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