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    Oliver Twist: The Parish Boy's Progress - With Appreciations and Criticisms By G. K. Chesterton
    Oliver Twist: The Parish Boy's Progress - With Appreciations and Criticisms By G. K. Chesterton
    Oliver Twist: The Parish Boy's Progress - With Appreciations and Criticisms By G. K. Chesterton
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    Oliver Twist: The Parish Boy's Progress - With Appreciations and Criticisms By G. K. Chesterton

    By Charles Dickens and G.K Chesterton

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    Charles Dickens's second novel, “Oliver Twist” was first published as a serial from 1837 to 1839 and centres around the story of orphan Oliver Twist, who was born in a workhouse and sold as an apprentice to an undertaker. When he manages to escape, Oliver travels to London where he encounters the “Artful Dodger” and his gang of pickpockets. A gritty representation of the London underworld, “Oliver” famously exposed the hardships of the poor, especially the terrible treatment of orphans in the mid-19th century. Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812–1870) was an English writer and social critic famous for having created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters. His works became unprecedentedly popular during his life, and today he is commonly regarded as the greatest Victorian-era novelist. Although perhaps better known for such works as “Great Expectations” or “A Christmas Carol”, Dickens first gained success with the 1836 serial publication of “The Pickwick Papers”, which turned him almost overnight into an international literary celebrity thanks to his humour, satire, and astute observations concerning society and character. This classic work is being republished now in a new edition complete with an introductory chapter from “Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens” by G. K. Chesterton.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateMay 11, 2015
    ISBN9781473372658
    Oliver Twist: The Parish Boy's Progress - With Appreciations and Criticisms By G. K. Chesterton
    Author

    Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is the most popular and, many believe, the greatest English author. He wrote many classic novels, including David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and A Christmas Carol. Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities are available from Brilliance Audio.

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    Reviews for Oliver Twist

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    • 4/5
      Great classic.
    • 5/5
      Writing: 5.0; Theme: 5.0; Content: 4.5; Language: 4.5; Overall: 5.0; This was a wonderful volume that shares the rough, yet heart-warming story of Oliver Twist. Oliver travels through life battling the evils of this world while growing up in the poor conditions of a street youth. This story resembles the process that many Christians go through. As Christians, like Oliver, we are persecuted in this life, but in the end those who were the persecuted will one day receive glorious rewards if they live their lives pleasing to Christ. Great tome! Highly recommend. ***March 5, 2019*** (read with Jonathan)
    • 5/5
      I heard it said somewhere once that a first novel is always the author's most personal. Not so with Dickens, who had to let his thoughts churn over the concept behind "Oliver Twist" while experimenting with the earlier "Sketches by Boz" and "Pickwick Papers." It can definitely be said, though, that "Oliver Twist" is the first novel that Dickens gets right. Instead of feeling like you're reading chapters in isolation that stretch the story for the sake of getting paid for additional instalments, everything fits together beautifully. The plot is by turns tragic, comical, philosophical, romantic, and suspenseful. Dickens manages to follow different characters on their own particular arcs rather than just presenting everything through Oliver's point of view, but there are very few sections that feel like they are dragging the reader away from the main story. The message reflects the developing sensibilities of the new Victorian era while addressing concerns about poverty, morality, and charity that remain relevant to this day. In spite of its time period, however, it shows progressive tendencies, most notably in the excellent characterisation of Nancy, a vast improvement over all the simpering and fainting women of "Pickwick Papers." And while the story is very likely familiar from a number of different adaptations, I found that the author was still able to pull me out of the cynicism of saying "yes, I know what's going to happen" and to surprise me, both in terms of plot details and style. This is a book that stands in conversation with the author's later works and with the other great works of literature that take on the moral questions of their time. It has, as Calvino said, never finished saying what it has to say.
    • 4/5
      There were certain points in the story where I found it hard to follow what was going on. I found the ending especially confusing. But other than that, I enjoyed the story. I plan on watching a couple movie renditions to see if I can better understand what was going on.
    • 3/5
      Language was awesome. The story was not connected enough and the point that the author intended to place, that morality in not class dependent was not fulfilled.
    • 1/5
      First of all, Oliver Twist is a hateful book. Dickens has created in Fagin an embodiment of bigotry; a leering, black-nailed, money-grubbing Jew who's nearly always referred to as The Jew, as though Dickens wasn't sure we'd get it.* Fagin is the most memorable character in Oliver Twist, and he's inexcusable. I've read me some Victorian novels; I'm familiar with the casual anti-Semitism that's nearly unavoidable in them; I understand the context of the time. Dickens is well beyond that context. For his time, he was a hater. This is a hate crime of a book.

      * To clarify my context: I'm an atheist, so I think all religions are equally imaginary, and I think prejudice against any religion is equally distasteful.

      Second, Oliver Twist is a shitty book. His second, following the comedic Pickwick Papers, it shows Dickens reaching for new territory: exposing the hopelessness and injustice of destitute life in London. But it's maudlin, obvious, predictable, lame. Oliver is such a simpering bitch that it's impossible to give a shit about him. Bad people want to use him; good people want to pamper him; readers are bored. Dickens will write great books, but not yet.

      To be fair, not that I want to be, in the last chapters of Oliver Twist, he's figured it out. Nancy and Sikes suddenly take over the book, although I doubt Dickens knew they would, in a denouement of terrific power; and Fagin's last scene is equally powerful. But it's way too little, way too late.

      It's Banned Book Week as I write this, and I don't think Oliver Twist should be banned. I think people need to know that the most loved British writer since Shakespeare wrote this. I wouldn't assign it in a class, because it sucks, but I would make sure my students understand that Dickens is responsible for it.

      It's a shitty little book. It makes me think less of Dickens. I wish he'd known better.
    • 4/5
      Like an awful lot of people I have seen the film version of this story numerous times and even the stage version once as well but had never got around to actually reading the original. To mark Dicken's 200 birthday I felt that it was time to put things right just to see how much of the story had been altered.Dicken's was obviously a great wordsmith and this could be seen in his depiction of the conditions in the workhouse which were so vivid it was frightening but in truth I found this portion a little dull and just wanted to race through this part to get to when Oliver goes to London and meets Fagin and the gang. For it is there that the story really begins for me. Can a sweet natured boy who has had a very rough upbringing, where he was shown little affection and no little brutality, remain honest and upstanding or would he turn out a wrong 'un like the rest of them. A question of nurture or nature.The book holds some great characters who are given such a three dimensional feel by the great writing ( anyone who can get away with a character called Master Bates must be good). I did feel a little uncomfortable with Fagin constantly refered to as the Jew, although I realise that it is hard to expect the same standards of today 150+ years ago.On the whole I really enjoyed the book although it could be argued that this was not one of Dicken's best and am glad that I finally got around to reading it. Some parts I found a little slow but once it really got going I felt that the story raced along nicely. If I could have given it 4.5 stars I would have but finally came down on the side of a 4 but in the end as far as Dicken's himself is involved 'Can I have some more?'
    • 4/5
      It’s a story that make everyone think about Oliver, like a brave man. He escaped from the workhouse, have a rich family that he never knew, a brother try to harm him, his mother die in workhouse, he never ‘ ew he had a family, a father or even a brother. He been with the thief, but he was benn help by a kind young and old lady at the house where he try to steal things. The thief never forgive him, they try to catch him back, they think he one of them for ever. But he met nice people who willing to help him out those thief.This is amazing story, poor Oliver
    • 3/5
      Overheersend: humoristische en vooral sarcastische stijl. Sterke zwartwit-tekening van de karakters. Oliver is uiteraard de held, maar eerder schaapachtig; alleen in het begin aanzet tot eigen karakter, daarna drijft hij mee en evolueert zijn karakter niet (is grote zwakte van de roman)Uiteraard is er een sociale achtergrond: de achterbuurten van Londen, de schandalige Poor’s Law, de hypocrisie van de kerkelijken. Lichtelijk melodramatisch, vooral op het einde nogal melig.
    • 1/5
      If this had been my first Dickens novel, I never would have read another. The protagonist, for the most part, is acted upon instead of acting. His great heroic moment takes place when he runs away from home and walks 70 miles to London (a moment he remembers in great excitement at the end of the book). But for the remainder of the story, he merely suffers, miserably and passively, as he is humiliated, degraded, hunted, starved, sickened, and beaten. As a reader it is too much to bear, because Oliver has no way to fight back. If he only had an internal monologue that kept him strong, mentally, that might have been enough to maintain my empathy; but when he is just a simple, blank slate of a suffering child, his misery does not make a satisfactory read. Even in the chapters of the happy ending, he sits passively as adults explain his (convoluted) history. Fair disclosure. I did not manage to finish the book. I got up to the point where Oliver has to relinquish his clean, new suit of clothes for the rags he had thought were gone forever; and I just couldn't bear his suffering anymore and had to stop. I read the rest of the plot on wikipedia; and then read the last few chapters, to decide whether the ending was brilliant enough to justify trudging through the novel. When I discovered, instead, that the ending was just long passages of exposition regarding missing members of Oliver's family, I felt satisfied with the decision not to continue. Normally, I don't post a review when I haven't finished the book; but this time I decided to go ahead just to encourage anyone who agrees with me about this book not to give up on Dickens altogether: I can recommend Hard Times and Great Expectations, and will give the remainder of the oeuvre a try.Side note: Perhaps if I had read this with my eyeballs, instead of by audiobook, I would have been able to finish it; since I could have read it very quickly. But by audiobook, you are forced to completely digest each sentence.
    • 2/5
      I am not a big fan of Dickens, and Oliver Twist did nothing to persuade me. After the first third, the story began winding here and there (it was a serial after all), and I just lost the plot, especially as more and more characters were introduced.
    • 4/5
      Not one of Dicken's stronger novels in my opinion. The ending is pat. However its a pleasant enough light read despite the poverty portrayed.
    • 5/5
      I received this book from the Junior Deluxe Editions Book Club at about age 7, but wasn't able or willing to read it till I was 10 or 11. It's a while since I've read it, and having seen Oliver! a couple of times since, it's always a little hard to recall that first reading. The scenes where Oliver is a professional mourner for a funeral home always stuck in my mind. I should read it again some day. I should note that I do have the fancy Franklin Library edition too, but the Junior Deluxe is one I can't bear to part with unless someday a grandchild will want it.
    • 3/5
      Agree that it's not Dicken's best. Social criticism and sarcasm but it feels a bit too sloppy and naïf. Plus you get bored about the whole oh so poor little child saga, even if put against the industrial revolution's harsh realities.
    • 5/5
      First time all of the way through, although I have done portions of the book before. As with other recent Dicken's reading, Colledge's God and Charles Dickens was very helpful in putting this into context.The most interesting thing about Oliver Twist is that it works so well without any great character development. The good are good, the bad are bad, and there are very few who do not fall into one of these two categories. The good get rewarded, the bad (finally) get what they deserve. It very much is a morality tale - using the definition of a morality tale as one that exhibits the conflict between good and evil while offering moral lessons. And it excels in this category.This e-book was originally released in serial format, to match how the book was originally released. That gave me a greater appreciation of how the book was originally experienced.
    • 3/5
      It's hard not to like Dickens. He creates these eccentric supporting characters that are quirky, bizarre and totally lovable. But unlike so many of his masterpieces, Oliver Twist lacks a complex hero or main character. The book begins with Oliver's birth in a poor work house. His mother dies in child birth and his father is unknown. Oliver grows up under horrible conditions forced to work and is poorly fed - and yes, that famous line that we all remember from the Broadway musical and movie, 'Please, sir, I want some more' is a line from the book! After some failed apprenticeships, Oliver escapes to London and is taken in by a group of children pick pockets, trained by Fagin. As the book progresses, Oliver gains many allies among both his band of thieves as well as some wealthy families, who coincidentally are related to Oliver's unfortunate mother. What I found lacking in this Dickens' novel is that Oliver, although a sweet and innocent child, doesn't really grow and develop the heroic personality of some of Dickens other main characters - David Copperfield, Pip from Great Expectations, or my favorite, Esther from Bleak House. Definitely Oliver Twist is still a book worth reading, but I didn't find it as strong as some of his other works.

      I listened to the audio version performed by John Lee who has a deep soothing British voice. His skill at accents from the cockney dregs of London to the upper class was very well done.
    • 5/5
      The master has done it for me once again. I can't imagine an English reader in the 19th century not feeling downright shameful and disgusted at the existing social conditions, upon finishing this read. The events evoke such a feeling of horror and injustice that at times you can't help but feel like the impetuous Doctor Losberne, who left unchecked would be dealing out vigilante justice in spades.If I could wring the Bumbles' necks from my couch, I think I just might. Little Dick's innocent plea to leave a message for Oliver before his death is so powerful and moving, I was fighting off tears. As monstrous as Fagin and Sikes are made out to be throughout, their final demise tears at you, and almost has you begging for mercy...almost. Masterfully done!
    • 4/5
      This was the first book I read over the summer and I enjoyed reading this book. This book was more than a tale; it addressed and criticized the social injustice during the 19th century. This book portrayed how injustice our society was by introducing the character Oliver Twist. He was one of the victims of society as he faced social injustice just because he was an orphan and he was poor. He was often looked down by rich people and he was mistreated by his looks and backgrounds.
    • 4/5
      Moments in this made me cry.
    • 4/5
      Surprisingly readable. Good satire, good humor, good story. Nice, though forced, surprises
    • 4/5
      I found this to be a thoroughly enjoyable book...until the end. The deus ex machina wrecked it for me. Oliver may as well have turned out to be the long lost prince of England or something. It just seems very roughly thrown together in the end.
    • 4/5
      I admit that I've been avoiding Dickens for quite a while now. My experience with him, aside from a few illustrated, abridged children's versions, consists of two encounters: A Christmas Carol (easy and short) and Hard Times (not that easy, not as short, although shorter than most of his books). I was quite disinterested in subjecting myself to more Dickens after Hard Times - so much so that Oliver Twist was my first tentative foray into his works since 1990. Whether I've just grown up, or grown more patient, or read more 19th century novels since those days, I was pleasantly surprised to find that reading Oliver Twist was not the torturous experience I was convinced it would be.There's no point in discussing the plot, since everyone knows it. But I found Oliver himself kind of annoyingly limp and high-strung. I guess that's to be expected when you're doing a classic good vs. evil setup. Evil is just always much more interesting than good. But a surprising amount of the book doesn't really involve Oliver all that much, except as a pawn everyone else is trying to do something with. Some of the turns in the plot, I didn't see coming (no, I've never seen a movie/musical version), so that was kind of fun. Also, I enjoyed the amount of snide social commentary that Dickens worked in. The worst part was probably my frustration that after everything was over, there was still a "wrapping up" chapter to go, but I suppose that's pretty standard with this sort of book. I'll be less hesitant approaching the next Dickens book, although I wouldn't call myself an enthusiast either.Recommended for: Dickens-o-phobes, fans of melodrama and mustache-twirling.Quote: "He had a decided propensity for bullying: derived no inconsiderable pleasure from the exercise of petty cruelty; and, consequently, was (it is needless to say) a coward. This is by no means a disparagement to his character; for many official personages, who are held in high respect and admiration, are the victims of similar infirmities. The remark is made, indeed, rather in his favour than otherwise, and with a view of impressing the reader with a just sense of his qualifications for office."
    • 2/5
      2.5 starsOliver Twist is an orphan and is shuffled around to various places where he is not treated kindly, when he finally has enough and runs away to London. In London, he initially meets up with a group of thieves. After a little more focus on Oliver that I don’t want to give away, a lot of the story suddenly follows other characters. I thought the first half of the book that primarily focused on Oliver was o.k. But once the story started following other characters (almost all the second half of the book), I found my mind wandering. I was not able to concentrate on what I was reading, so I kind of lost what was going on in the story.
    • 4/5
      Finally getting to the end of these rambling Victorian sagas, it's easy to be infuriated at the ludicrous revelations and disclosures, legacies and dying wishes that tie it all benevolently up, that subdue all the vitality and humour of the characters with the saccharine promise of a bland and safe future. Because the rogues and oddities usually do make for the best scenes. But whatever the quibbles, Dickens' heartiness and sentiment wins us over. The dull worthiness and small role of the title character, Oliver, is another surprise; you could forget he's in it at times. But there's always enough that us going on: eccentric characters, evocative descriptions, memorable set-pieces. And of course the rousing versions in song and stage that come after:  "We've taken to you so strong..."
    • 5/5
      Beautiful, flowing language
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite Dickens novels, and Simon Vance's narration does it justice :)I have read this book several times, but the last time was maybe 25 years ago. The basic plot is (I hope!) well-known but I was surprised by how much of the details I had forgotten. What I hadn't forgotten, and enjoyed just as much this time around, was Dickens mordant sarcasm
    • 3/5
      A bit longer than it needed to be, but still has some interesting moments. Fagin is a hilariously offensive caricature, and most of the other characters are only the latter.
    • 4/5
      Frankly, I thought Oliver Twist would be a bit of a chore, but instead I really looked forward to it each night (I chose to read most of the book following the original serialization breaks marked in my edition). The story is melodramatic and sentimental, and the coincidences in the plot are extremely far-fetched, but it’s a fun ride and an interesting exposure of social welfare and the criminal justice system of the time.

      It’s admittedly difficult to read Dickens’ characterization of Fagin (“the Jew”) today, but there were other “bad” characters who were exceptionally drawn, such as the Bumbles or Bill Sikes, and other characters I would have liked to see more of, such as Mr. Grimwig or Jack Dawkins (who disappears unceremoniously from the narrative at a certain point). The portrayal of the relationship between Nancy and Bill Sikes is particularly strong and sadly relevant even today.
    • 4/5
      I always loved Oliver Twist the most of the Dickens books I've read. He seemed to come to life in my head the most of all Dickens' characters.
    • 2/5
      Dear FSM! What a hard read this was -- and I didn't even read it, I listened to it on audiobook during my commute. I've seen several movie adaptations of this book - NONE of them capture the dark, depressing rone that this book sets. Read it if you're looking for a challenge.

      Audiobook.

    Book preview

    Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

    OLIVER TWIST

    By G. K. Chesterton

    In considering Dickens, as we almost always must consider him, as a man of rich originality, we may possibly miss the forces from which he drew even his original energy. It is not well for man to be alone. We, in the modern world, are ready enough to admit that when it is applied to some problem of monasticism or of an ecstatic life. But we will not admit that our modern artistic claim to absolute originality is really a claim to absolute unsociability; a claim to absolute loneliness. The anarchist is at least as solitary as the ascetic. And the men of very vivid vigour in literature, the men such as Dickens, have generally displayed a large sociability towards the society of letters, always expressed in the happy pursuit of pre-existent themes, sometimes expressed, as in the case of Molière or Sterne, in downright plagiarism. For even theft is a confession of our dependence on society. In Dickens, however, this element of the original foundations on which he worked is quite especially difficult to determine. This is partly due to the fact that for the present reading public he is practically the only one of his long line that is read at all. He sums up Smollett and Goldsmith, but he also destroys them. This one giant, being closest to us, cuts off from our view even the giants that begat him. But much more is this difficulty due to the fact that Dickens mixed up with the old material, materials so subtly modern, so made of the French Revolution, that the whole is transformed. If we want the best example of this, the best example is Oliver Twist.

    Relatively to the other works of Dickens Oliver Twist is not of great value, but it is of great importance. Some parts of it are so crude and of so clumsy a melodrama, that one is almost tempted to say that Dickens would have been greater without it. But even if he had been greater without it he would still have been incomplete without it. With the exception of some gorgeous passages, both of humour and horror, the interest of the book lies not so much in its revelation of Dickens’s literary genius as in its revelation of those moral, personal, and political instincts which were the make-up of his character and the permanent support of that literary genius. It is by far the most depressing of all his books; it is in some ways the most irritating; yet its ugliness gives the last touch of honesty to all that spontaneous and splendid output. Without this one discordant note all his merriment might have seemed like levity.

    Dickens had just appeared upon the stage and set the whole world laughing with his first great story Pickwick. Oliver Twist was his encore. It was the second opportunity given to him by those who had rolled about with laughter over Tupman and Jingle, Weller and Dowler. Under such circumstances a stagey reciter will sometimes take care to give a pathetic piece after his humorous one; and with all his many moral merits, there was much that was stagey about Dickens. But this explanation alone is altogether inadequate and unworthy. There was in Dickens this other kind of energy, horrible, uncanny, barbaric, capable in another age of coarseness, greedy for the emblems of established ugliness, the coffin, the gibbet, the bones, the bloody knife. Dickens liked these things and he was all the more of a man for liking them; especially he was all the more of a boy. We can all recall with pleasure the fact that Miss Petowker (afterwards Mrs. Lillyvick) was in the habit of reciting a poem called The Blood Drinker’s Burial. I cannot express my regret that the words of this poem are not given; for Dickens would have been quite as capable of writing The Blood Drinker’s Burial as Miss Petowker was of reciting it. This strain existed in Dickens alongside of his happy laughter; both were allied to the same robust romance. Here as elsewhere Dickens is close to all the permanent human things. He is close to religion, which has never allowed the thousand devils on its churches to stop the dancing of its bells. He is allied to the people, to the real poor, who love nothing so much as to take a cheerful glass and to talk about funerals. The extremes of his gloom and gaiety are the mark of religion and democracy; they mark him off from the moderate happiness of philosophers, and from that stoicism which is the virtue and the creed of aristocrats. There is nothing odd in the fact that the same man who conceived the humane hospitalities of Pickwick should also have imagined the inhuman laughter of Fagin’s den. They are both genuine and they are both exaggerated. And the whole human tradition has tied up together in a strange knot these strands of festivity and fear. It is over the cups of Christmas Eve that men have always competed in telling ghost stories.

    This first element was present in Dickens, and it is very powerfully present in Oliver Twist. It had not been present with sufficient consistency or continuity in Pickwick to make it remain on the reader’s memory at all, for the tale of Gabriel Grubb is grotesque rather than horrible, and the two gloomy stories of the Madman and the Queer Client are so utterly irrelevant to the tale, that even if the reader remember them he probably does not remember that they occur in Pickwick. Critics have complained of Shakespeare and others for putting comic episodes into a tragedy. It required a man with the courage and coarseness of Dickens actually to put tragic episodes into a farce. But they are not caught up into the story at all. In Oliver Twist, however, the thing broke out with an almost brutal inspiration, and those who had fallen in love with Dickens for his generous buffoonery may very likely have been startled at receiving such very different fare at the next helping. When you have bought a man’s book because you like his writing about Mr. Wardle’s punch-bowl and Mr. Winkle’s skates, it may very well be surprising to open it and read about the sickening thuds that beat out the life of Nancy, or that mysterious villain whose face was blasted with disease.

    As a nightmare, the work is really admirable. Characters which are not very clearly conceived as regards their own psychology are yet, at certain moments, managed so as to shake to its foundations our own psychology. Bill Sikes is not exactly a real man, but for all that he is a real murderer. Nancy is not really impressive as a living woman; but (as the phrase goes) she makes a lovely corpse. Something quite childish and eternal in us, something which is shocked with the mere simplicity of death, quivers when we read of those repeated blows or see Sikes cursing the tell-tale cur who will follow his bloody foot-prints. And this strange, sublime, vulgar melodrama, which is melodrama and yet is painfully real, reaches its hideous height in that fine scene of the death of Sikes, the besieged house, the boy screaming within, the crowd screaming without, the murderer turned almost a maniac and dragging his victim uselessly up and down the room, the escape over the roof, the rope swiftly running taut, and death sudden, startling and symbolic; a man hanged. There is in this and similar scenes something of the quality of Hogarth and many other English moralists of the early eighteenth century. It is not easy to define this Hogarthian quality in words, beyond saying that it is a sort of alphabetical realism, like the cruel candour of children. But it has about it these two special principles which separate it from all that we call realism in our time. First, that with us a moral story means a story about moral people; with them a moral story meant more often a story about immoral people. Second, that with us realism is always associated with some subtle view of morals; with them realism was always associated with some simple view of morals. The end of Bill Sikes exactly in the way that the law would have killed him—this is a Hogarthian incident; it carries on that tradition of startling and shocking platitude.

    All this element in the book was a sincere thing in the author, but none the less it came from old soils, from the graveyard and the gallows, and the lane where the ghost walked. Dickens was always attracted to such things, and (as Forster says with inimitable simplicity) but for his strong sense might have fallen into the follies of spiritualism. As a matter of fact, like most of the men of strong sense in his tradition, Dickens was left with a half belief in spirits which became in practice a belief in bad spirits. The great disadvantage of those who have too much strong sense to believe in supernaturalism is that they keep last the low and little forms of the supernatural, such as omens, curses, spectres, and retributions, but find a high and happy supernaturalism quite incredible. Thus the Puritans denied the sacraments, but went on burning witches. This shadow does rest, to some extent, upon the rational English writers like Dickens; supernaturalism was dying, but its ugliest roots died last. Dickens would have found it easier to believe in a ghost than in a vision of the Virgin with angels. There, for good or evil, however, was the root of the old diablerie in Dickens, and there it is in Oliver Twist. But this was only the first of the new Dickens elements, which must have surprised those Dickensians who eagerly bought his second book. The second of the new Dickens elements is equally indisputable and separate. It swelled afterwards to enormous proportions in Dickens’s work; but it really has its rise here. Again, as in the case of the element of diablerie, it would be possible to make technical exceptions in favour of Pickwick. Just as there were quite inappropriate scraps of the gruesome element in Pickwick, so there are quite inappropriate allusions to this other topic in Pickwick. But nobody by merely reading Pickwick would even remember this topic; no one by merely reading Pickwick would know what this topic is; this third great subject of Dickens; this second great subject of the Dickens of Oliver Twist.

    This subject is social oppression. It is surely fair to say that no one could have gathered from Pickwick how this question boiled in the blood of the author of Pickwick. There are, indeed, passages, particularly in connection with Mr. Pickwick in the debtor’s prison, which prove to us, looking back on a whole public career, that Dickens had been from the beginning bitter and inquisitive about the problem of our civilisation. No one could have imagined at the time that this bitterness ran in an unbroken river under all the surges of that superb gaiety and exuberance. With Oliver Twist this sterner side of Dickens was suddenly revealed. For the very first pages of Oliver Twist are stern even when they are funny. They amuse, but they cannot be enjoyed, as can the passages about the follies of Mr. Snodgrass or the humiliations of Mr. Winkle. The difference between the old easy humour and this new harsh humour is a difference not of degree but of kind. Dickens makes game of Mr. Bumble because he wants to kill Mr. Bumble; he made game of Mr. Winkle because he wanted him to live for ever. Dickens has taken the sword in hand; against what is he declaring war?

    It is just here that the greatness of Dickens comes in; it is just here that the difference lies between the pedant and the poet. Dickens enters the social and political war, and the first stroke he deals is not only significant but even startling. Fully to see this we must appreciate the national situation. It was an age of reform, and even of radical reform; the world was full of radicals and reformers; but only too many of them took the line of attacking everything and anything that was opposed to some particular theory among the many political theories that possessed the end of the eighteenth century. Some had so much perfected the perfect theory of republicanism that they almost lay awake at night because Queen Victoria had a crown on her head. Others were so certain that mankind had hitherto been merely strangled in the bonds of the State that they saw truth only in the destruction of tariffs or of by-laws. The greater part of that generation held that clearness, economy, and a hard common-sense, would soon destroy the errors that had been erected by the superstitions and sentimentalities of the past. In pursuance of this idea many of the new men of the new century, quite confident that they were invigorating the new age, sought to destroy the old sentimental clericalism, the old sentimental feudalism, the old-world belief in priests, the old-world belief in patrons, and among other things the old-world belief in beggars. They sought among other things to clear away the old visionary kindliness on the subject of vagrants. Hence those reformers enacted not only a new reform bill but also a new poor law. In creating many other modern things they created the modern workhouse, and when Dickens came out to fight it was the first thing that he broke with his battle-axe.

    This is where Dickens’s social revolt is of more value than mere politics and avoids the vulgarity of the novel with a purpose. His revolt is not a revolt of the commercialist against the feudalist, of the Nonconformist against the Churchman, of the Free-trader against the Protectionist, of the Liberal against the Tory. If he were among us now his revolt would not be the revolt of the Socialist against the Individualist, or of the Anarchist against the Socialist. His revolt was simply and solely the eternal revolt; it was the revolt of the weak against the strong. He did not dislike this or that argument for oppression; he disliked oppression. He disliked a certain look on the face of a man when he looks down on another man. And that look on the face is, indeed, the only thing in the world that we have really to fight between here and the fires of Hell. That which pedants of that time and this time would have called the sentimentalism of Dickens was really simply the detached sanity of Dickens. He cared nothing for the fugitive explanations of the Constitutional Conservatives; he cared nothing for the fugitive explanations of the Manchester School. He would have cared quite as little for the fugitive explanations of the Fabian Society or of the modern scientific Socialist. He saw that under many forms there was one fact, the tyranny of man over man; and he struck at it when he saw it, whether it was old or new. When he found that footmen and rustics were too much afraid of Sir Leicester Dedlock, he attacked Sir Leicester Dedlock; he did not care whether Sir Leicester Dedlock said he was attacking England or whether Mr. Rouncewell, the Ironmaster, said he was attacking an effete oligarchy. In that case he pleased Mr. Rouncewell, the Iron-master, and displeased Sir Leicester Dedlock, the Aristocrat. But when he found that Mr. Rouncewell’s workmen were much too frightened of Mr. Rouncewell, then he displeased Mr. Rouncewell in turn; he displeased Mr. Rouncewell very much by calling him Mr. Bounderby. When he imagined himself to be fighting old laws he gave a sort of vague and general approval to new laws. But when he came to the new laws they had a bad time. When Dickens found that after a hundred economic arguments and granting a hundred economic considerations, the fact remained that paupers in modern workhouses were much too afraid of the beadle, just as vassals in ancient castles were much too afraid of the Dedlocks, then he struck suddenly and at once. This is what makes the opening chapters of Oliver Twist so curious and important. The very fact of Dickens’s distance from, and independence of, the elaborate financial arguments of his time, makes more definite and dazzling his sudden assertion that he sees the old human tyranny in front of him as plain as the sun at noon-day. Dickens attacks the modern workhouse with a sort of inspired simplicity as of a boy in a fairy tale who had wandered about, sword in hand, looking for ogres and who had found an indisputable ogre. All the other people of his time are attacking things because they are bad economics or because they are bad politics, or because they are bad science; he alone is attacking things because they are bad. All the others are Radicals with a large R; he alone is radical with a small one. He encounters evil with that beautiful surprise which, as it is the beginning of all real pleasure, is also the beginning of all righteous indignation. He enters the workhouse just as Oliver Twist enters it, as a little child.

    This is the real power and pathos of that celebrated passage in the book which has passed into a proverb; but which has not lost its terrible humour even in being hackneyed. I mean, of course, the everlasting quotation about Oliver Twist asking for more. The real poignancy that there is in this idea is a very good study in that strong school of social criticism which Dickens represented. A modern realist describing the dreary workhouse would have made all the children utterly crushed, not daring to speak at all, not expecting anything, not hoping anything, past all possibility of affording even an ironical contrast or a protest of despair. A modern, in short, would have made all the boys in the workhouse pathetic by making them all pessimists. But Oliver Twist is not pathetic because he is a pessimist. Oliver Twist is pathetic because he is an optimist. The whole tragedy of that incident is in the fact that he does expect the universe to be kind to him, that he does believe that he is living in a just world. He comes before the Guardians as the ragged peasants of the French Revolution came before the Kings and Parliaments of Europe. That is to say, he comes, indeed, with gloomy experiences, but he comes with a happy philosophy. He knows that there are wrongs of man to be reviled; but he believes also that there are rights of man to be demanded. It has often been remarked as a singular fact that the French poor, who stand in historic tradition as typical of all the desperate men who have dragged down tyranny, were, as a matter of fact, by no means worse off than the poor of many other European countries before the Revolution. The truth is that the French were tragic because they were better off. The others had known the sorrowful experiences; but they alone had known the splendid expectation and the original claims. It was just here that Dickens was so true a child of them and of that happy theory so bitterly applied. They were the one oppressed people that simply asked for justice; they were the one Parish Boy who innocently asked for more.

    A Chapter from

    Appreciations and Criticisms of

    the Works of Charles Dickens, 1911

    OLIVER TWIST

    THE PARISH BOY'S PROGRESS

    CHAPTER I

    Treats of the Place where Oliver Twist was

    Born and of the Circumstances Attending his Birth

    Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.

    For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the literature of any age or country.

    Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse, is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred. The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration,—a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter. Now, if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time. There being nobody by, however, but a pauper old woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer; and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract; Oliver and Nature fought out the point between them. The result was, that, after a few struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise to the inmates of the workhouse the fact of a new burden having been imposed upon the parish, by setting up as loud a cry as could reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer space of time than three minutes and a quarter.

    As Oliver gave this first proof of the free and proper action of his lungs, the patchwork coverlet which was carelessly flung over the iron bedstead, rustled; the pale face of a young woman was raised feebly from the pillow; and a faint voice imperfectly articulated the words, 'Let me see the child, and die.'

    The surgeon had been sitting with his face turned towards the fire: giving the palms of his hands a warm and a rub alternately. As the young woman spoke, he rose, and advancing to the bed's head, said, with more kindness than might have been expected of him:

    'Oh, you must not talk about dying yet.'

    'Lor bless her dear heart, no!' interposed the nurse, hastily depositing in her pocket a green glass bottle, the contents of which she had been tasting in a corner with evident satisfaction.

    'Lor bless her dear heart, when she has lived as long as I have, sir, and had thirteen children of her own, and all on 'em dead except two, and them in the wurkus with me, she'll know better than to take on in that way, bless her dear heart! Think what it is to be a mother, there's a dear young lamb do.'

    Apparently this consolatory perspective of a mother's prospects failed in producing its due effect. The patient shook her head, and stretched out her hand towards the child.

    The surgeon deposited it in her arms. She imprinted her cold white lips passionately on its forehead; passed her hands over her face; gazed wildly round; shuddered; fell back—and died. They chafed her breast, hands, and temples; but the blood had stopped forever. They talked of hope and comfort. They had been strangers too long.

    'It's all over, Mrs. Thingummy!' said the surgeon at last.

    'Ah, poor dear, so it is!' said the nurse, picking up the cork of the green bottle, which had fallen out on the pillow, as she stooped to take up the child. 'Poor dear!'

    'You needn't mind sending up to me, if the child cries, nurse,' said the surgeon, putting on his gloves with great deliberation. 'It's very likely it will be troublesome. Give it a little gruel if it is.' He put on his hat, and, pausing by the bed-side on his way to the door, added, 'She was a good-looking girl, too; where did she come from?'

    'She was brought here last night,' replied the old woman, 'by the overseer's order. She was found lying in the street. She had walked some distance, for her shoes were worn to pieces; but where she came from, or where she was going to, nobody knows.'

    The surgeon leaned over the body, and raised the left hand. 'The old story,' he said, shaking his head: 'no wedding-ring, I see. Ah! Good-night!'

    The medical gentleman walked away to dinner; and the nurse, having once more applied herself to the green bottle, sat down on a low chair before the fire, and proceeded to dress the infant.

    What an excellent example of the power of dress, young Oliver Twist was! Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar; it would have been hard for the haughtiest stranger to have assigned him his proper station in society. But now that he was enveloped in the old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once—a parish child—the orphan of a workhouse—the humble, half-starved drudge—to be cuffed and buffeted through the world—despised by all, and pitied by none.

    Oliver cried lustily. If he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of church-wardens and overseers, perhaps he would have cried the louder.

    CHAPTER II

    Treats of Oliver Twist's Growth, Education, and Board

    For the next eight or ten months, Oliver was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception. He was brought up by hand. The hungry and destitute situation of the infant orphan was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities. The parish authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities, whether there was no female then domiciled in 'the house' who was in a situation to impart to Oliver Twist, the consolation and nourishment of which he stood in need. The workhouse authorities replied with humility, that there was not. Upon this, the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved, that Oliver should be 'farmed,' or, in other words, that he should be dispatched to a branch-workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and for the consideration of sevenpence-halfpenny per small head per week. Sevenpence-halfpenny's worth per week is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got for sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable. The elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself. So, she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them. Thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper still; and proving herself a very great experimental philosopher.

    Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who had a great theory about a horse being able to live without eating, and who demonstrated it so well, that he had got his own horse down to a straw a day, and would unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty hours before he was to have had his first comfortable bait of air. Unfortunately for, the experimental philosophy of the female to whose protecting care Oliver Twist was delivered over, a similar result usually attended the operation of her system; for at the very moment when the child had contrived to exist upon the smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned into another world, and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this.

    Occasionally, when there was some more than usually interesting inquest upon a parish child who had been overlooked in turning up a bedstead, or inadvertently scalded to death when there happened to be a washing—though the latter accident was very scarce, anything approaching to a washing being of rare occurrence in the farm—the jury would take it into their heads to ask troublesome questions, or the parishioners would rebelliously affix their signatures to a remonstrance. But these impertinences were speedily checked by the evidence of the surgeon, and the testimony of the beadle; the former of whom had always opened the body and found nothing inside (which was very probable indeed), and the latter of whom invariably swore whatever the parish wanted; which was very self-devotional. Besides, the board made periodical pilgrimages to the farm, and always sent the beadle the day before, to say they were going. The children were neat and clean to behold, when they went; and what more would the people have!

    It cannot be expected that this system of farming would produce any very extraordinary or luxuriant crop. Oliver Twist's ninth birthday found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference. But nature or inheritance had implanted a good sturdy spirit in Oliver's breast. It had had plenty of room to expand, thanks to the spare diet of the establishment; and perhaps to this circumstance may be attributed his having any ninth birth-day at all. Be this as it may, however, it was his ninth birthday; and he was keeping it in the coal-cellar with a select party of two other young gentleman, who, after participating with him in a sound thrashing, had been locked up for atrociously presuming to be hungry, when Mrs. Mann, the good lady of the house, was unexpectedly startled by the apparition of Mr. Bumble, the beadle, striving to undo the wicket of the garden-gate.

    'Goodness gracious! Is that you, Mr. Bumble, sir?' said Mrs. Mann, thrusting her head out of the window in well-affected ecstasies of joy. '(Susan, take Oliver and them two brats upstairs, and wash 'em directly.)—My heart alive! Mr. Bumble, how glad I am to see you, sure-ly!'

    Now, Mr. Bumble was a fat man, and a choleric; so, instead of responding to this open-hearted salutation in a kindred spirit, he gave the little wicket a tremendous shake, and then bestowed upon it a kick which could have emanated from no leg but a beadle's.

    'Lor, only think,' said Mrs. Mann, running out,—for the three boys had been removed by this time,—'only think of that! That I should have forgotten that the gate was bolted on the inside, on account of them dear children! Walk in sir; walk in, pray, Mr. Bumble, do, sir.'

    Although this invitation was accompanied with a curtsey that might have softened the heart of a church-warden, it by no means mollified the beadle.

    'Do you think this respectful or proper conduct, Mrs. Mann,' inquired Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane, 'to keep the parish officers a waiting at your garden-gate, when they come here upon porochial business with the porochial orphans? Are you aweer, Mrs. Mann, that you are, as I may say, a porochial delegate, and a stipendiary?'

    'I'm sure Mr. Bumble, that I was only a telling one or two of the dear children as is so fond of you, that it was you a coming,' replied Mrs. Mann with great humility.

    Mr. Bumble had a great idea of his oratorical powers and his importance. He had displayed the one, and vindicated the other. He relaxed.

    'Well, well, Mrs. Mann,' he replied in a calmer tone; 'it may be as you say; it may be. Lead the way in, Mrs. Mann, for I come on business, and have something to say.'

    Mrs. Mann ushered the beadle into a small parlour with a brick floor; placed a seat for him; and officiously deposited his cocked hat and cane on the table before him. Mr. Bumble wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his walk had engendered, glanced complacently at the cocked hat, and smiled. Yes, he smiled. Beadles are but men: and Mr. Bumble smiled.

    'Now don't you be offended at what I'm a going to say,' observed Mrs. Mann, with captivating sweetness. 'You've had a long walk, you know, or I wouldn't mention it. Now, will you take a little drop of somethink, Mr. Bumble?'

    'Not a drop. Nor a drop,' said Mr. Bumble, waving his right hand in a dignified, but placid manner.

    'I think you will,' said Mrs. Mann, who had noticed the tone of the refusal, and the gesture that had accompanied it. 'Just a leetle drop, with a little cold water, and a lump of sugar.'

    Mr. Bumble coughed.

    'Now, just a leetle drop,' said Mrs. Mann persuasively.

    'What is it?' inquired the beadle.

    'Why, it's what I'm obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants' Daffy, when they ain't well, Mr. Bumble,' replied Mrs. Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a bottle and glass. 'It's gin. I'll not deceive you, Mr. B. It's gin.'

    'Do you give the children Daffy, Mrs. Mann?' inquired Bumble, following with his eyes the interesting process of mixing.

    'Ah, bless 'em, that I do, dear as it is,' replied the nurse. 'I couldn't see 'em suffer before my very eyes, you know sir.'

    'No'; said Mr. Bumble approvingly; 'no, you could not. You are a humane woman, Mrs. Mann.' (Here she set down the glass.) 'I shall take a early opportunity of mentioning it to the board, Mrs. Mann.' (He drew it towards him.) 'You feel as a mother, Mrs. Mann.' (He stirred the gin-and-water.) 'I—I drink your health with cheerfulness, Mrs. Mann'; and he swallowed half of it.

    'And now about business,' said the beadle, taking out a leathern pocket-book. 'The child that was half-baptized Oliver Twist, is nine year old to-day.'

    'Bless him!' interposed Mrs. Mann, inflaming her left eye with the corner of her apron.

    'And notwithstanding a offered reward of ten pound, which was afterwards increased to twenty pound. Notwithstanding the most superlative, and, I may say, supernat'ral exertions on the part of this parish,' said Bumble, 'we have never been able to discover who is his father, or what was his mother's settlement, name, or condition.'

    Mrs. Mann raised her hands in astonishment; but added, after a moment's reflection, 'How comes he to have any name at all, then?'

    The beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, 'I inwented it.'

    'You, Mr. Bumble!'

    'I, Mrs. Mann. We name our fondlings in alphabetical order. The last was a S,—Swubble, I named him. This was a T,—Twist, I named him. The next one comes will be Unwin, and the next Vilkins. I have got names ready made to the end of the alphabet, and all the way through it again, when we come to Z.'

    'Why, you're quite a literary character, sir!' said Mrs. Mann.

    'Well, well,' said the beadle, evidently gratified with the compliment; 'perhaps I may be. Perhaps I may be, Mrs. Mann.' He finished the gin-and-water, and added, 'Oliver being now too old to remain here, the board have determined to have him back into the house. I have come out myself to take him there. So let me see him at once.'

    'I'll fetch him directly,' said Mrs. Mann, leaving the room for that purpose. Oliver, having had by this time as much of the outer coat of dirt which encrusted his face and hands, removed, as could be scrubbed off in one washing, was led into the room by his benevolent protectress.

    'Make a bow to the gentleman, Oliver,' said Mrs. Mann.

    Oliver made a bow, which was divided between the beadle on the chair, and the cocked hat on the table.

    'Will you go along with me, Oliver?' said Mr. Bumble, in a majestic voice.

    Oliver was about to say that he would go along with anybody with great readiness, when, glancing upward, he caught sight of Mrs. Mann, who had got behind the beadle's chair, and was shaking her fist at him with a furious countenance. He took the hint at once, for the fist had been too often impressed upon his body not to be deeply impressed upon his recollection.

    'Will she go with me?' inquired poor Oliver.

    'No, she can't,' replied Mr. Bumble. 'But she'll come and see you sometimes.'

    This was no very great consolation to the child. Young as he was, however, he had sense enough to make a feint of feeling great regret at going away. It was no very difficult matter for the boy to call tears into his eyes. Hunger and recent ill-usage are great assistants if you want to cry; and Oliver cried very naturally indeed. Mrs. Mann gave him a thousand embraces, and what Oliver wanted a great deal more, a piece of bread and butter, less he should seem too hungry when he got to the workhouse. With the slice of bread in his hand, and the little brown-cloth parish cap on his head, Oliver was then led away by Mr. Bumble from the wretched home where one kind word or look had never lighted the gloom of his infant years. And yet he burst into an agony of childish grief, as the cottage-gate closed after him. Wretched as were the little companions in misery he was leaving behind, they were the only friends he had ever known; and a sense of his loneliness in the great wide world, sank into the child's heart for the first time.

    Mr. Bumble walked on with long strides; little Oliver, firmly grasping his gold-laced cuff, trotted beside him, inquiring at the end of every quarter of a mile whether they were 'nearly there.' To these interrogations Mr. Bumble returned very brief and snappish replies; for the temporary blandness which gin-and-water awakens in some bosoms had by this time evaporated; and he was once again a beadle.

    Oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter of an hour, and had scarcely completed the demolition of a second slice of bread, when Mr. Bumble, who had handed him over to the care of an old woman, returned; and, telling him it was a board night, informed him that the board had said he was to appear before it forthwith.

    Not having a very clearly defined notion of what a live board was, Oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence, and was not quite certain whether he ought to laugh or cry. He had no time to think about the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a tap on the head, with his cane, to wake him up: and another on the back to make him lively: and bidding him to follow, conducted him into a large white-washed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table. At the top of the table, seated in an arm-chair rather higher than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round, red face.

    'Bow to the board,' said Bumble. Oliver brushed away two or three tears that were lingering in his eyes; and seeing no board but the table, fortunately bowed to that.

    'What's your name, boy?' said the gentleman in the high chair.

    Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which made him tremble: and the beadle gave him another tap behind, which made him cry. These two causes made him answer in a very low and hesitating voice; whereupon a gentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a fool. Which was a capital way of raising his spirits, and putting him quite at his ease.

    'Boy,' said the gentleman in the high chair, 'listen to me. You know you're an orphan, I suppose?'

    'What's that, sir?' inquired poor Oliver.

    'The boy is a fool—I thought he was,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

    'Hush!' said the gentleman who had spoken first. 'You know you've got no father or mother, and that you were brought up by the parish, don't you?'

    'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, weeping bitterly.

    'What are you crying for?' inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat. And to be sure it was very extraordinary. What could the boy be crying for?

    'I hope you say your prayers every night,' said another gentleman in a gruff voice; 'and pray for the people who feed you, and take care of you—like a Christian.'

    'Yes, sir,' stammered the boy. The gentleman who spoke last was unconsciously right. It would have been very like a Christian, and a marvellously good Christian too, if Oliver had prayed for the people who fed and took care of him. But he hadn't, because nobody had taught him.

    'Well! You have come here to be educated, and taught a useful trade,' said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair.

    'So you'll begin to pick oakum to-morrow morning at six o'clock,' added the surly one in the white waistcoat.

    For the combination of both these blessings in the one simple process of picking oakum, Oliver bowed low by the direction of the beadle, and was then hurried away to a large ward; where, on a rough, hard bed, he sobbed himself to sleep. What a novel illustration of the tender laws of England! They let the paupers go to sleep!

    Poor Oliver! He little thought, as he lay sleeping in happy unconsciousness of all around him, that the board had that very day arrived at a decision which would exercise the most material influence over all his future fortunes. But they had. And this was it:

    The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered—the poor people liked it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work. 'Oho!' said the board, looking very knowing; 'we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all, in no time.' So, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll of Sundays. They made a great many other wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; kindly undertook to divorce poor married people, in consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctors' Commons; and, instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor! There is no saying how many applicants for relief, under these last two heads, might have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the workhouse; but the board were long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty. The relief was inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened people.

    For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed, the system was in full operation. It was rather expensive at first, in consequence of the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two's gruel. But the number of workhouse inmates got thin as well as the paupers; and the board were in ecstasies.

    The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at mealtimes. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more—except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.

    The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appetites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. He had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed him. A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.

    The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbors nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:

    'Please, sir, I want some more.'

    The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.

    'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.

    'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'

    The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the

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