VANITY FAIR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 423, 14 November 1930, Page 2

VANITY FAIR

CAPS THAT FIT.

Dickens was greatest in the discover]) of queer names, and after him came Thacker a]). One found his names by prowling about and poking into every nook and alley; and that was Dickens. One made his names up, cleverly, cunningly, out of his imagination, and that was Thackeray. Of all names, is not Bar eacres the most eloquent, the most actual} yet separated into two syllables you get an eloquent description, without further words, of the man it represents. If Thackeray was brilliant, Dickens was the most amazing, for he look the names he met with on his journeyings and jaunlings and fitted them to his characters. They were the character they stood for and no other. No other name would have done but the one he gave them. And yet they were but names, when first he encountered them. You may find them and their sort to-day written on the shop fronts of London and many another place. Behold a list made a few years ago along the tram route from Victoria to Greenwich; "Waby” and "Hibbs” and "Cralcher” the list begins; "Ankers” and "Greengrass” and "Shalless” it goes on, and as a triumphant last, what do you say to "Madgelt” and "Roffey” and "Tiffin” ? Are they not perfect Dickens? One can see Mr Roffey as he walks along, and Madgetl is straight out of Little Waby must be a small boy, something in the circus line. As for Tiffin, he must be spare and tall, prim and correct, a timid rather pleasant kind of man. It is a list that Dickens would have thanked you for. Sometimes, to be sure, he took his names at random where he found them or from the place he lived in al the time. Mrs Bardell, Snodgrass and Tupman all come from Ramsgate, Moses Pickwick Was a coach driver and Weller made straw hats. In Cloisterham (most charming of names for a cathedral town) which is Rochester, at this very moment there is a shop owned by Mr Jasper. How he enjoyed his name being made such use of, nobody knows, but al all events he has not changed it, and there it is, as it has been for sixty years or more. Perhaps he was pleased to have his name used in any connection by the great-hearted author. A great honour for any man.