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.
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.
