Oliver Twist | Page 3

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