The Aldermen of the Court of Common Council, the governing body of the City of London, had long been the butt of jokes in Punch and other satirical papers for their reactionary stupidity and complacency and their gormandising feasts (always involving turtle soup). Their strenuous opposition to the application to the City of the Public Health Act of 1848, and to the removal of Smithfield Meat market from the city centre, particularly angered Dickens. On 12 July he noticed a report in The Times (which was also campaigning for the removal of Smithfield) of 'a most intolerably asinine Speech about Smithfield, made in the Common Council by one Taylor' and asked Wills to get him further material about 'absurdities enunciated by this wiseacre' so that he could write up something about him for HW (Pilgrim, Vol. VI, p. 129). Snoady's wonderful vision of Alderman Groggles as a 'lively turtle' is the result.
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