American Toby Jug Museum 

Buz Fuz character jug produced by Avon Art Pottery of Longton, England, circa 1950 marked with the firm's Avon Ware tradename. Mr. Sergeant Buz Fuz is the bullying grandiloquent barrister in Charles Dickens' "Pickwick Papers", published 1836-37. The widow Mrs. Bardell, completely misinterpreting Mr. Pickwick's innocent intentions, sues him for breach of promise. Buz Fuz acts as her counsel and secures judgment in her favor with damages of 750 pounds. He is described as "cozening or browbeating intelligent juries as occasion serves; the legalized champion of broken-hearted widows; adored of solicitors and constant recipient of highly marked briefs." His tactics of distorting the facts or abusing the other side in order to win his case are typical of a type of English barrister in the early nineteenth century. Sergeants in the legal sense were, until 1875, barristers who enjoyed certain privileges of precedence over other barristers. Buz Fuz is said to have been based on a real-life legal sergeant named Bumpas.