Our Vestry is eminently parliamentary. Playing at Parliament is
its favourite game. It is even regarded by some of its members as
a chapel of ease to the House of Commons: a Little Go to be passed
first. It has its strangers’ gallery, and its reported debates
(see the Sunday paper before mentioned), and our Vestrymen are in
and out of order, and on and off their legs, and above all are
transcendently quarrelsome, after the pattern of the real original.
Our Vestry being assembled, Mr. Magg never begs to trouble Mr.
Wigsby with a simple inquiry. He knows better than that. Seeing
the honourable gentleman, associated in their minds with Chumbledon
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Square, in his place, he wishes to ask that honourable gentleman
what the intentions of himself, and those with whom he acts, may
be, on the subject of the paving of the district known as Piggleum
Buildings? Mr. Wigsby replies (with his eye on next Sunday’s
paper) that in reference to the question which has been put to him
by the honourable gentleman opposite, he must take leave to say,
that if that honourable gentleman had had the courtesy to give him
notice of that question, he (Mr. Wigsby) would have consulted with
his colleagues in reference to the advisability, in the present
state of the discussions on the new paving-rate, of answering that
question. But, as the honourable gentleman has NOT had the
courtesy to give him notice of that question (great cheering from
the Wigsby interest), he must decline to give the honourable
gentleman the satisfaction he requires. Mr. Magg, instantly rising
to retort, is received with loud cries of ‘Spoke!’ from the Wigsby
interest, and with cheers from the Magg side of the house.
Moreover, five gentlemen rise to order, and one of them, in revenge
for being taken no notice of, petrifies the assembly by moving that
this Vestry do now adjourn; but, is persuaded to withdraw that
awful proposal, in consideration of its tremendous consequences if
persevered in. Mr. Magg, for the purpose of being heard, then begs
to move, that you, sir, do now pass to the order of the day; and
takes that opportunity of saying, that if an honourable gentleman
whom he has in his eye, and will not demean himself by more
particularly naming (oh, oh, and cheers), supposes that he is to be
put down by clamour, that honourable gentleman – however supported
he may be, through thick and thin, by a Fellow Parishioner, with
whom he is well acquainted (cheers and counter-cheers, Mr. Magg
being invariably backed by the Rate-Payer) – will find himself
mistaken. Upon this, twenty members of our Vestry speak in
succession concerning what the two great men have meant, until it
appears, after an hour and twenty minutes, that neither of them
meant anything. Then our Vestry begins business.
We have said that, after the pattern of the real original, our
Vestry in playing at Parliament is transcendently quarrelsome. It
enjoys a personal altercation above all things. Perhaps the most
redoubtable case of this kind we have ever had – though we have had
so many that it is difficult to decide – was that on which the last
extreme solemnities passed between Mr. Tiddypot (of Gumption House)
and Captain Banger (of Wilderness Walk).
In an adjourned debate on the question whether water could be
regarded in the light of a necessary of life; respecting which
there were great differences of opinion, and many shades of
sentiment; Mr. Tiddypot, in a powerful burst of eloquence against
that hypothesis, frequently made use of the expression that such
and such a rumour had ‘reached his ears.’ Captain Banger,
following him, and holding that, for purposes of ablution and
refreshment, a pint of water per diem was necessary for every adult
of the lower classes, and half a pint for every child, cast
ridicule upon his address in a sparkling speech, and concluded by
saying that instead of those rumours having reached the ears of the
honourable gentleman, he rather thought the honourable gentleman’s
ears must have reached the rumours, in consequence of their wellknown
length. Mr. Tiddypot immediately rose, looked the honourable