"When the poor are incapable of contributing any longer to their own support, they are removed to what is called the workhouse. I cannot express to you the feelings of hopelessness and dread with which all the decent poor look on to this wretched termination of a life of labour. To this place all vagrants are sent for punishment; unmarried women with child go here to be delivered; and poor orphans and base-born children are brought up here until they are of age to be apprenticed off; the other inmates are of those unhappy people who are utterly helpless, parish idiots and madmen, the blind and the palsied, and the old who are fairly worn out. It is not in the nature of things that the superintendents of such institutions as these should be gentle-hearted, when the superintendence is undertaken merely for the sake of the salary. To this society of wretchedness the labouring poor of England look as their last resting-place on this side of the grave; and, rather than enter abodes so miserable, they endure the severest privations as long as it is possible to exist. A feeling of honest pride makes them shrink from a place where guilt and poverty are confounded; and it is heart-breaking for those who have reared a family of their own to be subjected, in their old age, to the harsh and unfeeling authority of persons younger than themselves, neither better born nor better bred."

"Two persons, man and wife, of very advanced years, were at last, through the infirmities consequent on old age, rendered incapable of providing for themselves. Their friends were like themselves, poor; but, so long as they could, they afforded them all the assistance in their power. The infirmities of the aged couple became greater and greater; so, as a necessary consequence, did their wants. The guardians of the poor—their parish being under the operation of the new measure—refused to afford them the slightest relief. What was to be done? They had no alternative but starvation and the workhouse. To have gone to the workhouse, even had they been permitted to live together, could have been painful enough to their feelings; but to go there to be separated from each other, was a thought at which their hearts sickened. They had been married for nearly half a century; and during all that time had lived in the greatest harmony together. I am speaking the language of unexaggerated truth when I say, that their affection for each other increased, instead of suffering diminution, as they advanced in years. A purer or stronger attachment than theirs has never, perhaps, existed in a world in which there is so much of mutability as in ours. Many were the joys and many were the sorrows which they had equally shared with each other. Their joys were increased, because participated in by both: their sorrows were lessened, because of the consolations they assiduously administered to each other when the dispensations of Providence assumed a lowering aspect. The reverses they had experienced, in the course of their long and eventful union, had only served to attach them the more strongly to each other, just as the tempestuous blast only serves to cause the oak to strike its roots more deeply in the earth. With minds originally constituted alike, and that constitution being based on a virtuous foundation, it was, indeed, to be expected that the lapse of years would only tend to strengthen their attachment. Nothing, in a word, could have exceeded the ardour of their sympathy with each other. The only happiness which this world could afford them was derived from the circumstance of being in each other's company; and the one looked forward to the possibility of being left alone, when the other was snatched away by death, with feelings of the deepest pain and apprehension. Their wish was, in subordination to the will of the Supreme Being, that as they had been so long united in life, so in death they might not be divided. Their wish was in one sense realized, though not in the sense they had desired. The pressure of want, aggravated by the increasing infirmities of the female, imposed on her the necessity of repairing to the workhouse. The husband would most willingly have followed, had they been permitted to live together when there, in the hope that they should, even in that miserable place, be able to assuage each other's griefs, as they had so often done before. That was a permission, however, which was not to be granted to them. The husband therefore determined that he would live on a morsel of bread and a draught of cold water, where he was, rather than submit to the degradation of a workhouse, in which he would be separated from her who had been the partner of his joys and griefs for upward of half a century. The hour of parting came; and a sad and sorrowful hour it was to the aged couple. Who shall describe their feelings on the occasion? Who can even enter into those feelings? No one. They could only be conceived by themselves. The process of separation was as full of anguish to their mental nature as is the severance of a limb from the body to the physical constitution. And that separation was aggravated by the circumstance, that both felt a presentiment, so strong as to have all the force of a thorough conviction, that their separation was to be final as regarded this world. What, then, must have been the agonies of the parting hour in the case of a couple whose mental powers were still unimpaired, and who had lived in the most perfect harmony for the protracted period of fifty years? They were, I repeat, not only such as admit of no description, but no one, who has not been similarly circumstanced, can even form an idea of them. The downcast look, the tender glances they emitted to each other, the swimming eye, the moist cheek, the deep-drawn sigh, the choked utterance, the affectionate embrace—all told, in the language of resistless eloquence, of the anguish caused by their separation. The scene was affecting in the extreme, even to the mere spectator. It was one which must have softened the hardest heart, as it drew tears from every eye which witnessed it; what, then, must the actual realization of it in all its power have been to the parties themselves? The separation did take place; the poor woman was wrenched from the almost death-like grasp of her husband. She was transferred to the workhouse; and he was left alone in the miserable hovel in which they had so long remained together. And what followed? What followed! That may be soon told: it is a short history. The former pined away, and died in three weeks after the separation; and the husband only survived three weeks more. Their parting was thus but for a short time, though final as regarded this world. Ere six weeks had elapsed they again met together—

"An instance occurred a few months since in a workhouse in the suburbs of the metropolis, in which intelligence was accidentally conveyed to a daughter that her father was on his death-bed; she hurried that moment to the workhouse, but was refused admission. With tears in her eyes, and a heart that was ready to break, she pleaded the urgency of the case. The functionary was deaf to her entreaties; as soon might she have addressed them to the brick wall before her. His answer was, 'It is contrary to the regulations of the place; come again at a certain hour,' She applied to the medical gentleman who attended the workhouse, and through his exertions obtained admission. She flew to the ward in which her father was confined: he lay cold, motionless, and unconscious before her—his spirit was gone; he had breathed his last five minutes before. Well may we exclaim, when we hear of such things, 'Do we live in a Christian country? Is this a civilized land?'"

"What is that defective being, with calfless legs and stooping shoulders, weak in body and mind, inert, pusillanimous and stupid, whose premature wrinkles and furtive glance tell of misery and degradation? That is an English peasant or pauper; for the words are synonymous. His sire was a pauper, and his mother's milk wanted nourishment. From infancy his food has been bad, as well as insufficient; and he now feels the pains of unsatisfied hunger nearly whenever he is awake. But half-clothed, and never supplied with more warmth than suffices to cook his scanty meals, cold and wet come to him, and stay by him, with the weather. He is married, of course; for to this he would have been driven by the poor-laws, even if he had been, as he never was, sufficiently comfortable and prudent to dread the burden of a family. But, though instinct and the overseer have given him a wife, he has not tasted the highest joys of husband and father. His partner and his little ones being, like himself, often hungry, seldom warm, sometimes sick without aid, and always sorrowful without hope, are greedy, selfish, and vexing; so, to use his own expression, he 'hates the sight of them,' and resorts to his hovel only because a hedge affords less shelter from the wind and rain. Compelled by parish law to support his family, which means to join them in consuming an allowance from the parish, he frequently conspires with his wife to get that allowance increased, or prevent its being diminished. This brings begging, trickery, and quarrelling; and ends in settled craft. Though he has the inclination he wants the courage to become, like more energetic men of his class, a poacher or smuggler on a large scale; but he pilfers occasionally, and teaches his children to lie and steal. His subdued and slavish manner toward his great neighbours shows that they treat him with suspicion and harshness. Consequently he at once dreads and hates them; but he will never harm them by violent means. Too degraded to be desperate, he is only thoroughly depraved. His miserable career will be short; rheumatism and asthma are conducting him to the workhouse, where he will breathe his last without one pleasant recollection, and so make room for another wretch, who may live and die in the same way. This is a sample of one class of English peasants. Another class is composed of men who, though paupers to the extent of being in part supported by the parish, were not bred and born in extreme destitution, and who, therefore, in so far as the moral depends on the physical man, are qualified to become wise, virtuous, and happy. They have large muscles, an upright mien, and a quick perception. With strength, energy, and skill, they would earn a comfortable subsistence as labourers, if the modern fashion of paying wages out of the poor-box did not interfere with the due course of things, and reduce all the labourers of a parish, the old and the young, the weak and the strong, the idle and the industrious, to that lowest rate of wages, or rather of weekly payment to each, which, in each case, is barely sufficient for the support of life. If there were no poor-laws, or if the poor-laws were such that labour was paid in proportion to the work performed, and not according to a scale founded on the power of gastric juice under various circumstances, these superior men would be employed in preference to the inferior beings described above, would earn twice as much as the others could earn, and would have every motive for industry, providence, and general good conduct. As it is, their superior capacity as labourers is of no advantage to them. They have no motive for being industrious or prudent. What they obtain between labour and the rate is but just enough to support them miserably. They are tempted to marry for the sake of an extra allowance from the parish: and they would be sunk to the lowest point of degradation but for the energy of their minds, which they owe to their physical strength. Courage and tenderness are said to be allied: men of this class usually make good husbands and affectionate parents. Impelled by want of food, clothes, and warmth, for themselves and their families, they become poachers wherever game abounds, and smugglers when opportunity serves. By poaching or smuggling, or both, many of them are enabled to fill the bellies of their children, to put decent clothes on the backs of their wives, and to keep the cottage whole, with a good fire in it, from year's end to year's end. The villains! why are they not taken up? They are taken up sometimes, and are hunted always, by those who administer rural law. In this way they learn to consider two sets of laws—those for the protection of game, and those for the protection of home manufactures—as specially made for their injury. Be just to our unpaid magistrates! who perform their duty, even to the shedding of man's blood, in defence of pheasants and restrictions on trade. Thus the bolder sort of husbandry labourers, by engaging in murderous conflicts with gamekeepers and preventive men, become accustomed to deeds of violence, and, by living in jails, qualified for the most desperate courses. They also imbibe feelings of dislike, or rather of bitter hatred, toward the rural magistracy, whom they regard as oppressors and natural enemies; closely resembling, in this respect, the defective class of peasants from whom they differ in so many particulars. Between these two descriptions of peasantry there is another, which partakes of the characteristics of both classes, but in a slighter degree, except as regards their fear and hatred of the rural aristocracy. In the districts where paupers and game abound, it would be difficult to find many labourers not coming under one of these descriptions. By courtesy, the entire body is called the bold peasantry of England. But is nothing done by the 'nobility, clergy, and gentry,' to conciliate the affection of the pauper mass, by whose toil all their own wealth is produced? Charity! The charity of the poor-laws, which paupers have been taught to consider a right, which operates as a curse to the able-bodied and well-disposed, while it but just enables the infirm of all ages to linger on in pain and sorrow. Soup! Dogs'-meat, the paupers call it. They are very ungrateful; but there is a way of relieving a man's necessities which will make him hate you; and it is in this way, generally, that soup is given to the poor. Books, good little books, which teach patience and submission to the powers that be! With which such paupers as obtain them usually boil their kettles, when not deterred by fear of the reverend donor. Of this gift the design is so plain and offensive, that its effect is contrary to what was intended, just as children from whom obedience is very strictly exacted are commonly rebels at heart. What else? is nothing else done by the rural rich to win the love of the rural poor? Speaking generally, since all rules have exceptions, the privileged classes of our rural districts take infinite pains to be abhorred by their poorest neighbours. They enclose commons. They stop footpaths. They wall in their parks. They set spring-guns and man-traps. They spend on the keep of high-bred dogs what would support half as many children, and yet persecute a labouring man for owning one friend in his cur. They make rates of wages, elaborately calculating the minimum of food that will keep together the soul and body of a clodhopper. They breed game in profusion for their own amusement, and having thus tempted the poor man to knock down a hare for his pot, they send him to the treadmill, or the antipodes, for that inexpiable offence. They build jails, and fill them. They make new crimes and new punishments for the poor. They interfere with the marriages of the poor, compelling some, and forbidding others, to come together. They shut up paupers in workhouses, separating husband and wife, in pounds by day and wards by night. They harness poor men to carts. They superintend alehouses, decry skittles, deprecate beer-shops, meddle with fairs, and otherwise curtail the already narrow amusements of the poor. Even in church, where some of them solemnly preach that all are equal, they sit on cushions, in pews boarded, matted, and sheltered by curtains from the wind and the vulgar gaze, while the lower order must put up with a bare bench on a stone floor, which is good enough for them. Everywhere they are ostentatious in the display of wealth and enjoyment; while, in their intercourse with the poor, they are suspicious, quick at taking offence, vindictive when displeased, haughty, overbearing, tyrannical, and wolfish; as it seems in the nature of man to be toward such of his fellows as, like sheep, are without the power to resist."

"If pauperism be a disgrace, then it is unjust to turn a man into the public thoroughfare, wearing the badge of beggary, to be pointed at and scorned for his poverty, especially when we are growing so particularly studious of our criminals that we make them wear masks to prevent even their faces being seen.[91] Nor is it consistent with the principles of an enlightened national morality that we should force a body of honest men to labour upon the highways, branded with a degrading garb, like convicts. Neither is it wise to do so, for the shame of poverty soon becomes deadened by the repeated exposure to public scorn; and thus the occasional recipient of parish relief is ultimately converted into the hardened and habitual pauper. "Once a pauper always a pauper," I was assured was the parish rule; and here lies the rationale of the fact. Not long ago this system of employing badged paupers to labour on the public thoroughfares was carried to a much more offensive extent than it is even at present. At one time the pauper labourers of a certain parish had the attention of every passer-by attracted to them while at their work, for on the back of each man's garb—a sort of smock frock—was marked, with sufficient prominence, 'Clerkenwell. Stop it!' This public intimation that the labourers were not only paupers, but regarded as thieves, and expected to purloin the parish dress they wore, attracted public attention, and was severely commented upon at a meeting. The 'Stop it!' therefore was cancelled, and the frocks are now merely lettered 'Clerkenwell.' Before the alteration the men very generally wore the garment inside out."

"'Street-sweeping,' he said, 'degrades a man, and if a man's poor he hasn't no call to be degraded. Why can't they set the thieves and pickpockets to sweep? they could be watched easy enough; there's always idle fellers as reckons theirselves real gents, as can be got for watching and sitch easy jobs, for they gets as much for them as three men's paid for hard work in a week. I never was in a prison, but I've heerd that people there is better fed and better cared for than in workusses. What's the meaning of that, sir, I'd like to know. You can't tell me, but I can tell you. The workus is made as ugly as it can be, that poor people may be got to leave it, and chance dying in the street rather.' [Here the man indulged in a gabbled detail of a series of pauper grievances which I had a difficulty in diverting or interrupting. On my asking if the other paupers had the same opinion as to the street-sweeping as he had, he replied:—] 'To be sure they has; all them that has sense to have a 'pinion at all has; there's not two sides to it anyhow. No, I don't want to be kept and do nothink. I want proper work. And by the rights of it I might as well be kept with nothink to do as —— or ——' [parish officials]. 'Have they nothing to do?' I asked. 'Nothink, but to make mischief and get what ought to go to the poor. It's salaries and such like as swallers the rates, and that's what every poor family knows as knows any think. Did I ever like my work better? Certainly not. Do I take any pains with it? Well, where would be the good? I can sweep well enough, when I please, but if I could do more than the best man as ever Mr. Drake paid a pound a week to, it wouldn't be a bit better for me—not a bit, sir, I assure you. We all takes it easy whenever we can, but the work must be done. The only good about it is that you get outside the house. It's a change that way certainly. But we work like horses and is treated like asses.'"

"'I was brought up as a type-founder; my father, who was one, learnt me his trade; but he died when I was quite a young man, or I might have been better perfected in it. I was comfortably off enough then, and got married. Very soon after that I was taken ill with an abscess in my neck, you can see the mark of it still,' [He showed me the mark.] 'For six months I wasn't able to do a thing, and I was a part of the time, I don't recollect how long, in St. Bartholomew's Hospital. I was weak and ill when I came out, and hardly fit for work; I couldn't hear of any work I could get, for there was a great bother in the trade between master and men. Before I went into the hospital, there was money to pay to doctors; and when I came out I could earn nothing, so every thing went; yes, sir, every thing. My wife made a little matter with charing for families she'd lived in, but things are in a bad way if a poor woman has to keep her husband. She was taken ill at last, and then there was nothing but the parish for us. I suffered a great deal before it come to that. It was awful. No one can know what it is but them that suffers it. But I didn't know what in the world to do. We lived then in St. Luke's, and were passed to our own parish, and were three months in the workhouse. The living was good enough, better than it is now, I've heard, but I was miserable.' ['And I was very miserable,' interposed the wife, 'for I had been brought up comfortable; my father was a respectable tradesman in St. George's-in-the-East, and I had been in good situations.'] 'We made ourselves,' said the husband, 'as useful as we could, but we were parted of course. At the three months' end, I had 10s. given to me to come out with, and was told I might start costermongering on it. But to a man not up to the trade, 10s. won't go very far to keep up costering. I didn't feel master enough of my own trade by this time to try for work at it, and work wasn't at all regular. There were good hands earning only 12s. a week. The 10s. soon went, and I had again to apply for relief, and got an order for the stone-yard to go and break stones. Ten bushels was to be broken for 15d. It was dreadful hard work at first. My hands got all blistered and bloody, and I've gone home and cried with pain and wretchedness. At first it was on to three days before I could break the ten bushels. I felt shivered to bits all over my arms and shoulders, and my head was splitting. I then got to do it in two days, and then in one, and it grew easier. But all this time I had only what was reckoned three days' work in a week. That is, you see, sir, I had only three times ten bushels of stones given to break in a week, and earned only 3s. 9d. Yes, I lived on it, and paid 1s. 6d. a week rent, for the neighbours took care of a few sticks for us, and the parish or a broker wouldn't have found them worth carriage. My wife was then in the country with a sister. I lived upon bread and dripping, went without fire or candle (or had one only very seldom) though it wasn't warm weather. I can safely say that for eight weeks I never tasted one bite of meat, and hardly a bite of butter. When I couldn't sleep of a night, but that wasn't often, it was terrible, very. I washed what bits of things I had then, myself, and had sometimes to get a ha'porth of soap as a favour, as the chandler said she 'didn't make less than a penn'orth.' If I ate too much dripping, it made me feel sick. I hardly know how much bread and dripping I ate in a week. I spent what money I had in it and bread, and sometimes went without. I was very weak, you may be sure, sir; and if I'd had the influenza or any thing that way, I should have gone off like a shot, for I seemed to have no constitution left. But my wife came back again and got work at charing, and made about 4s. a week at it; but we were still very badly off. Then I got to work on the roads every day, and had 1s. and a quartern loaf a day, which was a rise. I had only one child then, but men with larger families got two quartern loaves a day. Single men got 9d. a day. It was far easier work than stone-breaking too. The hours were from eight to five in winter, and from seven to six in summer. But there's always changes going on, and we were put on 1s. 1½d. a day and a quartern loaf, and only three days a week. All the same as to time of course. The bread wasn't good; it was only cheap. I suppose there was twenty of us working most of the times as I was. The gangsman, as you call him, but that's more for the regular hands, was a servant of the parish, and a great tyrant. Yes, indeed, when we had a talk among ourselves, there was nothing but grumbling heard of. Some of the tales I've heard were shocking; worse than what I've gone through. Everybody was grumbling, except perhaps two men that had been twenty years in the streets, and were like born paupers. They didn't feel it, for there's a great difference in men. They knew no better. But anybody might have been frightened to hear some of the men talk and curse. We've stopped work to abuse the parish officers as might be passing. We've mobbed the overseers; and a number of us, I was one, were taken before the magistrate for it: but we told him how badly we were off, and he discharged us, and gave us orders into the workhouse, and told 'em to see if nothing could be done for us. We were there till next morning, and then sent away without any thing being said.'"

"'It's a sad life, sir, is a parish worker's. I wish to God I could get out of it. But when a man has children he can't stop and say, "I can't do this," and "I won't do that." Last week, now, in costering, I lost 6s. [he meant that his expenses, of every kind, exceeded his receipts by 6s.,] and though I can distil nectar, or any thing that way, [this was said somewhat laughingly,] it's only when the weather's hot and fine that any good at all can be done with it. I think, too, that there's not the money among working-men that there once was. Any thing regular in the way of pay must always be looked at by a man with a family.

"'Of course the streets must be properly swept, and if I can sweep them as well as Mr. Dodd's men, for I know one of them very well, why should I have only 1s. 4½d. a week and three loaves, and he have 16s., I think it is. I don't drink, my wife knows I don't, [the wife assented,] and it seems as if in a parish a man must be kept down when he is down, and then blamed for it. I may not understand all about it, but it looks queer."'

"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 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 his back to make him lively, and, bidding him follow, conducted him into a large whitewashed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table, at the top of which, seated in an armchair 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; and 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 spirit, 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 in a very decided tone. If one member of a class be blessed with an intuitive perception of others of the same race, the gentleman in the white waistcoat was unquestionably well qualified to pronounce an opinion on the matter.

"'Hush!' said the gentleman who had spoken first. 'You know you've got no father or mother, and that you are 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 he 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 noble illustration of the tender laws of this favoured country! 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 oat-meal: and issued three meals of thin gruel a-day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on 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 telling how many applicants for relief under these last two heads would not have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the workhouse. But they were long-headed men, and they had provided for this difficulty. The relief was inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened people.

"For the first three 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 meal-times; of which composition each boy had one porringer, and no more,—except on festive occasions, and then 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 devour 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's shop,) hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he should some night 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, and the boys whispered to 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, basin and spoon in hand, to the master, 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 paralyzed with wonder, and 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 arms, 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.