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The ex-churchwarden rose to propose Thomas Spruggins for beadle. He had known him long. He had had his eye upon him closely for years; he had watched him with twofold vigilance for months. (A parishioner here suggested that this might be termed 'taking a double sight,’ but the observation was drowned in loud cries of 'Order!') He would repeat that he had had his eye upon him for years, and this he would say, that a more well-conducted, a more well-behaved, a more sober, a more quiet man, with a more well-regulated mind, he had never met with. A man with a larger family he had never known (cheers). The parish required a man who could be depended on ('Hear!' from the Spruggins side, answered by ironical cheers from the Bung party). Such a man he now proposed ('No,' 'Yes'). He would not allude to individuals (the ex-churchwarden continued, in the celebrated negative style adopted by great speakers). He would not advert to a gentleman who had once held a high rank in the service of his majesty; he would not say, that that gentleman was no gentleman; he would not assert, that that man was no man; he would not say, that he was a turbulent parishioner; he would not say, that he had grossly misbehaved himself, not only on this, but on all former occasions; he would not say, that he was one of those discontented and treasonable spirits, who carried confusion and disorder wherever they went; he would not say, that he harboured in his heart envy, and hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. No! He wished to have everything comfortable and pleasant, and therefore, he would say — nothing about him (cheers).

The captain replied in a similar parliamentary style. He would not say, he was astonished at the speech they had just heard; he would not say, he was disgusted (cheers). He would not retort the epithets which had been hurled against him (renewed cheering); he would not allude to men once in office, but now happily out of it, who had mismanaged the workhouse, ground the paupers, diluted the beer, slack-baked the bread, boned the meat, heightened the work, and lowered the soup (tremendous cheers). He would not ask what such men deserved (a voice, "Nothing a-day, and find themselves!"). He would not say, that one burst of general indignation should drive them from the parish they polluted with their presence ('Give it him!'). He would not allude to the unfortunate man who had been proposed — he would not say, as the vestry's tool, but as Beadle. He would not advert to that individual’s family; he would not say, that nine children, twins, and a wife, were very bad examples for pauper imitation (loud cheers). He would not advert in detail to the qualifications of Bung. The man stood before him, and he would not say in his presence, what he might be disposed to say of him, if he were absent. (Here Mr. Bung telegraphed to a friend near him, under cover of his hat, by contracting his left eye, and applying his right thumb to the tip of his nose). It had been objected to Bung that he had only five children ('Hear, hear!'​from the opposition). Well; he had yet to learn that the legislature had affixed any precise amount of infantine qualification to the office of beadle; but taking it for granted that an extensive family were a great requisite, he entreated them to look to facts, and compare data, about which there could be no mistake. Bung was 35 years of age. Spruggins​— of whom he wished to speak with all possible respect​— was 50. Was it not more than possible​— was it not very probable — that by the time Bung attained the latter age, he might see around him a family, even exceeding in number and extent, that to which Spruggins at present laid claim (deafening cheers and waving of handkerchiefs)? The captain concluded, amidst loud applause, by calling upon the parishioners to sound the tocsin, rush to the poll, free themselves from dictation, or be slaves for ever. — "Election for Beadle," p. 21-22.

Commentary

Cruikshank also produced a design for the pink wrapper enclosing each of the twenty monthly parts; this was engraved on wood by John Jackson, the original drawing (adapted from one the artist had previously made for Macrone) being now in the possession of Mr. William Wright, of Paris. The subject of the frontispiece is the same as that of the title-page in the Second Series. — Kitton, "George Cruikshank," Dickens and His Illustrators, p. 4.

Since George Cruikshank's Election for the Beadle was the frontispiece of the first series, first edition (London: James Macrone, February 1836. Vol. 1), "The Election for Beadle" (SB 4), "Our Parish," 4, originally, "Sketches of London, No. 16" in The Evening Chronicle, 14 July 1835, must have been one of young Dickens's best-known "sketches" when Chapman and Hall re-issued a uniform edition of the journalistic pieces and tales in a uniform edition as a monthly serial. Its celebrity, based partly on its topicality as a response to the general mood for "Reform" in the 1830s, must have prompted George Cruikshank to reference this early sketch in the wrapper design.

Additional interest is imparted to some of the etchings in "Sketches by Boz" owing to the introduction by the artist of portraits of Charles Dickens and himself, there being no less than five delineations of the face and figure of the youthful "Boz" as he then appeared. In the title-page of the Second Series (as well as in the reproduction of it in the octavo edition), the identity of the two individuals waving flags in the car of the balloon has been pointed out by Cruikshank, who wrote on the original pencil-sketch, "The parties going up in the balloon are intended for the author and the artist," — which may be considered a necessary explanation, as the likenesses are not very apparent. — Kitton, "George Cruikshank," Dickens and His Illustrators, p. 5.

Beginning in November 1837, Dickens's new (and rather more generous) publishers, Chapman and Hall, re-issued in monthly parts the Sketches by 'Boz,' Illustrative of Everyday Life and Everyday People, which had begun with the anonymously published "Dinner at Poplar Walk" (afterwards called "Mr. Minns and his Cousin") in the Monthly Magazine in December 1833. Although Dickens published eight further journalistic sketches in the same magazine between then and February 1835, only in the August 1834 issue, containing "The Boarding-House No. II," did Dickens adopt the pseudonym "Boz." This was, in fact, the family nickname for Dickens's younger brother, Augustus "Moses" Dickens, which the toddler had corrupted from "Moses" to "Boses" to "Boz." The runaway success of the Pickwick Papers prompted John Macrone, the shrewd negotiator who held the copyright for thirty-five of the pieces together with the sixteen engravings he had commissioned from George Cruikshank for the two-volume 1837 edition, to re-issue an expanded series in monthly numbers. However,

the young author, who had received only some £400 for the Sketches, while his publisher had netted £4000, objected strongly to take this liberty with his public so long as Pickwick was running its course in the monthly parts, and the matter was arranged by Chapman & Hall, jointly with Dickens and Forster, acquiring the copyright from Macrone for no less a sum than £2250. Boz's objection to Macrone's project can scarcely have been based upon a disinclination to “foist an old work upon the public in a new dress,” for that was precisely what his new publishers proceeded to do. Cruikshank was engaged to re-etch the old illustrations on a larger scale for the new size of page, and to supply thirteen new plates, making forty in all [not counting the monthly wrapper]. The entire contents of the three existing volumes, with the addition of "The Tuggs's [sic] at Ramsgate," were now reprinted, and the public that had bought the monthly parts of Pickwick was invited, on the conclusion of that work, in October 1837, to take up Sketches by Boz in twenty parts, the first being issued in November. — J. A. Hammerton, iii.

The wrapper, not coloured green like the subsequent wrappers designed by Hablot Knight Brown or 'Phiz' for many of the novels that would proceed from Dickens’s pen, references one sketch in particular, the highly political and somewhat farcical "Election for Beadle," the fourth of the articles under the heading "Our Parish," which highlights the comic figure of the bumbling reformer, the "half-pay” Captain Purday, whom Dickens’s introduced as a well-meaning bungler in the second sketch, "The Curate. The Old Lady. The Half-Pay Captain." In that earlier sketch, the semi-retired Royal Navy officer's well-meaning interventions in the life of the neighbourhood "old lady" produce a string of domestic disasters culminating in his completely effacing the resident's name from the brass door-plate by over-polishing it with aqua-fortis. In the serial wrapper, Cruikshank focuses on the running battle between the dubious champion of reform, Captain Purday, and his nemesis, the parish's leading property-owner and leader of the conservative faction. The disputes over such matters as mismanagement and corruption over the administration of the parish workhouse come to a head when the church wardens must appoint a new beadle when the holder of that sinecure suddenly dies. The same subject captured the interest of later illustrator Harry Furniss in The Election of Beadle (1910), in which the former beadle, in full uniform of office, occupies the central position, but in which the eye is inevitably drawn to the two antagonists in debate above him. We may assume that the stouter gentleman to the left (i. e., stage right) is the property-owner and spokesman for the Conservatives, while the thinner gentleman to the right (i. e., stage-left), wagging his finger in admonition, is the spokesman for the Reformers, Captain Purday. In Cruikshank’s original interpretation, in The Election for Beadle, the warring factions, carrying appropriate placards, are depicted demonstrating outside the entrance to the vestry. In the subsequently engraved wrapper, Cruikshank depicts these pro- and anti-reform factions, carrying appropriate signs, on either side of the "Z." The Bungers are now to the left, and those supporting the Conservative faction’s Spruggins, to the right: "Vote for Spruggins and Ten Small Children." The wrapper also alludes to the ninth piece under the heading "Characters," namely "The Dancing Academy," in the bottom right-hand corner, in which a a sandwichboard-man holds a placard advertising the services of the pseudo-Italian "Signor Billsmethi's Dancing Academy." The central figure in The Last Cab-driver, the quirky cabbie himself, appears inside the "O" of "Boz," along with the Gabriel and Fanny Parsons as a young courting couple from Watkins Tottle. The loud-mouthed Mr. Thomas Potter from Making a Night of It is standing to the right of the "Z." The presence of these figures, enabling the reader to anticipate them in the illustrations issued two per number over twenty months, is easily explained as all of the illustrations from which they come had existed since the publication on 8 February 1836 of the two-volume "First Series" by John Macrone.

Pertinent illustrations in other 19th c. editions, 1836 and 1876

Left: George Cruikshank's original serial illustration of the same scene, with the supporters of the contestants, Spruggins and Bung, demonstrating outside the parish vestry, Election for Beadle (1835). Centre: Harry Furniss's Election of Beadle, the frontispiece in which the illustrator depicts the vestry debate between the warring factions (1910). Right: Fred Barnard's 1876 Household Edition illustration of the half-pay captain who leads the Reformers, The half-pay Captain completely effaced the old lady's name from the brass door-plate in his attempts to polish it with aqua-fortis — "Our Parish," Ch. 2. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

References

Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens: A Biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.

Bentley, Nicholas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens: Index. Oxfiord: Oxford U. P., 1990.

Dickens, Charles. "The Election for the Beadle." "Our Parish."Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.

Dickens, Charles. "Our Parish," Chapter 1, "The Beadle. The Parish Engine. The Schoolmaster." Christmas Books and Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1875 [rpt. of 1867 Ticknor & Fields edition]. Pp. 231-234.

Dickens, Charles. "Our Parish," Ch. 4, "The Election for Beadle." Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. Pp. 9-12.

Dickens, Charles. "Our Parish," Ch. 4, "The Election for Beadle." Sketches by Boz Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-Day People. Ed. Thea Holme. The Oxford Illustrated Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1957; rpt., 1987. Pp. 18-24.

Dickens, Charles. "Our Parish," Ch. 4, "The Election for Beadle." Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 1. Pp. 17-23.

Hammerton, J. A. "The Story of this Book." Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-Day People. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 1. Pp. i-v.

Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.

Long, William F., and Paul Schlicke. "Bung Against Spruggins: Reform in 'Our Parish.'" Dickens Quarterly 34, 1 (March 2017): 5-13.

Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing. New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 2009.

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