'I don't know what to write about', Dickens wrote to Wills on 10 August 'in the absence of your Paris-trip notes [see Headnote to 'A Flight', HW, Vol. III, 30 August 1851], but I think of a paper on "Whole Hogs" – Peace Society, Temperance Do, [i.e. ditto] and Vegetarians – all of whom have lately been making stupendous fools of themselves' (Pilgrim, Vol. VI, p. 457). All three Societies had featured prominently in The Times during the previous two or three weeks. On 5 August the paper satirically reported the National Temperance Society's 'Great Teetotal Demonstration' at Exeter Hall the previous day. George Cruikshank and the American pacifist Elihu Burritt were among those on the platform, and the committee's address stressed that 'nothing short of total abstinence could destroy their fearful foe'. There were also some dismal attempts at humour.
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