Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble

"The Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble" is a satirical short work by Charles Dickens that follows the life and experiences of a fictional character, Mr. Tulrumble, who is an exaggerated representation of a 19th-century politician. Through witty prose and sharp social commentary, Dickens explores themes of public service, political ambition, and the absurdities of bureaucracy. The story critiques the complexities of public life and the often hypocritical nature of those in power, all while showcasing Dickens' signature humor and keen observations of society.

• Short story

								
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 their
dinner on church-days, and other great political questions; and
sometimes, long after silence has fallen on the town, and the distant
lights from the shops and houses have ceased to twinkle, like far-off
stars, to the sight of the boatmen on the river, the illumination in the
two unequal-sized windows of the town-hall, warns the inhabitants of
Mudfog that its little body of legislators, like a larger and
better-known body of the same genus, a great deal more noisy, and not a
whit more profound, are patriotically dozing away in company, far into
the night, for their country’s good.

Among this knot of sage and learned men, no one was so eminently
distinguished, during many years, for the quiet modesty of his appearance
and demeanour, as Nicholas Tulrumble, the well-known coal-dealer.
However exciting the subject of discussion, however animated the tone of
the debate, or however warm the personalities exchanged, (and even in
Mudfog we get personal sometimes,) Nicholas Tulrumble was always the
same.  To say truth, Nicholas, being an industrious man, and always up
betimes, was apt to fall asleep when a debate began, and to remain asleep
till it was over, when he would wake up very much refreshed, and give his
vote with the greatest complacency.  The fact was, that Nicholas
Tulrumble, knowing that everybody there had made up his mind beforehand,
considered the talking as just a long botheration about nothing at all;
and to the present hour it remains a question, whether, on this point at
all events, Nicholas Tulrumble was not pretty near right.

Time, which strews a man’s head with silver, sometimes fills his pockets
with gold.  As he gradually performed one good office for Nicholas
Tulrumble, he was obliging enough, not to omit the other.  Nicholas began
life in a wooden tenement of four feet square, with a capital of two and
ninepence, and a stock in trade of three bushels and a-half of coals,
exclusive of the large lump which hung, by way of sign-board, outside.
Then he enlarged the shed, and kept a truck; then he left the shed, and
the truck too, and started a donkey and a Mrs. Tulrumble; then he moved
again and set up a cart; the cart was soon afterwards exchanged for a
waggon; and so he went on like his great predecessor Whittington—only
without a cat for a partner—increasing in wealth and fame, until at last
he gave up business altogether, and retired with Mrs. Tulrumble and
family to Mudfog Hall, which he had himself erected, on something which
he attempted to delude himself into the belief was a hill, about a
quarter of a mile distant from the town of Mudfog.

About this time, it began to be murmured in Mudfog that Nicholas
Tulrumble was growing vain and haughty; that prosperity and success had
corrupted the simplicity of his manners, and tainted the natural goodness
of his heart; in short, that he was setting up for a public character,
and a great gentleman, and affected to look down upon his old companions
with compassion and contempt.  Whether these reports were at the time
well-founded, or not, certain it is that Mrs. Tulrumble very shortly
afterwards started a four-wheel chaise, driven by a tall postilion in a
yellow cap,—that Mr. Tulrumble junior took to smoking cigars, and calling
the footman a ‘feller,’—and that Mr. Tulrumble from that time forth, was
no more seen in his old seat in the chimney-corner of the Lighterman’s
Arms at night.  This looked bad; but, more than this, it began to be
observed that Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble attended the corporation meetings
more frequently than heretofore; and he no longer went to sleep as he had
done for so many years, but propped his eyelids open with his two
forefingers; that he read the newspapers by himself at home; and that he
was in the habit of indulging abroad in distant and mysterious allusions
to ‘masses of people,’ and ‘the property of the country,’ and ‘productive
power,’ and ‘the monied interest:’ all of which denoted and proved that
Nicholas Tulrumble was either mad, or worse; and it puzzled the good
people of Mudfog amazingly.

At length, about the middle of the month of October, Mr. Tulrumble and
family went up to London; the middle of October being, as Mrs. Tulrumble

								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes