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 experimentalphilosopher.

Everybody knows the story of another experimentalphilosopher 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 experimenal 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 occurance 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 decidely 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 can 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 this 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 con--dition.'

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 nver 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 festivecomposition 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 neighbours 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 stupified 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 ladle; pinioned

him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed

into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman

in the high chair, said,

'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked

for more!'

There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every

countenance.

'For MORE!' said Mr. Limbkins. 'Compose yourself, Bumble, and

answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more,

after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?'

'He did, sir,' replied Bumble.

'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white

waistcoat. 'I know that boy will be hung.'

Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An

animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant

confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of

the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would

take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words,

five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who

wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.

'I never was more convinced of anything in my life,' said the

gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and

read the bill next morning: 'I never was more convinced of

anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be

hung.'

As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white waistcoated

gentleman was right or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of

this narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if I

ventured to hint just yet, whether the life of Oliver Twist had

this violent termination or no.
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