tful--although all is literal the literalness is all humour. As
when Pott, to recreate his guest, Mr. Pickwick, told Jane to "go down
into the office and bring me up the file of the Gazette for 1828. I'll
read you just a few of the leaders I wrote at that time upon the Buff job
of appointing a new tollman to the turnpike here. I rather think they'll
amuse you." This was rich enough, and he came back to the same topic
towards the end of the book.

It will be remembered Mr. Pott went to Mrs. Leo Hunter's _Fete_ in the
character of a Russian with a knout in his hand. No doubt the Gazette
had its "eye on Russia" and like the famous _Skibbereen Eagle_ had
solemnly warned the Autocrat to that effect. It is, by the way, amusing
to find that this organ, _The Eagle_ to wit, which so increased the
gaiety of the nation, has once more been warning the Autocrat, and in a
vein that proves that "our filthy contemporary," _The Eatanswill
Gazette_, was no exaggerated picture. This is how _The Eagle_, in a late
issue, speaks of the Russian occupation of Port Arthur:--"And once again
that keen, fierce glance is cast in the direction of the grasping
Muscovite; again, one of the foulest, one of the vilest dynasties that
has impiously trampled on the laws of God, and has violated every
progressive aspiration the Almighty implanted in the human heart when He
fashioned man in His own image, and breathed into his soul the breath of
life, threatens, for the moment at least, to put back the hands of the
clock that tells the progress of civilisation. The Emperor of all the
Russias, this wicked enemy of the human race, has succeeded in raising
his hideous flag on Port Arthur, and planting his iron heel and cloven
hoof on the heathen Chinese--filthy, degenerate creatures, who, it must
be admitted, are fitting companions for the tallow-eating, 'knouting'
barbarian."

III.--Nupkins and Magnus.

Who was intended by Nupkins, the intolerable Mayor of Ipswich? An odious
being. We may wonder at "Boz's" courage, for, of course, the existing
Mayor of Ipswich might think that the satire was pointed at _him_. There
can be little doubt, however, that Nupkins was drawn from a London Police
Magistrate, and is, in fact, another portrait of the functionary whom he
sketched specially for "Oliver Twist" under the name of Mr. Fang.
Nupkins, however, is more in the comedy vein--ridiculed rather than
gibbeted--than was Mr. Fang. We have only to compa