, in which it was discussed whether I should be invited to become a candidate for the

borough.* It may save some trouble if you will kindly confirm a sensible gentleman, who doubted at that meeting whether I was quite the sort of man for Finsbury. I am not at all the sort of man, for I believe nothing would induce me to offer myself as a Parliamentary representative of that place, or any other under the sun."

Consequent on the death of Mr. Thomas S. Duncombe-the "Tom Duncombe " of Finsbury-the late representative.

In the early part of this winter he resumed his readings in the provinces, and met with considerable success, especially in Lancashire, where there was great enthusiasm shown to see and hear the author of "Pickwick," and latterly of "Hard Times," which had found thousands of readers in the cotton districts.

The Christmas number for this year, "Tom Tiddler's Ground," excited considerable curiosity, and one of the stories became a subject of general discussion that of "Mr. Mopes," the hermit. "Picking up Soot and Cinders" gives the history and description of the hermit, a dirty, lazy, slothful fellow, dressed up in a blanket fastened by a skewer, and revelling in soot and grease. There is one story in the number, called "Picking up Terrible Company," of the most intense sensational character. It is told by François Thierry, a French convict, under the head of "Picking up a Pocket-book."

The "hermit" was a living reality-a person of property and education, who, to mortify his friends, we believe, withdrew from the world, and lived in "A

rags and filth. Soon after a letter, signed County Down Lady," was inserted in the Downpatrick Recorder, in which the writer related the particulars of a visit she had paid to "Mr. Mopes," the hermit, and concluded by saying: "Charles Dickens offended him terribly. He pretended he was a Highlander, and Mr. Lucas at once began to question him about the country, and then spoke to him in Gaelic, which he couldn't reply to. Mr. Lucas

said to him, Sir, you are an impostor; you are no gentleman.' A copy of the newspaper was at once forwarded to Mr. Dickens by a friend, who asked if there was any truth in the statement. The reply was:- "As you sent me the paper with that very cool account of myself in it, perhaps you want to know whether or not it is true. There is not a syllable of truth in it. I have never seen the person in question but once in my life, and then I was accompanied by Lord Orford, Mr. Arthur Helps, the clerk of the privy council, my eldest daughter, and my sister-in-law, all of whom know perfectly well that nothing of the sort passed. It is a sheer invention of the wildest kind."* Lucas, the papers reported, was terribly cut up by the inclement winter of 1866-7, and was hardly expected to get over it.

In March, 1862, Dickens commenced a new series. of readings at St. James's Hall, which proved a very advantageous speculation. He officiated as Chairman at the Annual Festival of the Dramatic Equestrian and Musical Association, on the 5th of the same month, at Willis's Rooms, and delivered an eloquent address; he fulfilled the same duty at the annual dinner of the Artists' General Benevolent Fund, at the Freemasons' Tavern, on the 29th of this month, and the result was a large accession to its treasury. Acting in the same capacity

* London, 27th March, 1862.

at the Annual Festival of the Newsvendors' and Provident Institution, at the last-named tavern, on the 20th May following, in proposing the toast of the evening, "Prosperity to the Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution," he delivered a very amusing speech on "The Newsman's Calling." In the course of his remarks he "started off with the newsman on a fine May morning, to take a view of the wonderful broad-sheets which every day he scatters broadcast over the country. Well, the first thing that occurs to me, following the newsman, is, that every day we are born, that every day we are married— some of us—and that every day we are dead; consequently, the first thing the newsvendor's column informs me is, that Atkins has been born, that Catkins has been married, and that Datkins is dead. But the most remarkable thing I immediately discover in the next column is, that Atkins has grown to be seventeen years old, and that he has run away, for at last my eye lights on the fact that William A., who is seventeen years old, is adjured immediately to return to his disconsolate parents, and everything will be arranged to the satisfaction of every one. I am afraid he will never return, simply because, if he had meant to come back, he would never have gone away. Immediately below, I find a mysterious character in such a mysterious difficulty, that it is only to be expressed by several disjointed letters, by several

*He was elected President of the Institution in May, 1854.

figures, and several stars; and then I find the explanation in the intimation that the writer has given his property over to his uncle, and that the elephant is on the wing.. I learn, to my intense. gratification, that I need never grow old, that I may always preserve the juvenile bloom of my complexion; that if ever I turn ill it is entirely my own fault; that if I have any complaint, and want brown cod-liver oil or Turkish baths, I am told where to get them; and that if I want an income of £7 a week, I may have it by sending half-a-crown in postagestamps. Then I look to the police intelligence, and I can discover that I may bite off a human living nose cheaply; but if I take off the dead nose of a pig or a calf from a shop-window, it will cost me exceedingly dear. I also find that if I allow myself to be betrayed into the folly of killing an inoffensive tradesman on his own doorstep, that little incident will not affect the testimonials to my character, but that I shall be described as a most amiable young man, and, as above all things, remarkable for the singular inoffensiveness of my character and disposition."

But the entire speech is much too long for our space.

We have now reached another winter-that of 1862-and this time our novelist devoted his Christmas number, "Somebody's Luggage," to that peculiar class of individuals known as "Waiters." Mr. Arthur Locker truly says of it:-"We rise from the little story with kindlier feelings towards the whole