life, and the most ardent patriotism.... He was [also] a highly successful playwright... a zealous social reformer, an expert criminologist, a connoisseur in good eating and drinking, in racing, in dogs, in boxing, and in all sorts of curious and out-of-the-way people and things." Journalism, satire and social writings He returned to England and briefly worked in his father's business, but his interests lay in writing, and he began to write stories and poetry. He began to publish pieces in Fun in 1874, succeeding editor Tom Hood and making friendships with fellow contributors W. S. Gilbert and Ambrose Bierce. He also contributed early to the Weekly Dispatch. In 1876, Sims penned a satiric open letter "To a Fashionable Tragedian", humorously accusing actor-producer Henry Irving of inciting mass murder by emphasising the gore in his Shakespeare plays and of paying bribes to critics. Irving sued Sims and his editor Harry Sampson for libel, but after an apology he withdrew the legal action. In 1877, he began contributing to a new Sunday sports and entertainments paper, edited by Sampson, The Referee, writing a weekly column of miscellany, "Mustard and Cress," under the pseudonym Dagonet, until his death. This was so successful that compilations of his verses from the paper, published as The Dagonet Ballads (1879) and Ballads of Babylon (1880), sold in hundreds of thousands of copies and were constantly in print during the next thirty years. He also wrote amusing and popular travelogues, also as Dagonet. He became editor of One and All in 1879 and for various papers wrote about horse racing, showing dogs, boxing, and leisure. Although Sims published his "Mustard and Cress" column every week for 45 years without fail, according to The Times, "week after week... the page read freshly and seemed always to have something new in it. It was sprinkled with neat little epigrams in verse, patriotic songs or parodies, with jokes, puns, conundrums, catch-words. He talked of politics... philanthropy, amusement, reminiscence, food and drink, and such travel as so confirmed a Cockney could enjoy. ...he would champion the cause of the unfortunate middle classes.... He took his readers into his confidence, and told them all about... his friends... his pets.... And he contrived to do this without ever becoming egotistical or a bore." Sims is best remembered for his dramatic monologue from The Dagonet Ballads that opens "It is Christmas Day in the workhouse".