"The Adventures of Oliver Twist," published serially in
"Bentley's Miscellany," 1837-39, and in book form in 1838, was
the second of Dickens's novels. It lacks the exuberance of
"Pickwick," and is more limited in its scenes and characters
than any other novel he wrote, excepting "Hard Times" and
"Great Expectations." But the description of the workhouse,
its inmates and governors, is done in Dickens's best style,
and was a frontal attack on the Poor Law administration of the
time. Bumble, indeed, has passed into common use as the
typical workhouse official of the least satisfactory sort. No
less powerful than the picture of Oliver's wretched childhood
is the description of the thieves' kitchen, presided over by
Fagin. Bill Sikes and the Artful Dodger are household words
for criminals, and the character of Fagin is drawn with
wonderful skill in this terrible view of the underworld of
London.
_I.--The Parish Boy_
Oliver was born in the workhouse, and his mother died the same night.
Not even a promised reward of £10 could produce any information as to
the boy's father or the mother's name. The woman was young, frail, and
delicate--a stranger to the parish.
"How comes he to have any name at all, then?" said Mrs. Mann (who was
responsible for the early bringing up of the workhouse children) to Mr.
Bumble, the parish beadle.
The beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, "I invented it.
We name our foundings in alphabetical order. The last was a S; Swubble I
named him. This was a T; Twist I named _him_. 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.
Oliver, being now nine years old, was removed from the tender mercies of
Mrs. Mann, in whose wretched home not one kind word or look had ever
lighted the gloom of his infant years, and was taken into the workhouse.
Now the members of the board, who were long-headed men, had just
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. All relief was
inseparable from the workhouse, and the thin gruel issued three times a
day to its inmates.
The system was in full operation for the first six months after Oliver
Twist's admission, and boys having generally excellent appetites, Oliver
Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation. Each
boy had one porringer of gruel, and no more. At last the boys got so
voracious and wild with hunger, that one, 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 might some night happen to
eat the boy who slept next him, 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 to ladle out the gruel;
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 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 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
said, "What!"
"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 a gentleman in a 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 the chairman. "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 a gentleman in a white waistcoat. "I know
that boy will be hung."
Nobody disputed the opinion. Oliver was ordered into instant
confinement, and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the
workhouse gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would
take Oliver Twist off their hands. 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.
Mr. Gamfield, the chimney sweep, was the first to respond to this offer.
"It's a nasty trade," said the chairman of the board.
"Young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now," said another
member.
"That's because they damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley
to make 'em come down again," said Gamfield. "That's all smoke, and no
blaze; vereas smoke only sinds him to sleep, and that ain't no use in
making a boy come down. Boys is wery obstinite and wery lazy, gen'l'men,
and there's nothink like a good hot blaze to make 'em come down with a
run. It's humane, too, gen'l'men, acause, even if they've stuck in the
chimbley, roasting their feet makes 'em struggle to hextricate
theirselves."
The board consented to hand over Oliver to the chimney-sweep (the
premium being reduced to £3 10s.), but the magistrates declined to
sanction the indentures, and it was Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, who
finally relieved the board of their responsibility.
Mrs. Sowerberry's ill-treatment drove Oliver to flight. He left the
house in the early morning before anyone was stirring, struck across
fields, and gained the high road outside the town. A milestone intimated
that it was seventy miles to London. In London he would be beyond the
reach of Mr. Bumble; to London he would trudge.
_II.--The Artful Dodger_
It was on the seventh morning after he had left his native place that
Oliver limped slowly into the town of Barnet. Tired and hungry he sat
down on a doorstep, and presently was roused by the question "Hallo, my
covey, what's the row?"
The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer was about his
own age, but one of the queerest-looking boys that Oliver had ever seen.
He was short for his age, and dirty, and he had about him all the airs
and manners of a man. He wore a man's coat which reached nearly to his
heels, and he had turned the cuffs back half-way up his arm to get his
hands out of the sleeves. Altogether he was as roystering and swaggering
a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six in his bluchers.
"You want grub," said this strange boy, helping Oliver to rise; "and you
shall have it. I'm at low-watermark myself, only one bob and a magpie;
but as far as it goes, I'll fork out and stump."
"Going to London?" said the strange boy, while they sat and finished a
meal in a small public-house.
"Yes."
"Got any lodgings?"
"No."
"Money?"
"No."
The strange boy whistled.
"I suppose you want some place to sleep in to-night, don't you? Well,
I've got to be in London to-night, and I know a 'spectable old genelman
as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for
the change--that is, if any genelman he knows interduces you."
This unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted, and on
the way to London, where they arrived at nightfall, Oliver learnt that
his friend's name was Jack Dawkins, but that he was known among his
intimates as "The Artful Dodger."
In Field Lane, in the slums of Saffron Hill, the Dodger pushed open the
door of a house, and drew Oliver within.
"Now, then," cried a voice, in reply to his whistle.
"Plummy and slam," said the Dodger.
This seemed to be a watchword, for a man at once appeared with a candle.
"There's two on you," said the man. "Who's the t'other one, and where
does he come from?"
"A new pal from Greenland," replied Jack Dawkins. "Is Fagin upstairs?"
"Yes, he's sortin the wipes. Up with you."
The room that Oliver was taken into was black with age and dirt. Several
rough beds, made of old sacks, were huddled side by side on the floor.
Seated round the table were four or five boys, none older than the
Dodger, smoking long clay pipes, and drinking spirits with the air of
middle-aged men. An old shrivelled Jew, of repulsive face, was standing
over the fire, dividing his attention between a frying-pan and a
clothes-horse full of silk handkerchiefs.
The Dodger whispered a few words to the Jew, and then said aloud, "This
is him, Fagin, my friend Oliver Twist."