CRUIKSHANK’S WATER COLOURS

It is fair to characterise the three suites of original water-colour drawings, as executed by our artist, as unique examples of the great George Cruikshank’s special individual proficiency as an exponent of this branch of technical dexterity. Moreover, it may be regarded as a fortunate circumstance that the three works, here reproduced with amazing fidelity in facsimile, represent happily the very chefs d’oeuvre of his wonderful productions; in their respective categories, preserving the best examples of his remarkable genius as an imaginative creator of vivid pictures, alike stirring and animated, and representing at one glance his vast dramatic powers, his mastery of the humorous side of life, and the intensity he was consistently able to infuse into terrible and tragic scenes.

It is noteworthy that the inimitable artist George Cruikshank but rarely produced finished water-colour drawings; the bulk of his prolific and familiarly recognised designs for book illustrations were mostly dainty pencil sketches, occasionally finished in pen and ink. It is a problem difficult to solve satisfactorily whether, beyond the three memorable instances of the works here reproduced in facsimile, there are in existence any other complete suites of original illustrations by George Cruikshank—that is to say, fully executed by his master hand as finished water-colour drawings. Tinted sketches may be found in the prized possessions of Cruikshank collectors, and spirited studies for many of his favourite and most successful subjects have been cleverly touched in with watercolours; for instance, such as certain of his original drawings as designed for the illustrations of Harrison Ainsworth’s Tower of London, and the clever historical and picturesque series of Windsor Castle designs; these are, however, to be regarded as exceptional cases, for the bulk of these most successful and popular designs were carefully executed in pencil, or occasionally outlined with the pen, and highly finished with washes of warm sepia. It is worthy of recollection that Cruikshank was a most dexterous artist in this monochrome branch, his earlier artistic experiences having been almost exclusively in the walk of aqua-tinted etchings; all his early book illustrations, his caricatures, and satirical plates—social or political—were uniformly etched by his hand in the most spirited fashion, after his ready sketches and rough studies, and when the outline etching was bitten in, Cruikshank elaborately worked out his colour suggestions, for light and shade, with a brush over the first-etched outline, in tones of sepia or Indian ink, for the guidance of the professional ‘aquatinters‘—the school of artists to whose trained skill was entrusted the task of completing these plates to produce the effect of highly finished washed drawings in monochrome. By this, his youthful practice, George Cruikshank had acquired remarkable dexterity, his original pen-and-ink designs, and the outline etchings, after his earlier book illustrations, being worked up in monochrome to the dainty finish of delicate miniatures, in which art both his father Isaac and his brother Isaac Robert were first-class proficients, as he himself has recorded with pride in describing the special gifts and qualifications which distinguished the Cruikshank family.

The present series includes the inimitable suite of designs, pictorially unfolding the progress and subsequent dramatic experiences of a parish boy, as graphically related by the great literary genius of CHARLES DICKENS in the realistic romance, universally appreciated as—‘THE ADVENTURES OF OLIVER TWIST,’ with the truly interesting series of characteristic pictures, so vividly delineating ‘Life in London’ in the Hogarthian time, at the date of the abortive Jacobite rising in 1745. A realistic panoramic suite, introducing marvellously faithful pictures of antique localities of the old City of Westminster, with life-like studies, reproducing the contemporary aspects of the past, both topographically and socially, of the time-renowned pleasure resorts of the era, when these amusements were at the height of their vogue, and the entertainments which then attracted the crowd. The Mall, St. James’s Park, with the world of fashion which formed its attraction; ‘The Folly,’ a floating place of entertainment, opposite Somerset House; Marylebone Gardens and Vauxhall Gardens at their palmiest date; the gayest souvenirs of Ranelagh Gardens, with crowds of fashionable frequenters, and rounds of enjoyable amusements. Spirited materials, crowded with literary suggestions, which the artist, from his vast experiences of the past, rejoiced to thus graphically and realistically furnish to the author to further the creation of the sympathetic and brilliant romance, subsequently written, embodying the diversified phases of life in antique London, as suggested by George Cruikshank’s suite of graphic and life-like pictures of a brilliant past, which lent their special attractions and interest to the most successful and popular novel by HARRISON AINSWORTH, ‘THE MISER’S DAUGHTER,’ illustrated with Twenty of George Cruikshank’s happiest pictures.

To the two foregoing and most noteworthy productions are added the third suite of original water-colour drawings, the most tragically terrible of all George Cruikshank’s graphic productions, illustrating in the unmistakably realistic manner characteristic of the artist’s genius for delineating terrifying episodes, exhibiting with all tragic intensity and the vigorous force of his imagination the lurid horrors of revolution, as disclosed in the horrifying revelations of the sanguinary atrocities which ensanguined with floods of gore the chronicles of ‘THE IRISH REBELLION OF 1798,’ as disclosed in the actually terrific and terrifying narrative—MAXWELL’S ‘HISTORY.’

George Cruikshank was too candidly honest an artist to conceal his appreciative sense of the popular success which these xiii generally familiar works had happily secured. The artist himself scorned to disguise his pride in ‘these creatures of his brain,’ as he esteemed them, with paternal admiration! On the strength of these famous dramatic suites, with the designs so well known as constituting the pictorial skeleton or framework of Oliver Twist, the designer extended his claim for fuller recognition, to the point of feeling it a deep personal grievance that the respective ‘gifted authors’ had wilfully adopted all his best ideas, without the formality of acknowledging their literary obligations and indebtedness to the artist himself. To do him full justice, it must be acknowledged that from the date of their first appearance in monthly parts, Cruikshank made these claims persistently amongst friends and in the presence of mutual acquaintances.

The story of the injury, fanciful or real, was lengthy and vexatious, and for the most part rather filled the minds of the artist’s best-wishers with dismay; but as there had never been offered during Dickens’s lifetime any sort of disproof that the ‘Parish Boy’s Progress,’ as a pictorial suite, was one of George Cruikshank’s numerous fruitful original suggestions, and The Miser’s Daughter scheme was obviously completely his own as regards the main idea of representing fashionable ‘Life in London’ in the days of Hogarth, just as ‘Life in London’ of his jaunty youth had been by his hand portrayed in the ‘Corinthian epoch’ of the sportive ‘Tom and Jerry’ doings under the Regency era, the question in some degree resolved itself into the distinctions between inspiration and clever hack-work, the art of making the best possible use of suggested materials, wherein the faculty of imagination makes the workman. The artist demonstrated that his genius invented both series graphically, that the drawings, in the first instance designed to simply tell the story on his own lines, later suggested the development of their ideas to his literary collaborateurs, at least as concerns the projection of Oliver Twist and The Miser’s Daughter alike, both series strongly characteristic of Cruikshank’s own peculiar genius; and confessedly the evidences of the drawings completely justify his not unreasonable contention.

These original designs, executed as water-colour drawings, are all in existence, and are here reproduced in facsimile.

Dickens never denied that the artist had in the first instance designed the suite of illustrations portraying a parish boy’s progress, in advance of Boz’s undertaking to write Oliver Twist. Nor could Ainsworth for an instant assume to claim the first idea of the scheme of eighteenth century fashionable ‘Life in London,’ as it might have unfolded itself panoramically to the observation of William Hogarth himself—the effective scenario of The Miser’s Daughter, in a word.

Moreover, subsequent suites—of correspondingly graphic and melodramatic character—also similarly dramatised on their publication, confirm the bona fides of the artist’s somewhat startling theory, which proved so disconcerting to the minds of George Cruikshank’s actual literary collaborateurs.

In his monograph—‘A Critico-Biographical Essay upon George Cruikshank’—Professor William Bates, B.A., has elucidated the controversial aspects of these trying questions from his personal impressions: ‘In viewing the representation of The Bottle, as produced on the stage, an adaptation from Cruikshank’s famous series, one was much more struck with the artist’s talent for seizing upon the most dramatic situations of the story for the exercise of the pencil.’

Moncrieff, so the tale goes (Every Night Booky or Life after Dark, 1827), when he dramatised for the Adelphi ‘Tom and Jerry’ (Life in London), ‘wrote his piece from Cruikshank’s plates,’ and ‘boiled his kettle with Pierce Egan’s letterpress.’

Half a century later, Andrew Halliday, adapting The Miser’s Daughter for the same theatre, made up his most effective scenes from the designs of the artist.

It was on witnessing the performance of this latter, and finding his part in its production was totally ignored—always a sensitive subject with the combative veteran—that George Cruikshank was incited to make that public vindication of his claim to a share in the authorship of this and other works—notably Oliver Twist—illustrated by his hand, and involving the candour and sense of justice of Ainsworth, Dickens, and himself.

The aggrieved humorist, who had a fairly founded opinion of his own gifts and reputation, and whose imaginative faculties were always abnormally fervid, was still full of fight. Dickens had been at rest for two years, but his biographer, John Forster, was in the flesh; as was W. Harrison Ainsworth, Cruikshank’s colleague and partner of the ‘thirties’ and ‘forties,’ so that it is not surprising to find the artist in 1872—then an octogenarian veteran—entering fiercely upon a seemingly Quixotic campaign against the before-time literary colleagues of his prime era of artistic production, the period when his picturesquely dramatic fancy evolved The Parish Boys Progress, The Miser’s Daughter, and similarly popularly endorsed emanations of his hand and brain.

It was ever the ‘great George’s’ grievance that in his later years the public assumed him to be his own descendant of the first or even second generation. It was avowedly as a protest against this fairly natural assumption that G. Cruikshank had carried out his famous and successful ‘Exeter Hall Exhibition’ in 1863. Under the circumstances related, finding his well-recognised name and strongly-marked personality steadily ignored or obscured, and smarting under intolerable injustices and accumulated grievances—alike real and imaginary—the vigorous genius of the opening of the eighteenth century, fighting hero as he was constitutionally, re-entered the lists to vindicate his name and fame; and, as he might well have foreseen, had not the burning sense of unmerited wrongs obscured his perceptions, quickly had ‘a pretty quarrel’ on his hands, his powers of onslaught hampered from the circumstance that his present weapon was the pen, whereas his accustomed arm for offence and defence was the etching-point, the weapon he had been accustomed to wield with fine incisive spirit in earlier conflicts. In the present tourney G. C. was confessedly under the manifest disqualification of being ‘out of his element.’

Open as daylight, ‘a knight sans peur et sans reproche’—he gallantly sought to unhorse his wily antagonist. The quarrel has left its record in print, in pamphlet form, now reckoned rarissime:—

THE ARTIST AND THE AUTHOR

A statement of facts by the Artist, George Cruikshank, proving that the Distinguished Author, Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth, is labouring under a singular delusion with respect to the origin of The Miser’s Daughter, The Tower of London, etc.

In the following letter, which appeared in The Times of the 8th of April 1872, it will be seen that I therein claimed to be the Originator of a tale or romance entitled ‘The Miser’s Daughter,’ which was written by Mr. Ainsworth and illustrated by me. G. C.

To the Editor of ‘The Times’’

Sir—Under the heading of ‘Easter Amusements’ in The Times of the 2nd inst. it is stated that Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth’s novel of The Miser’s Daughter had been dramatized by Mr. Andrew Halliday, and produced at the Adelphi Theatre, and as my name is not mentioned in any way in connection with the novel—not even as the illustrator—I shall feel greatly obliged if you will allow me to inform the public through the medium of your columns of the fact (which all my private friends are aware of) that this tale of The Miser’s Daughter originated from me, and not from Mr. Ainsworth.

My idea suggested to that gentleman was to write a story in which the principal character should be a miser, who had a daughter, and that the struggles of feelings between the love for his child and his love of money should produce certain effects and results; and as all my ancestors were mixed up in the Rebellion of ‘45, I suggested that the story should be of that date, in order that I might introduce some scenes and circumstances connected with that great party struggle; and also wishing to let the public of the present day have a peep at the places of amusement of that period, I took considerable pains to give correct views and descriptions of those places, which are now copied and produced upon the stage; and I take this opportunity of complimenting my friend Halliday for the very excellent and effective manner in which he has dramatized the story.

I do not mean to say that Mr. Ainsworth when writing this novel did not introduce some of his own ideas; but as the first idea and all the principal points and characters emanated from me, I think it will be allowed that the title of originator of The Miser’s Daughter should be conferred upon, Sir, your obedient servant,

George Cruikshank.

263 Hampstead Road,

6th April 1872.

This letter brought forth the following reply from the writer of this romance:—

To the Editor of ‘The Times’’

Sir—In a letter from Mr. George Cruikshank which appeared in The Times of to-day, that distinguished artist claims to be the originator of The Miser’s Daughter. I content myself with giving the statement a positive contradiction.

Mr. Cruikshank appears to labour under a singular delusion in regard to novels he has illustrated; it is not long since he claimed to be the originator of Mr. Dickens’s Oliver Twist.—Your faithful servant,

W. Harrison Ainsworth.

8th April 1872.

Upon seeing this ‘positive contradiction,’ I wrote a second letter to The Times, which the Editor kindly inserted:—

‘THE MISER’S DAUGHTER’

To the Editor of ‘The Times’

Sir—I am fully aware that you will not allow any controversy to be carried on in The Times upon such a trifling matter as this; but as Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth gives a positive contradiction to my statement which appeared in The Times on the 8th inst., I have to beg that you will permit me to express my very great surprise at this denial, and also to express my regret that his memory should be in such a defective state, that he should have forgotten the circumstances and facts as to the origin of Oliver Twist and of The Miser’s Daughter; and I regret also that this contradiction of his will compel me, in justice to myself, to give, in a work I am preparing for the press, a full, true, and particular account of all the professional transactions between Mr. Ainsworth and myself, in which I shall prove, beyond all fear of contradiction, that I am the sole originator of what is called Ainsworth’s Tower of London, as well as another work bearing his name, but the ideas and suggestions of which were given to him by, Sir, your obedient servant, George Cruikshank.

10th April 1872.

P.S.—Allow me to add that it ought to be understood that it is one thing for an artist to illustrate an author’s own ideas, and quite a different matter when a literary man adopts and writes out the ideas of another person.

This second letter brought forth another contradiction (a flat one) from Mr. W. H. A.:—

To the Editor of ‘The Times’

Sir—I disdain to reply to Mr. Cruikshank’s preposterous assertions, except to give them, as before, a flat contradiction.—Your faithful servant, W. Harrison Ainsworth.

11th April 1872.

To this the Editor added:—‘We can publish no more letters on this subject.’

It will be seen in my second letter that I intended to give an explanation of this affair in a work I am preparing for the press, but, as ‘delays are dangerous,’ it occurred to me that I had better bring forward my statement without delay.

As Mr. Ainsworth’s positive and flat contradictions and his contemptible insinuation as to my labouring under a singular delusion have led some persons to form erroneous ideas and to draw false conclusions upon this question, I feel placed in a very serious position as regards my character for truthfulness and the condition of my intellect; and I am therefore compelled in self-defence to place certain facts before the public to prove beyond the fear of contradiction that what I have asserted is the truth, and that it is Mr. Ainsworth who is labouring under a delusion, or has unfortunately lost his memory.

And in order that this question may be clearly understood, I now proceed to give a full and particular account of all the professional transactions between myself and Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth when we were both on the most friendly terms and both working together to amuse the public; and also to show how it was that this friendship and joint labour ceased, now some twenty-eight years ago; and although I feel it a positive duty to myself to make these statements, it is, nevertheless, to me rather a painful task, well knowing that it will place Mr. Ainsworth in a very awkward position as regards his conduct towards me, the explanation of which he will feel bitterly, but which he has brought upon himself, for had he, in common justice, acknowledged that I was the originator of certain ideas and characters up to which he had written, the facts which I am now about to state would never have been placed before the public.

A question has been asked publicly, and which I grant is rather an important one in this case, and that is, Why have I not until lately claimed to be the originator of ‘Oliver Twist’? To this I reply that ever since these works were published, and even when they were in progress, I have in private society, when conversing upon such matters, always explained that the original ideas and characters of these works emanated from me, and the reason why I publicly claimed to be the originator of Oliver Twist was to defend Dr. K. Shelton Mackenzie, who was charged by Mr. John Forster, in his Life of Mr. Charles Dickens, with publishing a falsehood (or a word of three letters as he describes it; Mr. Forster in a marginal note puts it thus: ‘Falsehood ascribed to a distinguished artist’), whereas the Doctor was only repeating what I had told him at the time Oliver Twist was in progress. Mr. Forster designates Dr. Mackenzie’s statement as ‘a wonderful story,’ or ‘a marvellous fable,’ and in a letter from the Doctor to the Philadelphia Press, December 19, 1871, he says: ‘My wonderful story was printed in an American periodical years before Mr. Dickens died.’ And then asks, ‘Why did not Mr. Forster inquire into this matter, for surely he must have known it?’ And I presume Mr. Dickens must also have heard of this ‘wonderful story,’ the truth of which he did not deny, for this reason—because he could not! And with respect to Mr. Ainsworth’s insinuation as to my ‘labouring under a delusion’ upon this point, all my literary friends at that time knew that I was the originator of Oliver Twist, and as Mr. A. and I were at that time upon such intimate terms, and both working together on Bentley’s Miscellany, is it at all likely that I should have concealed such a fact from him? No! no! he knew this as well as I did, and, therefore, in this matter at any rate, it is he who is ‘labouring under a delusion.’

And I will here refer to a part of my letter, which was published in The Times, December 30, 1871, upon the origin of Oliver Twist, wherein I state that Mr. Ainsworth and Mr. Dickens came together one day to my house, upon which occasion it so happened that I then and there described and performed the character of ‘Fagin’ for Mr. Dickens to introduce into the work as a ‘receiver of stolen goods,’ and that some time after this, upon seeing Mr. Ainsworth again, he said to me, ‘I was so much struck with your description of that Jew to Mr. Dickens that I think you and I could do something together.’ Now I do not know whether Mr. Ainsworth has ever made any allusion to this; perhaps he disdains to do so; but perhaps he may give this also a ‘positive contradiction’; and, if he does, then all I have to say is that his memory is gone!

I will now explain the reason why I have publicly asserted my right as the originator of The Miser’s Daughter.

On the 1st of December 1871 there appeared in No. 28 of The Illustrated Review a short Biographical Sketch of Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth, with a portrait of that gentleman; and in the list of the many and various works written by him the following are placed in chronological order: No. 1, Rookwood; 2, Jack Shepherd; 3, Guy Fawkes; 4, The Tower of London; 5, Old St. Pau’s; 6, The Miser s Daughter; 7, Windsor Castle; 8, St. James’s; or, The Court of Queen Anne.

Now, six of these works were illustrated entirely by me, and one—Windsor Castle—partly so, numbering altogether One Hundred and Forty-Four of the very best designs and etchings which I have ever produced; and yet in this Biographical Sketch my name is not mentioned in any way as connected with these works, which omission, I thought, was not only very ungenerous but also very unjust. For, if Mr. W. H. Ainsworth did not himself sketch out this ‘Biographical Sketch’ of himself, he must have known full well what the writer was stating; and he might as well have said to that gentleman, ‘Just mention that Mr. George Cruikshank illustrated several of the novels written by me,’ and have given the titles, and also have acknowledged that I had given him the original ideas of three of the tales, and assisted him with suggestions when these works were being produced; and, had he done this, I should have been satisfied. But to be thus ignored altogether not only created a feeling of surprise but also of dissatisfaction. And when it was announced that Mr. Andrew Halliday had dramatised Ainsworth’s Miser’s Daughter, I went to see the performance; and when I saw represented on the stage scenes and characters which had emanated from me and my name not mentioned, I then publicly claimed to to be the originator of that romance, and to have suggested the original idea and the characters to Mr. Ainsworth.

No. 2, Jack Shepherd, illustrated by me, and published in monthly parts in Bentley’s Miscellany. This story originated from Mr. Ainsworth, and, when preparing it for publication, he showed me about two or three pages of manuscript on ‘post paper’; and I beg that it may be observed that this was the only bit of manuscript written by this author that I ever saw in the whole course of my life!

No. 4, The Tower of London, the Original Idea of which was suggested by me to Mr. Ainsworth, and also illustrated by me and published in monthly numbers. In this work Mr. Ainsworth and I were partners holding equal shares.

And now comes the question of how it should so happen, as Mr. W. H. Ainsworth and I were such friends and fellow-workers and partners in the work of The Tower of London, that he should have got another artist to illustrate Old St. Paul’s (‘one of my pet subjects, which I had nursed in my brains for years, and which I had long intended to have placed before the public with my own hands,’ as G. C. relates in another charge)? And, after that was finished, to have employed a French artist to illustrate Windsor Castle. Ay, that is the question! And now comes the answer and the reason for this most extraordinary proceeding. I must here first state that as large sums of money had been realised from my ideas and suggestions for the work of Oliver Twist, it occurred to me one day that I would try and get a little of the same material from the same source; and as Mr. Ainsworth and I were at that time upon the most friendly—I may say brotherly—terms, I suggested to him that we should jointly produce a work on our own account and publish it in monthly numbers, and get Mr. Bentley to join us as the publisher. Mr. Ainsworth was delighted with the idea of such a partnership, and at once acceded to the proposition; and when I told him that I had a capital subject for the first work he inquired what it was, and upon my telling him it was The Tower of London, with some incidents in the life of Lady Jane Grey, he was still more delighted; and I then told him that I had long since seen the room in ‘the Tower’ where that beautiful and accomplished dear lady was imprisoned, and other parts of that fortress to which the public were not admitted, and if he would go with me to the Tower I would show these places to him. He at once accepted my offer, and off we went to ‘Hungerford Stairs,’ now the site of the Charing Cross Railway Station, and whilst waiting on the beach for a boat to go to London Bridge, we there met my dear friend the late W. Jordan, the well-known editor and part-proprietor of The Literary Gazette, who inquired where we were going to. My reply was that I was taking Mr. Ainsworth a prisoner to the Tower! With this joke we parted. I then took Mr. Ainsworth to the royal prison, and when we arrived there I introduced him to my friend Mr. Stacey, the storekeeper, in whose department were these ‘Chambers of Horrors’; and then and there did Mr. Ainsworth, for the first time, see the apartment in which the dear Lady Jane was placed until the day she was beheaded, or, in other words, the day on which she was murdered, and which place I had long before made sketches of for the purpose of introducing them in a Life of Lady Jane Grey, and which for many years I had intended to place before the public.

I have now most distinctly to state that Mr. Ainsworth wrote up to most of my suggestions and designs, although some of the subjects we jointly arranged to introduce into the work; and I used every month to send him the tracings or outlines of the sketches or drawings from which I was making the etchings to illustrate the work, in order that he might write up to them, and that they should be accurately described. And I beg the reader to understand that all these etchings or plates were printed and ready for publication before the letterpress was printed, and sometimes even before the Author had written his manuscript; and I assert that I never saw a page of this work until after it was published, and then hardly ever read a line of it. It is a curious coincidence, but clearly proves what I have just stated with respect to these outlines or tracings—that Mr. Ainsworth in January last was applied to for these and other tracings or outlines, and his reply was, that ‘he would be very happy to send the tracings mentioned, but he had no idea what had become of them, as he had not seen them since ‘The Tower of London’ was published. This letter I have in my possession.

This Tower of London became so very popular, that before it was finished, a bookseller came to me and said if we brought out another work similar in style and interest, that he would take 20,000 a month to begin with, and pay ready money for them; and another bookseller offered to take 25,000 or 30,000 a month upon the same terms.

When this work was completed, I told Mr. Ainsworth that I had another capital subject for our next work. ‘Ah! what is it?’ said he; to which I replied, ‘The Plague and the Fire of London.’

‘Oh!’ he exclaimed, ‘that is first-rate!’

[The aggrieved Artist proceeded to state at length his sense of injury at the hands of the Author, who, on the facts set forth, had not considered Cruikshank’s rights in several instances, notably Old Saint Paul’s and Windsor Castle. This first break between the partners was bridged over, owing to the peace-making overtures of a mutual friend, and Cruikshank’s publication of The Omnibus was suspended and finally abandoned in favour of that artist consenting to collaborate (as in Bentley’s Miscellany) in a new venture, namely Ainsworth’s Magazine.]

The Artist’s statement is thus continued:—

Before Ainsworth’s Magazine was published, advertisements were put forth that I, George Cruikshank, was to be the illustrator thereof; and the Artist and the Author then held a consultation as to what tale or romance we were to commence with, and which I was to illustrate; and, well knowing the importance of having an attractive subject for the first number of a work, I then suggested to Mr. Ainsworth my idea of ‘The Miser’s Daughter’’ (the plot of which will be seen in my first letter to The Times upon this subject, and which I had originally intended to have had written by some literary friend, and published it in my ‘Omnibus’). This romance (as I expected), with my illustrations, did attract the public attention, and did to some extent make this magazine a success.

There was published in Ainsworth’s Magazine, No. 2, March 1842, a woodcut of a drawing made by me, at Mr. Ainsworth’s suggestion, of the Author and the Artist, seated ‘in council,’ or conversing together in his library. And surely this looks as if he then considered me something more than a mere illustrator of his magazine.

[Then follows a statement of the final break up of the friendly collaboration of these old colleagues, explaining the Artist’s grievances in connection with Windsor Castle—also contributed to Ainsworth’s Magazine—and the fatal ending of these long associations, when the Author, unaccountably disregarding Cruikshank’s joint interests, elected to sell his magazine to the publishers; this seems to have fairly disgusted the Artist.] Here is his indignant protest:—

So it really appears as if all this gentleman’s promises, like pie-crust, were made to be broken; and as, in this instance, also, there was not any written agreement, the arrangements which he had made, and the engagements he had entered into with me, when I agreed to work with him in his magazine, all broke down, and I, as it were, again ‘thrown overboard’ or ‘left in the lurch.’ And thus ended the second edition of this Author’s extraordinary conduct towards the Artist.

I will not go into the details of how I assisted this Author with head and hand work in these novels, but I did my best to design and suggest.

The foregoing statements will, I think, clearly explain why I have never, since that time (written 1872)—now some twenty-eight years back—given any more original ideas, suggestions, and characters for any other tales or romances for Mr. Ainsworth to write up to; and also why I have never, from that time, illustrated any of this Author’s writings.

I now feel it necessary to inform the public that the usual or ordinary way of producing illustrated novels or romances is, for an Author either to write out, from his own ideas, the whole of the tale, or in parts; the manuscript or letterpress of which is then handed to an Artist to read and select subjects from for his illustrations, or sometimes for the Author to suggest to the Artist such subjects, scenes, or parts as he might wish to be illustrated. And I, being known generally only as an Artist, or illustrator, it would therefore very naturally be supposed that, in all cases, I have merely worked out other men’s ideas. But, if I have the opportunity, I shall be able to show that other men have sometimes worked out my ideas—but this will be for another occasion. And I will now explain that Oliver Twist, The Tower of London, The Miser’s Daughter, etc., were produced in an entirely different manner from what would be considered the usual course; for I, the Artist, suggested to the Authors of these works the original idea or subject—for them to write out—furnishing, at the same time, the principal characters and the scenes; and then, as the tale had to be produced in monthly parts, the Writer or Author, and the Artist had every month to arrange and settle what scenes or subjects and characters were to be introduced; and the Author had to weave in such scenes as I wished to represent, and sometimes I had to work out his suggestions.

And as to Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth’s ‘singular delusion’ of an artist claiming to be the originator of works which he had merely illustrated, no more absurd or contemptible and rubbishing nonsense could ever be conceived; for no artist could possibly be in his right mind who would make such a claim, and it becomes a serious question as to whether any one who brings forth such nonsense can be in his right mind, and if this Author has really lost his memory, and, as an invalid, is suffering under ‘singular delusions,’ he has my pity and commiseration.

I lay no claim to anything that has originated from the mind of Mr. Ainsworth, or any other man, but where the original idea has emanated from my own mind, that I feel I have a right to claim, and by that right I will stand firm, and I trust that at no distant date I may be able to publish what I have already stated, to show the world how these ideas originated in my mind, and why I wished to place them before the public.

Amongst the many friends who were acquainted with the facts of this case, I may mention the names of T. J. Pettigrew (the eminent surgeon), the Rev. Canon Barham (author of the Ingoldsby Legends), Laman Blanchard, Douglas Jerrold, Albert Smith, Mark Lemon, Gilbert A’Becket, John Leech, Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, Richard Bentley, the publisher of the Miscellany, and many other dear friends, now, to my sorrow, passed away; but there are a few still living who are ready to substantiate my statements one a clergyman of the City of London, an old member of the Society of Antiquaries; another who is a literary man, a member of the Conservative Club; and also a dear and valued friend, who is a member of the Athenæum Club and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of one of our counties. This friend sent a letter to several of the newspapers—one of which was forwarded to me—a copy of which I here insert:—

Origin of the Work entitled ‘The Tower of London’

To the Editor of the ‘Liverpool Post’’

Sir—I hope you will allow me to say that it is half a century since George Cruikshank has been my intimate and valued friend.

I have a vivid recollection of his drawings of the Tower, and of having been frequently in company with the artist while these sketches were in progress; the strong impression on my mind was, and is, that the interesting tale called The Tower of London was mainly written up to George Cruikshank’s drawings, and that they, in a great measure, suggested the story to Mr. Ainsworth.

I think it therefore only right that justice should be done in this matter to the veteran artist who for so many years has amused the world, and striven to raise its moral tone. I enclose my card, and have the honour to be, yours, etc., A. B.

Athenæum Club, London,

22nd April 1872. I

I must add a postscript to say that respecting The Miser’s Daughter I know nothing, as I was living on the Continent at the time it was written; but this I do know, that George Cruikshank is a man of honour, and would not assert anything he did not believe to be true.

OLIVER TWIST

THE ADVENTURES OF A PARISH ORPHAN BY CHARLES DICKENS

ILLUSTRATED WITH 27 WATER COLOUR DRAWINGS BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK

The illustrations in this volume have been engraved and printed by the Carl Hentschel Colourtype Process.

CHAPTER I — TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH

Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.

For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the literature of any age or country.

Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse, is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred. The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration,—a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter. Now, if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time. There being nobody by, however, but a pauper old woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer; and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract; Oliver and Nature fought out the point between them. The result was, that, after a few struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise to the inmates of the workhouse the fact of a new burden having been imposed upon the parish, by setting up as loud a cry as could reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer space of time than three minutes and a quarter.

As Oliver gave this first proof of the free and proper action of his lungs, the patchwork coverlet which was carelessly flung over the iron bedstead, rustled; the pale face of a young woman was raised feebly from the pillow; and a faint voice imperfectly articulated the words, ‘Let me see the child, and die.’

The surgeon had been sitting with his face turned towards the fire: giving the palms of his hands a warm and a rub alternately. As the young woman spoke, he rose, and advancing to the bed’s head, said, with more kindness than might have been expected of him:

‘Oh, you must not talk about dying yet.’

‘Lor bless her dear heart, no!’ interposed the nurse, hastily depositing in her pocket a green glass bottle, the contents of which she had been tasting in a corner with evident satisfaction.

‘Lor bless her dear heart, when she has lived as long as I have, sir, and had thirteen children of her own, and all on ‘em dead except two, and them in the wurkus with me, she’ll know better than to take on in that way, bless her dear heart! Think what it is to be a mother, there’s a dear young lamb do.’

Apparently this consolatory perspective of a mother’s prospects failed in producing its due effect. The patient shook her head, and stretched out her hand towards the child.

The surgeon deposited it in her arms. She imprinted her cold white lips passionately on its forehead; passed her hands over her face; gazed wildly round; shuddered; fell back—and died. They chafed her breast, hands, and temples; but the blood had stopped forever. They talked of hope and comfort. They had been strangers too long.

‘It’s all over, Mrs. Thingummy!’ said the surgeon at last.

‘Ah, poor dear, so it is!’ said the nurse, picking up the cork of the green bottle, which had fallen out on the pillow, as she stooped to take up the child. ‘Poor dear!’

‘You needn’t mind sending up to me, if the child cries, nurse,’ said the surgeon, putting on his gloves with great deliberation. ‘It’s very likely it will be troublesome. Give it a little gruel if it is.’ He put on his hat, and, pausing by the bed-side on his way to the door, added, ‘She was a good-looking girl, too; where did she come from?’

‘She was brought here last night,’ replied the old woman, ‘by the overseer’s order. She was found lying in the street. She had walked some distance, for her shoes were worn to pieces; but where she came from, or where she was going to, nobody knows.’

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.

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 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 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 cane 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 his 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 condition.’

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 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 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 festive composition 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 neighbors 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 stupefied 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.

CHAPTER III — RELATES HOW OLIVER TWIST WAS VERY NEAR GETTING A PLACE WHICH WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A SINECURE

For a week after the commission of the impious and profane offence of asking for more, Oliver remained a close prisoner in the dark and solitary room to which he had been consigned by the wisdom and mercy of the board. It appears, at first sight not unreasonable to suppose, that, if he had entertained a becoming feeling of respect for the prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat, he would have established that sage individual’s prophetic character, once and for ever, by tying one end of his pocket-handkerchief to a hook in the wall, and attaching himself to the other. To the performance of this feat, however, there was one obstacle: namely, that pocket-handkerchiefs being decided articles of luxury, had been, for all future times and ages, removed from the noses of paupers by the express order of the board, in council assembled: solemnly given and pronounced under their hands and seals. There was a still greater obstacle in Oliver’s youth and childishness. He only cried bitterly all day; and, when the long, dismal night came on, spread his little hands before his eyes to shut out the darkness, and crouching in the corner, tried to sleep: ever and anon waking with a start and tremble, and drawing himself closer and closer to the wall, as if to feel even its cold hard surface were a protection in the gloom and loneliness which surrounded him.

Let it not be supposed by the enemies of ‘the system,’ that, during the period of his solitary incarceration, Oliver was denied the benefit of exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages of religious consolation. As for exercise, it was nice cold weather, and he was allowed to perform his ablutions every morning under the pump, in a stone yard, in the presence of Mr. Bumble, who prevented his catching cold, and caused a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated applications of the cane. As for society, he was carried every other day into the hall where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged as a public warning and example. And so far from being denied the advantages of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same apartment every evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to listen to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of the boys, containing a special clause, therein inserted by authority of the board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver Twist: whom the supplication distinctly set forth to be under the exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and an article direct from the manufactory of the very Devil himself.

It chanced one morning, while Oliver’s affairs were in this auspicious and comfortable state, that Mr. Gamfield, chimney-sweep, went his way down the High Street, deeply cogitating in his mind his ways and means of paying certain arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become rather pressing. Mr. Gamfield’s most sanguine estimate of his finances could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount; and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when passing the workhouse, his eyes encountered the bill on the gate.

‘Wo—o!’ said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey.

The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction: wondering, probably, whether he was destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk or two when he had disposed of the two sacks of soot with which the little cart was laden; so, without noticing the word of command, he jogged onward.

Mr. Gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey generally, but more particularly on his eyes; and, running after him, bestowed a blow on his head, which would inevitably have beaten in any skull but a donkey’s. Then, catching hold of the bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his own master; and by these means turned him round. He then gave him another blow on the head, just to stun him till he came back again. Having completed these arrangements, he walked up to the gate, to read the bill.

The gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the gate with his hands behind him, after having delivered himself of some profound sentiments in the board-room. Having witnessed the little dispute between Mr. Gamfield and the donkey, he smiled joyously when that person came up to read the bill, for he saw at once that Mr. Gamfield was exactly the sort of master Oliver Twist wanted. Mr. Gamfield smiled, too, as he perused the document; for five pounds was just the sum he had been wishing for; and, as to the boy with which it was encumbered, Mr. Gamfield, knowing what the dietary of the workhouse was, well knew he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing for register stoves. So, he spelt the bill through again, from beginning to end; and then, touching his fur cap in token of humility, accosted the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

‘This here boy, sir, wot the parish wants to ‘prentis,’ said Mr. Gamfield.

‘Ay, my man,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, with a condescending smile. ‘What of him?’

‘If the parish vould like him to learn a right pleasant trade, in a good ‘spectable chimbley-sweepin’ bisness,’ said Mr. Gamfield, ‘I wants a ‘prentis, and I am ready to take him.’

‘Walk in,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. Mr. Gamfield having lingered behind, to give the donkey another blow on the head, and another wrench of the jaw, as a caution not to run away in his absence, followed the gentleman with the white waistcoat into the room where Oliver had first seen him.

‘It’s a nasty trade,’ said Mr. Limbkins, when Gamfield had again stated his wish.

‘Young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now,’ said another gentleman.

‘That’s acause 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 ain’t o’ no use at all in making a boy come down, for it only sinds him to sleep, and that’s wot he likes. Boys is wery obstinit, and wery lazy, Gen’l’men, and there’s nothink like a good hot blaze to make ‘em come down vith 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 gentleman in the white waistcoat appeared very much amused by this explanation; but his mirth was speedily checked by a look from Mr. Limbkins. The board then proceeded to converse among themselves for a few minutes, but in so low a tone, that the words ‘saving of expenditure,’ ‘looked well in the accounts,’ ‘have a printed report published,’ were alone audible. These only chanced to be heard, indeed, or account of their being very frequently repeated with great emphasis.

At length the whispering ceased; and the members of the board, having resumed their seats and their solemnity, Mr. Limbkins said:

‘We have considered your proposition, and we don’t approve of it.’

‘Not at all,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

‘Decidedly not,’ added the other members.

As Mr. Gamfield did happen to labour under the slight imputation of having bruised three or four boys to death already, it occurred to him that the board had, perhaps, in some unaccountable freak, taken it into their heads that this extraneous circumstance ought to influence their proceedings. It was very unlike their general mode of doing business, if they had; but still, as he had no particular wish to revive the rumour, he twisted his cap in his hands, and walked slowly from the table.

‘So you won’t let me have him, gen’l’men?’ said Mr. Gamfield, pausing near the door.

‘No,’ replied Mr. Limbkins; ‘at least, as it’s a nasty business, we think you ought to take something less than the premium we offered.’

Mr. Gamfield’s countenance brightened, as, with a quick step, he returned to the table, and said,

‘What’ll you give, gen’l’men? Come! Don’t be too hard on a poor man. What’ll you give?’

‘I should say, three pound ten was plenty,’ said Mr. Limbkins.

‘Ten shillings too much,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

‘Come!’ said Gamfield; ‘say four pound, gen’l’men. Say four pound, and you’ve got rid of him for good and all. There!’

‘Three pound ten,’ repeated Mr. Limbkins, firmly.

‘Come! I’ll split the diff’erence, gen’l’men,’ urged Gamfield. ‘Three pound fifteen.’

‘Not a farthing more,’ was the firm reply of Mr. Limbkins.

‘You’re desperate hard upon me, gen’l’men,’ said Gamfield, wavering.

‘Pooh! pooh! nonsense!’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. ‘He’d be cheap with nothing at all, as a premium. Take him, you silly fellow! He’s just the boy for you. He wants the stick, now and then: it’ll do him good; and his board needn’t come very expensive, for he hasn’t been overfed since he was born. Ha! ha! ha!’

Mr. Gamfield gave an arch look at the faces round the table, and, observing a smile on all of them, gradually broke into a smile himself. The bargain was made. Mr. Bumble, was at once instructed that Oliver Twist and his indentures were to be conveyed before the magistrate, for signature and approval, that very afternoon.