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",