Son of a successful bootmaker, whose attitude toward labor was a great trial to his father. He spoke with vigor at the debating club at the Cheshire Cheese in support of unions and the rights of man, and was asked to stand for the Radical interest at the Percycross election. He was unsuccessful in politics, but his prominence won him the favor of Polly Neefit, whom he had been courting.

"He was a tall, thin, young man, with long straggling hair, a fierce eye, very thick lips, and a flat nose,--a nose which seemed to be all nostril;-and then, below his mouth was a tuft of beard, which he called an imperial. It was the glory of Ontario Moggs to be a politician; - it was his ambition to be a poet; -it was his nature to be a lover;-it was his disgrace to he a bootmaker"