The 'famous golden calf' Dickens refers to in paragraph 2 was George Hudson, the so-called 'Railway King', who had been much courted by the upper classes anxious to obtain shares during the 'railway mania' of 1844-1847 (see Punch cartoon, 'King Hudson's Levee', 29 November 1845) and became MP for Sunderland in 1845.
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