CHARLES DICKENS. 177 



up, I dropped the other fragments of the system; in short, 

 it was almost heart-breaking.' All this painstaking labour 

 became of real service in furthering his desire to get on, 

 and at the age of nineteen he entered the reporters' gallery 

 on behalf of the True Sun. Next he transferred his services 

 to the Mirror of Parliament^ and then to the Morning 

 Chronicle. 



His first published piece of writing saw the light in the 

 Old Monthly Magazine for January 1834. This contribution, 

 'Mrs. Joseph Porter over the Way,' was stealthily dropped 

 into a dark letter-box one night, and great was his exultation 

 when it appeared in all the glory of print. He contributed 

 in all nine sketches to this magazine, and began to use the 

 signature of 'Boz.' This term was the nickname of his 

 youngest brother, Augustus, whom, in honour of the Vicar 

 of Wakefield^ he had called Moses, but which, when pro- 

 nounced through the nose, degenerated into Boz. 'To the 

 wholesome training,' he afterwards said, 'of severe newspaper 

 work, when I was a very young man, I constantly refer my 

 first successes.' He wrote, in 1845, that ' there never was 

 anybody connected with newspapers who, in the same space 

 of time, had so much express and post-chaise experience as 

 I. And what gentlemen they were to serve, in such things, 

 at the old Morning Chronicle! Great or small, it did not 

 matter. I have had to charge for the damage of a great- 

 coat from the drippings of a blazing wax candle, in writing 

 through the smallest hours of the night in a swift - flying 

 carriage and pair. I have had to charge for all sorts of 

 breakages fifty times in a journey without question, such 

 being the ordinary results of the pace which we went at. I 

 have charged for broken hats, broken luggage, broken chaises, 



